Google Purchases Its First Home

noparkingzone writes "ZDnet is reporting that Google has purchased the garage that the company first called home for an undisclosed sum. The Menlo Park structure was owned by a friend of one of Brin's girlfriends. Leased to Serge and Brin by Susan Wojcicki for around $1,700 per month in 1998, the original Googleplex is intended to be preserved as part of the company's living history."

Comments

Heh

[B3ryllium]

Man, I wish I could purchase a few of the places I've lived in ...

... so I could burn them down! What horrible places to live. Ick.

Re:Heh

[Apocalypse111]

I've wanted to do the same to some of the places I've worked in. Especially since that incident involving my stapler...

Re:Heh

[GyroTech]

Yeah.
I'm going to need you to give that stapler back now.

And maybe relocate your desk downstairs.

Yeah.

Re:Heh

[l_bratch]

I believe you have my stapler.

Still waiting for the Real Estate Bubble to Pop

[Rude Turnip]

It's a sad state of affairs in the real estate market today if that little house is all Larry & Serge can afford with their jobs.

Re:Still waiting for the Real Estate Bubble to Pop

[richdun]

Well it can't be that bad - TFS did say "one of Brin's girlfriends"...

Re:Still waiting for the Real Estate Bubble to Pop

[Plutonite]

Yeah but they said it's owned by a friend of one of Brin's girlfriends. What's that all about?

Re:Still waiting for the Real Estate Bubble to Pop

[Ruvim]

Well, how much can you afford after all with a $1/year salary?

$1700 rent for a Garage!

[Fysiks Wurks]

That must have been one sweet slab...

Re:$1700 rent for a Garage!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, but $1700 is a lot of money today for a "rental". Hence, they we're not the poor-old techie startup guys we've all been told. 1700 for 1998 = someone had some cash on hand (and a lot of it).

I Think I was paying $900 for my 1000 sq ft rental back in 1998 and that was considered expensive.

Re:$1700 rent for a Garage!

[Melfina]

Depends on where you live, out here 60 miles east of NYC it's about that much for a rental too...

California

[paranode]

Only there would you pay 1700/month to live in a garage!

Re:California

[aplusjimages]

can you still park in it?

Re:California

[Anonymous Coward]

This just in: Slashdot continues digitally fellating Google, an advertising company for nerds.

Re:California

[c_pound_pounder]

Philly, too. Real estate pricing has gotten to the point of being rediculous there. Only in Philly would you pay half a mil to live in the ghetto.

Re:California

[Brandybuck]

No California, just the SF/SJ area, and Menlo Park is one of the higher priced cities there. That $1700 Menlo Park garage would rent you a three bedroom house in Pasadena or Redding.

Re:California

[Billly Gates]

I live in Riverside which is a far eastern suburb of LA and there are people living in van's, rv's, garages while the rest of their family/families sleep 2-3 people per room in the tiny homes. No I dont live in the hood either but in a middle class neighborhood. Old time residents pay $600 a month for their mortage while newer residents pay $3000 a month for a similair place and 2-3 families need to combine together to afford the mortage. Its insane and it looks like the third world.

Its illegal to live like this but you have to in California. Even in LA where the average home is $700k and the average salary is 13k in the hood. I wonder if the mexicans are really having a better life here than in Mexico with these living conditions due to teh outrageous prices? Its just insane and doesn't make sense economic wise. I think a big bubble burst is called for.

But yes if you own property in California its time to move where you can sell your 110k home back in 98 for 400k and retire in a mansion in Texas.

Re:California

[Brandybuck]

I've been all over California, and I've never seen anything like this. I have occasionally seen illegal immigrants packed in tight, but never ever have I seen more than one middle class family per house, let alone living in the RV.

Re:California

[Billly Gates]

Meaning you have never seen this in a middle class neighborhood or the current situation is so bad that you have never seen this regularly?

