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Google Preparing To Launch G-Town

Posted by timothy on from the owe-my-soul-to-the-company-store dept.

theodp writes "The Mercury News reports that Google's aggressive online growth increasingly has a counterpart in bricks and mortar, with the company's Mountain View HQ mushrooming in the past four years to occupy more than 4 million square feet. And that's just for starters. On Silicon Valley's NASA Ames base, Google is preparing to build a new corporate campus with fitness and day care facilities and — in a first in the valley — employee housing, adding 1.2 million sqare feet to Google's real estate holdings. 'I don't want to say it's the new company town,' said commercial real estate VP Gregory M. Davies of Google's role, 'but it's not far from it.' Presumably, no anti-suicide nets will be needed for this one."

3 of 251 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Security Risk? by ocdscouter · · Score: 4, Informative

    Last time I was there (to scope it out for a potential scout event), I believe that all I had to show was a valid ID, such as a driver's license, to get through the main gate and onto the Moffet field campus.

  2. Re:"from the owe-my-soul-to-the-company-store dept by fightinfilipino · · Score: 3, Informative
    i'm not exactly seeing how this has Google owning their "physical" lives. these employees have the choice to live either in off-Google-campus housing, which might be far and/or expensive, or in this new housing. they can choose to work for Google, or they can seek employment somewhere else. indentured servitude this ain't. Google employees' freedom to contract hasn't been eroded in some way. i'd say the only negative factor in all this (and it is a significant one) is Google's gobbling up of previously independent communities. but even there, Google can't just take over peoples' homes and businesses, they have to purchase them just like everyone else.

    call me when Google starts making work a contracted requirement for basic living necessities or builds unmaintained, dilapidated tenements, then there'll be something worrisome.

  3. Re:Completely Off Topic Question by srjh · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's not just about click tracking by Google, it's about having some idea about where the link I'm about to click on will take me.

    Even without slashdot's anti-troll inclusion of domain names, you can mouse over a link to see what the actual URL is. But what is "QTRlo" and "rRDok"? Is it something that's going to get me fired? Should I not have eaten before clicking? Is it another "N guys/girls, 1 X" shock site, or an 80's one-hit wonder?

    If you know how to use HREF tags and aren't artificially constrained to 140 characters, use the proper URL. Please.