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Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet
- photonbucket 3y ago"Return to office, what's left of it"
- bluefirebrand 3y agoYou thought it was bad before, now we're going to cram you into an even smaller open floor plan.
- barbazoo 3y agoIt'll enable collaboration
- ddalex 3y agoBeing forced to sit on co-workers lap while desk-sharing (and chair-sharing) will enable even closer collaboration
- XenophileJKO 3y agoIt isn't exactly "innovative". I expected google to be on the cutting edge. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wUOUmeulNs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wUOUmeulNs
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- A4ET8a8uTh0 3y agoAbout 6 months ago my manager, who happens to prefer RTO told me how if I only visit office sometime, I should not expect to have a desk. I was amused, but I did not ask if that means I can just stay home then. Clearly management class figured out a fun little plan. Announce RTO so that people can 'self-select' thus reducing headcount ( lower cost ), introduce hybrid ( so that you can claim you are flexible in posting even if you offer 1 remote day out of 5 and save real estate at the same time ), sell non-performing real estate ( lower cost ) and cramming employees into rotating cubicles ( efficiency ). What does it all translate to? Bonuses. I am not exactly a revolutionary type, but its now or never if you are on a particular side of the fence. Whatever window is there to establish a normal, it is closing now.
- worrycue 3y ago> people can 'self-select' thus reducing headcount Self-select usually mean the brightest and most capable select another job though.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 3y agoThat is the weirdest part of this whole shift for me. Remote positions now get tons of applications and can afford to select best possible candidates, while 'old guard' is left with 'not best' candidates. Granted, some positions do not need a rocket scientist, but one would think a company would want someone, who is capable enough to have options. And yet, HRs across the US spectrum seem to be sending the same memo. I am mildly annoyed by this, because I had a mini-conversation today and the tone from an executive was: business won't let this ( WFH ) stand. Maybe it is not about best possible candidate. Maybe they are ok with less capable people for whatever reason.
- eastbound 3y agoCliché that the best people are among the remote workers. Are they, though? Coding well doesn’t make a good programmer. Interaction does, and influence in the office does. I think remote workers just hate office politics, like everyone else, but that makes them non-contributing to company growth.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 3y agoI think it is a valid question and I will attempt to respond in good faith. I do not personally think that there is no value to politics. Sadly, we have to navigate those waters somehow. But, if people who self-select out say they do not want to deal with it and instead contribute to company growth one line at a time, why would you not allow them to specialize in that? Or are they just an easy target practice for politically astute? FWIW, I am probably not a great remote worker. Still, good enough to get the job done. What more does an employer want from me? They are good enough to me that I can extent some loyalty and goodwill, but why would a company want me to also participate and contribute to its craziness politically? << Cliché that the best people are among the remote workers. Well, it is that way now because fully remote work is in demand if you look at sheer application numbers for those roles. Companies have their picks for those. Anecdotally, my company, where my manager is RTO-oriented, but does not seem to want to rock the boat too much, begrudgingly seems to have accepted that for the position he listed ( niche in niche kinda deal ), he won't get a guy to just move from another state just to sit in a chair one day a week ( and depend on corporate whims ) so he had to accept that reality. Mebbe its a cliche, but, not unlike stereotype, there is a reason it exists.
- AtlasBarfed 3y agoA "concentration floor plan"?
- quickthrower2 3y agoI am bullish on apple’s vr headsets. That is all you’ll have room for. No desks!
- notacoward 3y ago"Return to ofc"
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- barbazoo 3y agoThey're getting rid of real estate yet force people to work from the office at least n days a week. Why not embrace remote and get rid of even more real estate.
- thesuitonym 3y agoCompany I work for did this. Our CFO said he never wants to deal with real estate again. I will follow this man to the depths of hell and back.
- sauruk 3y ago(virtually)
- cwkoss 3y agoVideo call into the depths of hell
- adastra22 3y agoNo you won’t. You’ll be behind your keyboard on a beach while he goes to hell and back.