I would not call my neighborhood upper middle class but all the homes are between 1200 and 1500sq feet with 3-4 bedrooms. but yes the neighbors sleep in the garage and in a van and there are several RV's with people sleeping in them in driveways here. The home I am in is worth 380k.

Re:California

[Billly Gates]

I was looking at homes in Passadena and could not find anything under 700k last summer. My gf has 2 kids so 3 bedrooms is a must. If you go to www.zillow.com you can see that homes have been going up 75% a year since 2000. Maybe things have changed in the market since you looked last.

I just pray that the bubble bursts soon because its just unaffordable here.

$1,700 a month?

[Dan East]

$1,700 month to rent a garage? That much a month would cover the entire house (and utilities) in this part of the USA.

Dan East

Re:$1,700 a month?

[9mm Censor]

Fridge raids included?

Re:$1,700 a month?

[guruevi]

Over here it would easily cover a quarter, but I live in the hills without a decent 56k connection.

Re:$1,700 a month?

[jimstapleton]

%$@# that must be one nice house, that'd be two around here.

Re:$1,700 a month?

[EXMSFT]

No, it's just a house in the Bay Area. The average dive in the Bay Area is stupidly overpriced.

Re:$1,700 a month?

[jeffmeden]

No kidding! For that price in Ohio I could get a *huge* garage (w/ attached house), and still have money left over for cable internet (and like 15 digital pr0n channels, er I mean cinemax). $1700/mo 'help with the mortgage' makes me choke.

Re:$1,700 a month?

[linzeal]

That would buy 80 acres with a house on it out here.

Re:$1,700 a month?

[radish]

It would get about 1 room around here...

Re:$1,700 a month?

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to Silicon Valley, where even the most run-down houses go for close to $1 million.

Re:$1,700 a month?

[DerekLyons]

$1,700 month to rent a garage? That much a month would cover the entire house (and utilities) in this part of the USA.

Heck, that's only a couple hundred of dollars less than my house payment! (1/3 Acre, 2200 sq feet + detached 2 car garage.)

Re:$1,700 a month?

[paralaxcreations]

I don't know where this "out here" y'all are referring to is, but I simultaneously want to and don't want to move there! It sure sounds expensive and cheap!

Re:$1,700 a month?

[rthille]

News Flash. There are cheaper and more expensive parts of the country/world...

Re:$1,700 a month?

[darb_is_fat]

Apparently I offended someone...who knew hicks were smart enough to get mod points...takes all kinds, I guess...

Re:$1,700 a month?

[Cryssen]

My monthly bills including two credit cards, student loan, house payment, car and home insurance, all utilities, and cell phone comes to less than 1400....I need to find a garage to rent out there....

Re:$1,700 a month?

[madaxe42]

In London you wouldnt' get anything - a closet (literally a closet) above a shop recently sold for over $400k.

Re:$1,700 a month?

[speculatrix]

for that price in Ohio

for that price I'd expect to buy a large proportion of Ohio

Re:$1,700 a month?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's about $60 more than my house payment

5 bed, 4 bath, 3200 sq. feet, 2 car garage. I'm not sure the size of the lot - it's not big, but big enough.

Re:$1,700 a month?

[Anonymous Coward]

You will first need to understand the difference between portion and proportion. Then, go back to Texas where poor English is rewarded.

Re:$1,700 a month?

[speculatrix]

both sentences would have worked, grammatically. I could have said instead of proportion, percentage "I could have bought a significant percentage of Ohio"... see?

technically, the variants would have been different, but WHO CARES!

That's cool and all...

[xENoLocO]

... but is it really front page news?

I mean, I congratulate the couple on their new house, but come on... :)

Re:That's cool and all...

[supremebob]

No, it's not. This is the kind of crap that I'd expect to see on Digg, not Slashdot.

Oh, you can go ahead and mod my comment down now. I have the karma points to spare.

Re:That's cool and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the kind of crap that I'd expect to see on Slashdot, 3 days after it was on Digg.