- Bajeezus 3y agoSpeaking from experience: You can work your ass off from a beach. If anything, I'm more likely to do so
- postalrat 3y agoWhat happens when he does something you don't like? Perhaps everyone back in the office? Or camera on all day while you work?
- satvikpendem 3y agoThen you quit? I don't understand this question.
- wpang 3y agoReturn to office you say?
- rektide 3y agoIt'll be interesting to see which companies rotate people through & how. Most orgs are trying to get people in on the same days, to synergize & that shit. Will that be the path forward? Who will rotate shifts more? Shout out to a TSMC interview where M.C. was saying TSMC is just better because instead of running 1 shift a day of trying shit, they ran the fab always & got 3x the shifts a day. Same story, but different timebase. Utilization. How can we do great for space, & utilize it well? We are so far away from that level of smart management. Such idiotic returnalism. Space wasn't good before. If we want to return, how do we de-suck it? Admittedly better utilization feels like an anti goal for de-suck, so extra hard mode: how do we make good utilization a win win win?
- grogenaut 3y agocan anyone speak to: a) how dense was google office space in the before times? b) what their remaining portfolio of office space is?
- jeffbee 3y agoGoogle floor plans were ridiculously dense. I don’t have hard numbers on my fingertips but I recall that the sf business press systematically underestimated the number of employees in San Francisco based on industry average floor space per employee that was far too high. They constantly moved us from one floor to another always with smaller desks. As for question B, Moffett Place alone was 1.9 million square feet, so shedding 1.4 million square feet is not that big of a deal. It’s about what the press reported them acquiring in 2019.
- grogenaut 3y agoI was in what amazon called double high density once. one guy had to duck under anoterh guys desk to get to his. so basically against fire code. the better way i've seen it there was where you will not quite bump into the person behind you if you push back. I was only in that once. usually I had an extra foot. I'm in low density right now it's good. Amazon never gave us smaller desks, they were always door desks. That would have gotten us more dense tho. that's got nothing on what my animation co-workers dealt with in movies where they were just far enough not to bump elbows on the perimiter of a sound stage / mocap area. Worse they had a 2nd row of other coders above you on grating. They didn't let women on the upper deck due to look ups.
- jeffbee 3y agoAn entire door? Luxury!
- hypothesis 3y agoI honestly can not tell if this is real or if everyone in this thread is laying too thick...
- USB5 3y agox
- jhallenworld 3y agoCompare average programmer's salary Chicago vs. Mountain View...
- physicsguy 3y agoA big company like a FAANG will shift the local market when they open an office. There are plenty of competent people all over the world that can’t move easily for whatever reason - usually family.
- jhallenworld 3y agoYeah, it's a more generous explanation that they want to tap into the Chicago area talent pool. It's possibly true, a new office like this was no doubt planned years ago.
- unglaublich 3y agoLast time I checked, Chicago was not in the Bay Area.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- slantedview 3y agoHow does this fit with return to office?
- riku_iki 3y agomy guess is that they planed to grow previously, and built/leased bunch of offices, but growth didn't happen, and they cut many jobs, so now they shrink office space.
- bbor 3y agoHonestly depending on the time scales you look at, this could be seen as "growing office space less quickly". They just built a massive campus in ATL and have two more coming up in MTV and CHI.
- tsunamifury 3y agoThey will be canceling them much like London regardless of how far along they are.
- VirusNewbie 3y agoTeams are more distributed now. Seattle and LA footprint will grow, bay area will shrink.
- pempem 3y agoWill high level technical/product roles ever settle in SEA/LAX?
- tsunamifury 3y agoThis is the profile. Mountain View was becoming an executive Versailles and the rest of the offices for the peons.
- 3y ago
- quickthrower2 3y agoSo maybe 1000-2000 staff worth of space? A lot, but maybe not alot for G.
- fbdab103 3y ago500-1000 square feet per employee sounds way too high.
- AtlasBarfed 3y agoWell there is that harem city for Sergei Brin.