There, fixed that for you.

Re:That's cool and all...

[isorox]

No, it's not. This is the kind of crap that I'd expect to see on Digg, not Slashdot.

This morning it was one of the smaller stories on a 3 minute news headlines on national radio in the UK (10m listeners), it's deemed by someone to be important.

Re:That's cool and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, you can go ahead and mod my comment down now. I have the karma points to spare.
Umm... Ok.

Re:That's cool and all...

[Klaidas]

You must be new here...

Re:That's cool and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

it's deemed by someone to be important.

And you have been brainwashed by the Mainstream Media to believe that whatever they force down your throat is important. They decide, because you're too fucking stupid to think for yourself. Congratulations, you fell for it.

So like, is your post an example of the self-proclaimed "intelligence" of the typical slashdot poster?

...sell, sell, sell...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

OK, in the past few weeks we've learned that Google's founders got into a catfight over a luxury airplane, let their employees do whatever the fuck they want during work hours (Wizards of the Coast style?) and are concentrating on cementing their "early" history. I'm not a shareholder, but if I was, I'd clicking the "Sell" button as fast and often as I could...

Re:...sell, sell, sell...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well,
It sounds like you are not a shareholder, and probably would not have shares in Google, therefore it is not surprising to hear that you would say sell sell sell.

It is so easy to say things when you have no stake in it at all.

Even me.

Re:...sell, sell, sell...

[siegesama]

I'd go so far as to say that the GP poster's inability to "sell sell sell" reflects inexperience in the stock market (in that he's not playing it at all). In other words, he's just making shit up about it. I'm certain when he heard they don't have to wear suits he was also pretty perturbed, because don't all successfull businesses have their employees wear suits? But luckily there were on-the-ball moderators to rate his garbage exposition up as insightful.

Re:...sell, sell, sell...

[UbuntuDupe]

Google's share price has already adjusted to account for those new developments.

All corporations' share prices already have adjusted to account for all public knowledge about them.

Re:...sell, sell, sell...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

All corporations' share prices already have adjusted to account for all public knowledge about them.

I'm sure you know the process isn't magic or perfect. You see one odd piece of news and you can say "eccentric management" or "outlier". You see many odd pieces and you tend to think "management may not know what they're doing". I'm starting to think that we're looking at the latter case. If/when the rest of the market agrees with me the price will drop significantly.

Re:...sell, sell, sell...

[Anonymous Coward]

The real question is how do they justify this kind of purchase to shareholders and the SEC? Given that the house was purchase from a current VP of Google, it sounds like a scam to shove some more money in her direction without having to face the board of directors.

Re:...sell, sell, sell...

[Rude Turnip]

I just follow the earnings. If they keep making money, then whatever they're doing is working.

It's good to be a billionaire

[Anonymous Coward]

"owned by a friend of one of Brin's girlfriends"

Must be nice to have billions and multiple girlfriends.

Re:It's good to be a billionaire

[Doctor Memory]

I think with billions, you get multiple girlfriends. Kind of like a side order. At least, a lot of the rich guys I know have girlfriends on the side...

Re:It's good to be a billionaire

[Red15]

Perhaps he has a googol girlfriends :)

Re:It's good to be a billionaire

[imikem]

With their rarified geek status, at least one girlfriend may not be of the inflatable variety.

Re:It's good to be a billionaire

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess it takes $billions for a geek to have girlfriends :p

Re:It's good to be a billionaire

[CCFreak2K]

Well screw you guys! I'm gonna go make my own garage! With blackjack! And hookers!

how many companies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Leased to Serge and Brin by Susan Wojcicki for around $1,700 per month in 1998, the original Googleplex is intended to be preserved as part of the companies living history.

All this time I thought that Google was just one company.

Was it a special garage?

[pembo13]

$1700 seems steep, even for today's standards.

Re:Was it a special garage?

[blincoln]

$1700 seems steep, even for today's standards.

It's actually not, for that area.

I have some friends who work down there (not at Google, but the same area). They took me on a tour of it when I visited a few years ago. We walked by some small houses (looked like 2-3BR, single-car garage type of places) near where their office is, and they said every one of them was valued at over a million dollars.

Re:Was it a special garage?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"$1700 seems steep, even for today's standards."

The simple explanation is that a.) It was being used for business and b.) They were being generous to help out a friend.

I did a quick search of office space rentals in Cali and a 500 sq. ft. space was roughly $1,750. They might have been getting a deal. (Hot tub, etc...) I didn't actually search in the area that they were in (all those stupid sites require registration.) so really my suggestion is merely a theory.

Sometimes there SHOULD be an apostrophe

[mooingyak]

the original Googleplex is intended to be preserved as part of the companies living history.

'So often you 'see the here come's an S u'sage of apo'strophe's, but heres one ca'se where it actually belong's and wa's not u'sed.

Grumble grumble grammar nazi blah blah.

Re:Sometimes there SHOULD be an apostrophe

[spyrochaete]

Doesn't it need more than an apostrophe? It should be "company's".

Enumerating the number of googles...

[TheMoog]

Woo, always cool when big companies remember their roots. But, and with flame-proof suit on...Google may be huge but they're only one company. So in the intro text:

the original Googleplex is intended to be preserved as part of the companies living history.

That "companies" should be "company's" - more info on this common grammar mistake at the Apostrophe Protection Society. Arguably a nitpick I know, but on something as well-read as Slashdot it's nice to try and set an example :)

Re:Enumerating the number of googles...

[tetrahedrassface]

I take full responsibility for the poor spelling.

You are now free to stone me to death. :)

Re:Enumerating the number of googles...

[omahajim]

Companies/company's I can live with. Misuse of loose/lose is the one that bugs the hell out of most people here.

Re:Enumerating the number of googles...

[The_Wilschon]

I bet you did it on purpose! Gosh, that would make you a... a.... a Grammar Troll! shudder

Re:Enumerating the number of googles...

[milkman_matt]

Companies/company's I can live with. Misuse of loose/lose is the one that bugs the hell out of most people here.

Their Their, don't be too hard on them, I've seen worse...

Re:Enumerating the number of googles...

[tehcyder]

something as well-read as Slashdot

I think you meant widely read ;-)

Human beings can be well read, websites can't (until they achieve AI).

Re:Enumerating the number of googles...

[TheMoog]

Hahahaha :) I've been out-pedanted! Top marks :)

Preserved?

[Rob T Firefly]

the original Googleplex is intended to be preserved as part of the companies living history.

So is this going to be a Graceland type of deal? How soon can we make pilgrimages to the historic garage, walk through the sacred Jungle Room, gaze upon Serge and Brin's actual preserved empty chip packets, discarded pizza boxes, broken ethernet cards, and sequinned jumpsuits? Will there be velvet paintings at the gift shop?

Re:Preserved?

[CynicalTyler]

I WANT MY VELVET SERGEY!

Re:Preserved?

[snark23]

Yes. And when Page and Brin die, their embalmbed bodies will be displayed in glass cases with softly blinking LED lights. Pilgrims to the garage will leave offerings of Mountain Dew.

Re:Preserved?

[RealGrouchy]

So is this going to be a Graceland type of deal? How soon can we make pilgrimages

No, it'll like going to the original Cheers restaurant: It looks nothing like the TV show, nobody knows your name, and has been remodeled many times since it first inspired what makes it famous.

Graceland was where Elvis moved after he became rich and famous. This garage is where Serge and Brin were before.

- RG>

Grammar Nazi

[mastercylender]

companies???? do you mean company's ???? between this and all of the thens where there should be thans, what the hell is happening to gramar in American English?????

Re:Grammar Nazi

[jcorno]

companies???? do you mean company's ???? between this and all of the thens where there should be thans, what the hell is happening to gramar in American English?????