- quickthrower2 3y agoI was thinking Google would cram in the employees, but need another 100% on top of that for the fancy spaces with weird chairs, baristas, food courts, etc.
- xnx 3y agoI think these measurements typically include all parts of a building, even space not usable as workspace: stairs, elevators, mechanical rooms, walls, kitchen, etc.
- jeffbee 3y agoSupposedly the Bay View building is 1.1 million square feet and 4000 employees.
- oofta-boofta 3y agoGoogle looked at how sailors share space on a sub and were like "yeah, that's the ticket". Hot-desking is the worst way to be in-office, on top of the worst way of working which is in-office. What happened to being a forward thinking and innovative company? These "geniuses" can't use their superior big brains just barely hiding under those infantilizing propeller hats to figure out a way to make remote work effective? You're literally a tech company, you make all kinds of collaborative technology. I'm selling my Google stock. They've gone full IBM and are legacy tech.
- thesuitonym 3y ago>What happened to being a forward thinking and innovative company? Google went public is what happened. You literally cannot make good decisions when you have to base everything around what will make the most profit for the shareholders this quarter.
- erehweb 3y agoThey don't have to do that, though - founders still retain control so could ignore shareholders.
- bbor 3y agoNot quite - just because the founders have majority control doesn't mean that the BS financial duty "laws" don't apply to the company executives. They have a duty to all the shareholders, not just the controlling ones.
- layer8 3y agoThere is no duty to maximize profits though, that is a myth.
- thesuitonym 3y agoThey have no legal duty to do so, but why do people buy stock if not to produce a return?
- phendrenad2 3y agoCA is being abandoned. I'm thinking I should leave and not be left behind.
- headsupftw 3y agoSure. Tell that to the valley real estate prices.
- Osiris 3y agoI moved to Colorado a decade ago. I love it here.
- paxys 3y agoA 2BR 1000 sqft house in the Bay Area still costs $1.5M (and rising), so there's a lot of "abandoning" still to be done.
- moomoo11 3y agoIt’s really sad if that happens. I love this state. I feel so at home here. I have traveled and lived all around the US. I didn’t feel that anywhere else but here in CA. Anywhere in this state, I feel at home. The diversity of people, geographies, and weather. So amazing.
- mydriasis 3y ago??? B- They want people to RTO ??? But they're deleting the office? "Never let them know your next move!"
- theanonymousone 3y agoCouldn't it be a "sign" that (at least) 100% back to office is off the table?
- gumballindie 3y agoIt may also be a sign of further layoffs.
- timbit42 3y agoA lot of people prefer being laid off than forced back to the office.
- Animats 3y agoSo do the people at Google who handle real estate rentals talk to the people who ordered everyone to come back to the office?
- unglaublich 3y agoThe observation is that offices are underused, so both space reduction and a presence increase improve this statistic. It's not like you can only do one thing, then keep the rest of your operations still.
- murderberry 3y agoReal estate is just a slog. It takes years to build new office space. Lease opportunities come up on weird schedules and tend to be long-term too. They're likely offloading the space they started acquiring pre-COVID, or in the first year of (when the industry was hiring like crazy), because they're not optimistic about being able to fill it any time soon. They could probably spread things out instead, but real estate is stupidly expensive, and Google was never known for spacious accommodations (maybe except for some remote offices). I can't imagine they have any motivation to spend more if their approach worked fine for more over a decade. I don't love it, but how many applicants walked away because of cramped open spaces? How many top performers quit for that reason? We just put up with it.
- marban 3y agoOr ~93.000m²
- slantaclaus 3y agoClearly now is the time in the Bay Area to start converting empty offices into apartments and condos
- angmarsbane 3y agoI come into the office 3-4 days a week, sometimes 5. We're technically hot-desking but I put all of my personal items on a desk. "MY desk" is always open for me now b/c it's uncomfortable for strangers to sit on a desk with someone else's family photos and tchotchkes. Bonus, all of my colleagues know exactly where to find me because I am in the same desk every time and I never have to readjust my chair/monitor etc.