If only you had asked, "What the hell is happening to spelling and capitalization in American English?" Then your situational irony would be complete.

Re:Grammar Nazi

[typobox43]

I hope your sentence fragment was intentional.

To put things in perspective...

[mwvdlee]

8 years of Google might seem like a long time, but remember that development of Duke Nukem Forever was started before Google even existed, so it's not that long.

Serge and Brin?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it Sergey Brin and Larry Paige?

Re:Serge and Brin?

[cbreaker]

Yea, I feel so bad for that billionaire. I'd be really pissed if I were him.

Re:Serge and Brin?

[dr_dank]

Just like our founding fathers George and Washington.

Re:Serge and Brin?

[Dorceon]

Actually it's Page. As in PageRank.

Re:Serge and Brin?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the California Spanish influence spreading like wildfire... Sergey Brin... Serge y Brin... Serge and Brin.

Talk about ridiculous....

[CPE1704TKS]

I love Google as much as anyone else, but talk about utterly self-indulgent. Yes, they are cool, but they are no HP, not yet anyway. Once they get to 20 years old and contributed as much as HP has over the decades, THEN start worrying about keeping track of your legacy. Right now, all they are is a great search engine, great mail service, and bunch of free (but cool) software like Picasa. They are cool and convenient, but I would hardly describe Google's contributions as important or essential... not yet. If they disappeared overnight, people would be a bit pissed, but every single one of their contributions could be replaced by another service.

Re:Talk about ridiculous....

[Anonymous Coward]

How about changing the online advertising paradigm forever and making many thousands of companies many millions of dollars?
Or delivering the concept of web searching (or 'googling') to a larger audience than any other competitor, initiating a large population to 'the web' who would have otherwise been too intimidated to geek out on their own.
Sure, many competitors can do a good job of providing the same type of services, but I think at this point Google stands for a little bit more than just a search engine, an email service and/or a map service... otherwise they wouldn't make frontpage day in, day out on Slashdot and many other news sites any time they move a muscle.

Re:Talk about ridiculous....

[Doctor Memory]

Yeah, people used to say the same thing about Alta Vista, and look how wrong they were!

Re:Talk about ridiculous....

[Hijacked Public]

Google pioneered the most important advancement in the history of internet search engines: A clean search page.

Visit Google.com and you get a large well centered box into which you can type your search criteria. A fairly small Google logo, a handful of text only links to other parts of the site. No news snippets, no ads, no headlines from around the world. I don't have to sort out which box searches the internet and which is the stock quote lookup. I do not have to sort through a long gaphical menu to find which brightly colored artist rendering of a smiling something or other represents the link to the smiling "My Internet" search page.

In other words, they resisted turning themselves into another shitheel portal site when conventional wisdom said everything had to be a shitheel portal site.

Google.com is the 1911A1 of search engines. It is plain and simple and does exactly what it is supposed to do.

Re:Talk about ridiculous....

[couchslug]

When their wealth is sufficient to make buying that building trivial, why shouldn't they indulge themselves?
There is a difference of scale here, but it gives humans pleasure to indulge now and then. I might buy a faster computer
that I need to do work, they might buy a building or several. In proportion to income, my PC is a far greater indulgence.

Re:Talk about ridiculous....

[Anonymous Coward]

1911s aren't as plain and simple as they could be without losing performance numbers. You're talking more like AK-47 which is a bit better at what it does and is even simpler than the 1911 in function.

Re:Talk about ridiculous....

[archen]

Once they get to 20 years old

What google will contribute is probably going to be arguable even 20 years down the road. However it doesn't take long for your legacy to erase itself by sheer chance. Twenty years from now google may look for that old garage only to find it had become a parking lot 5 years earlier. I sort of realized how easily history can be lost when I was looking through a Fender guitar magazine. They had wanted to produce an authentic reproduction of origonal Fender models, however no one actually remembered how they made them. I'm sure 10 years after the company was on its way people would have said, "who cares about how they were made, it's not that different now"... but 20,30,50 years down the road, just spending a few extra dollars for a bookmark in your history can make all the difference.

Re:Talk about ridiculous....

[be-fan]

Interestingly enough, its also the only search engine in existence easy enough for my mom to use. With all the other ones, she doesn't know where to type her query.

Re:Talk about ridiculous....

[johansalk]

And they didn't even develop Picasa; they bought it. Their other software, like Orkut or Google Talk, is forgettable.

Re:Talk about ridiculous....

[Achromatic1978]

http://www.live.com/?searchonly=true - yeah, I can see why she'd have trouble finding that. (And for the anally retentive, that is the autoredirect when you go to search.msn.com (for one), before you start complaining about the QUERYSTRING).

Re:Talk about ridiculous....

[drsquare]

Actually there were plenty of search engines like that before Google, and there will be many long after Google collapses. If having a box in the middle of the screen is Google's greatest innovation, then I doubt they will be remembered when they're gone.

Re:Talk about ridiculous....

[be-fan]

This must be new? I've never heard of it before. Internet Explorer defaults to www.msn.com, does't it?

Oh, and its a blatent Google rip-off. The layout is the same, and the section headers are even in the same order! Not to mention it commits the criminal sin of having an unlabeled search icon. New computer users can read. What they can't do is decipher tiny, low-contrast icons.

So its late, derivative, and not as good. What's your point?

Re:Talk about ridiculous....

[Achromatic1978]

I'm not sure. Point me to the bit where I described it as the original, and the best.

Alternatively, read the bit where the poster said his mother was unable to decipher how to use any other search engine out there, and, using examples where necessary, point out what would be unusable or unfindable about how to conduct a search with that interface.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to be outdone, Microsoft has purchased the back seat of the '62 Camaro where Bill Gates' mother was knocked up by satan.

Re:In other news...

[mcguirez]

It really must have been the devil because Gates was born in 1955!

Awesome trick for a '62!

Re:In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

they didn't make camaros in '62. first were '67s

Re:In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, the Camaro wasn't released by GM until 1967...

grumble grumble carnazi

Re:In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry no winner for you. 67 was the first Camaro.

Re:In other news...

[Dmala]

Even more amazing since they didn't make a Camaro until '67.

Re:In other news...

[l0cust]

Hehe that one could have got me fired because I laughed out so loud my boss sitting at the other end of the office was wondering who the hell is enjoying the office work!

They plan to 'preserve the property'...

[jeffmeden]

"We plan to preserve the property as a part of our living legacy", says Google spokesman Jon Murchinson.

I have a feeling the house is about to get a makeover...

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The Slashdot Investment Report

[Dystopian Rebel]

Although a growing percentage of the Slashdot demographic considers under-car light-effects and Digg.com to be good investments, the more experienced Slashdot visitors know a good potential for return when they see it.

Slashdot Investments Inc is bullish on California garages. That's right, we are marking this a strong BUY. Analysts agree that all creativity has either been crushed out of US corporations by bureaucracy or simply shipped to Bangalore to learn some manners.

The future of US creativity is clearly back where HP, Apple, Sun, Microsoft and Occidental Petroleum started: back among the old tires, oil stains, ham radios and bicycle parts.

Why, even the iPod was discovered in a California garage 10 years ago by a guy who was dosed with Klum-Sharapova Rays while trying to convert a personal massage device into a remote control for his Blaupunkt.

Forget California houses, they have weird things in them like Wozniak's Cave. The real potential is back in the Camaro Cradle... the Beemer Bedroom... in short, in the Tranny House!

Now's the time to get in on the ground floor of California garages! Call now, Vista and MemoryCard accepted.

Until next month... Happy profits!

Re:The Slashdot Investment Report

[annex1]

"The real potential is back in the Camaro Cradle... the Beemer Bedroom... in short, in the Tranny House!"

A BMW automobile is a BIMMER. A BMW motorcycle is a BEEMER.

Re:Money Better Spent

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you may have just killed a tree. You were hugging it way too hard.

Date 'em all!

[mpath]

by a friend of one of Brin's girlfriends.

Man, how many girlfriends does Brin have?

Re:New York

[EVil Lawyer]

You're right. In New York, you'd be lucky to get a garage for $2,500.

That's because

[mapmaker]

For that price in Ohio I could get a *huge* garage (w/ attached house), and still have money left over

That's because nobody wants to live in Ohio.

Re:That's because

[Anonymous Coward]

I would gladly take a little snow in the winter, in exchange for not having to be around pretentious assholes all the time.

Re:That's because

[archen]

Sorry dude, takes more than snow to get rid of them. Believe me :)

Re:That's because

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because nobody wants to live in Ohio.

There's nothing wrong with Ohio... except the snow and the rain.

Re:That's because

[Anonymous Coward]

What I cannot understand is why anyone wants to live in a place with such obscene housing prices. Housing prices that high greatly lower one's standard of living unless wages are equally inflated, and they usually aren't.

A garage as big as a football field?

[lonesometrainer]

$1700 a month!?!

Please remember that's

a.) nearly 10 years ago and
b.) rented from a friend (therefore probably a lot less than the market price)

So I got to assume that if you don't have 12k a months _at least_ you're a pretty poor guy in Menlo Park?

Remember that kids, next time you read job offerings from california...

Re:Money Better Spent

[Anonymous Coward]

There's starving people in Africa. That shit's not baller.

Serge and Brin?

[acurtiss]

Last I checked, it was either Page and Brin or Larry and Sergey. Poor Larry never gets no respect.

Like Enron?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

I just follow the earnings. If they keep making money, then whatever they're doing is working.

Like Enron? Like WorldCom? Books can be cooked; it's even fairly legal to do so over the short term. That's why analysts are always looking for other signs of health in a business.

Look it up, Wookie.

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

he's just making shit up about it

Look it up, Wookie. Hell, even Slashdot's been covering the wacky shit that goes on at Google, and they're Google's biggest cheerleader.

I'm certain when he heard they don't have to wear suits he was also pretty perturbed

Poor assumptions like that are probably why you're not where you'd like to be in life. "No suits" is pretty common in the corporate world these days; it's the general "no leadership, no goals" culture at Google that scares me (and reminds me of the late 1990s dot-com businesses).

Re:Look it up, Wookie.

[flooey]

it's the general "no leadership, no goals" culture at Google that scares me (and reminds me of the late 1990s dot-com businesses).

The thing is, that's been Google's culture all along, pretty much. And in 2005 they had a net income of $2.1 billion before taxes on $6.1 billion in revenue. It seems to be working just fine for them.

Re:Look it up, Wookie.

[Johnboi Waltune]

The "no leadership, no goals" reputation of Google is just a combination of PR hype, dot-com crash post-traumatic stress, and lack of investor and media knowledge about what Google's long term goals really are. You don't make a $6 billion dollar/yr. corporation that's lasted for almost a decade without being able to plan for the future. All investors and the media really know is that Google keeps getting results. This is a company that focuses on the long-term and the big picture, plays their cards close to their chest, and lets the smaller details resolve themselves. They aren't clueless morons like so many dot-coms in the late 90's who had some good fortune.

Choke!

[alphakappa]

Brin had a girlfriend... AND he made a billion dollar company? I think I've finally found proof that there's a heaven on earth!!!

Justity to board of directors?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Given that the house was purchase from a current VP of Google, it sounds like a scam to shove some more money in her direction without having to face the board of directors.

OK, here's where I will actually defend Google: Google certainly isn't alone in making sweetheart deals to officers. (That's why such deals usually never make it to the level of the board of directors; no one else wants their deals exposed either.) On the other hand, I didn't know it was from a sitting VP. In this case, the VP might actually have been pressured to sell cheap (to keep her job) and the price may not have been that out of line.

"one of Brin's girlFRIENDS"?????

[The Bastard]

Geez...some guys have all the luck.

Although, with the general social reputation of those in the tech community, I'm surprised no
one else picked up on this.

Waste

[pupstah]

Another case of companies with too much money, and no idea what to do with it. Yet the same Slashdot nubsacks that bitch when Microsoft wastes money, will cheer this.

Two faced, party of 20,000, your table is ready?

The kiss of death?

[plopez]

Hope this isn't a jinx. See what happened to the last company that preserved its garage:
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/histnfacts/garage /

Dorks with a photo album

[bgardella]

Reminds me of a guy I knew who kept a photo album of all the places he worked in sillycone valley. "And here's the watercooler where we talked about making robots..."

They got ripped off

[Anonymous Coward]

$1700 for a garage? What a ripoff.
They could have easily had a larger office space for that much.

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/off/213002056.html

Google Map of the garage; Price $1,170,722

[peter303]

Here is the Google map of the infamous garage. I had to look up Sue's address in a non-Google database (zabasearch.com) because I couldnt find it in Google.

Then I looked in the realtors database for best estimated market value, again not Google, but zillow.com.

Bad omen for Google

[Anonymous Coward]

If Google is already reminiscing, I'd say their future ain't so bright.

Okay, that was funny!

[daviddennis]

So I tried to moderate it funny, and hit Overrated by mistake, giving your comment a score of 0!

The comment score box vanished and so now I have no way to undo this mistake other than writing this message, which will undo the moderation and set things right.

Please ignore this post :-)

Thank you.

D

Perhaps I'm just getting old...

[trudyscousin]

...but when I read this story, it was all I could do to stifle a yawn.

The garage of Mssrs. Hewlett and Packard was designated a California Historic Landmark because it symbolized the birth of Silicon Valley.

Here I only see two pretentious punks "giving themselves a birthday present." What's their garage supposed to represent, I'm wondering? Today's Silicon Valley hubris?

Even Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, whose company's genesis also took place in a garage, didn't engage in this kind of masturbatory pursuit.

one word: GUMMO.

[ClioCJS]

Rent it. Watch it.

Prior Art!

[Webmoth]

I think somebody has beaten them to the "Save Our Garage!" punch.

Pic of the garage here

[Anonymous Coward]

smh.com.au has a picture of the garage. http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/google-buys-garage- with-a-history/2006/10/02/1159641250919.html

Exact address?

[gnuber]

The original AP story (which includes a picture) noted:

Google asked The Associated Press not to publish the property's address, although it can easily be found on the Internet using the company's search engine.

But I have been Googling for the last half hour to no avail. It's not that I care so much for the exact address as much as I'm offended that some AP reporter is apparently a better Googler than me :). Can any of the Google hot-shots here find it?

$1,700 Per Month, For a Garage?!?

[MSTCrow5429]

Maybe even living in the housing cost capital of the nation, the Northeast, I don't have a firm grip on real estate prices. Here, in the city, $1,700 per month will get you either a luxury apartment, a plush office apartment, or perhaps even a house rental. $1,700 mortgage = house. So why would anyone in 1998, years before the housing bubble, be paying $1,700 per month for just a garage? That's $20,400 per year, well over half of the nation's average income. Apparently, Google's spendthrift ways started early. Blowing loads of cash on real estate is never a good idea, especially not for start-ups. Sooner or later, Google's unhinged spending spree is going to bite them in the ass, just like it did those during the internet bubble.

In other news.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Google has purchased Planet Earth for an undisclosed amount of money.....

Re:In other news.....

[bangenge]

Also, Steve Ballmer purchases the original chair he threw. He will have it restored and displayed in the Microsoft headquarters in Redmond. The famous chair will bear a plaque with the words "I'll f*ck!ng kill Google."