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Google Preparing To Launch G-Town
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."
Why start your own country when you can buy (representatives of) existing countries?
Considering the cost of home ownership(and rentals for that matter) in the Bay area/San Jose area, this is pretty obvious. They attract a lot of people out of college who simply can't afford to live within any reasonable distance of the facility. So they rent/buy in places like Tracy, which are 90+minutes away. It would be nice if more companies did this.
http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Cypress_Creek
Hah! Poverty in Google Town, that's a good one!
"I don't want to say it's the new company town, but it's not far from it".
"Check out the new G-Spot Bar on the corner of Page Avenue and Brin Alley".
Also, http://www.theonion.com/video/google-opt-out-feature-lets-users-protect-privacy,14358/
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
HERE
load "$",8,1
I'm not aware of current NASA Ames Security protocols, as far as getting access to the area, but I could only speculate that not everyone is authorized access. So with Google now building on their land, would they have a separate control entry point? Or give access through NASA's entry point? I have a huge problem with people having access to places they shouldn't.
I don't think I could live in a town that will probably stay in beta forever.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Timothy hit it on the head on this one. Google probably owns the "souls" (online personalities) of its employees more than any country in the world. To own their physical lives too seems like a consolidation of too much power.
I'm getting a little worried at just what Google is able to get away with with respect to Ames and Moffett Field. Only military and NASA planes can land there...except Sergey and Larry's private jets. Only military and NASA personnel and researchers live on the property...plus some Google staffers who need a cheap apartment. I just think that maybe they're getting a little special treatment.
I worked in Colorado for a company headquartered in Sunnyvale. They used to fly us out from CO and we'd work in silicon valley for Colorado wages, staying in corporate housing. I loved it because I sublet my apartment in CO out so I was essentially staying for free. Top that off with all the overtime I was working in a place that I didn't technically live (yet) and thus didn't have many friends to go out partying with.
Then they wanted to bring some of us out to CA to live permanently, but didn't want to give us the cost of living adjustments. In order to pacify us they let us stay in the company housing with less than cost-of-living raises, making less than we should but compensating the low pay by covering the housing cost. It worked out really well for a while and was a great start. I had to quit the company when I wanted to move out though because they wouldn't budge on giving any of us raises if we moved out.
The living wasn't bad, I had some interesting room mates that were smart people, but some were crazy or just odd characters. They were bringing in Taiwanese engineers that couldn't speak just about any english and urinated all over the bathroom in the middle of the night. Thankfully we had housekeeping three times a week. I also had these two drunk party-crazy room mates that would tear the place apart. One of them came home drunk and drank a half a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and went blind for like a day or two. Another one would get drunk and go steal fruit off the trees in people's yards. One time they got in a flour fight and when I woke up it was like a ghost had walked all over my apartment. Another one went crazy on drugs, lost a rental car, got sent back to CO but never made it because he got arrested on his Phoenix layover for trying to disassemble a metal detector or something (though he wasn't technically my room mate.)
Ah, the good old days of technology, per diem, overtime cash and partying with other nerds in Man Jose. Can't say they weren't interesting, but I'm glad they're over.
History is full of stories of very powerful companies (Standard Oil, IBM, etc.) that exerted great influence in their time. However, over their life, their influence was either diluted by regulations or the company changed completely. An example would be IBM -- they had a complete lock on the mainframe, a huge advantage in the "business machines" side of the business, but almost lost their place in the 90s by not reacting fast enough to the changeover to PCs and lower-end servers. Now they're a powerful consulting company and STILL have their lock on the mainframe, so they're still OK. Another example would be AT&T -- total monopoly on phone service, had enough money and leeway to support a complete basic research lab (Bell Labs) and had to totally reinvent itself to bexome a wireless carrier on a much smaller scale. (Yes, I know ATT handles all the iPhone contracts in the US, but that's a far cry from dictating the phone service standards for the world.)
I wonder if Google will even have to adapt. At their heart, they're just an advertising agency that happens to serve search results to millions of users every day. For all the neat stuff they "give away" for "free", I don't know if people realize that all their usage data for these tools are being used to improve the core advertising business. If the Web 2.0 no-privacy thing proves to be the new way of the world and not just a fad, Google could concievably keep its lock on the advertising market as long as "common users" never have to pay for anything.
Looking at some of the current Google news stories such as the Street View flap, and how underwhelmed most people were about it, I really think they could continue collecting any information they want without being challenged. I'm not super-old, but I really am amazed about the difference in generational attitudes about privacy. I'm not a tinfoil hat guy, but I really wonder about some of the implications of one company controlling a lot of the advertising market and having a pretty accurate profile about you to share with its customers. Advertising is annoying, but take it a step further and think about life insurers, potential employers, etc. etc... A little far fetched, but I wouldn't totally rule it out.
Not if you can prove you are trying to make it dual-boot Chromium OS.
I launched sixteen droids and what do I get? A cubicle bedroom and deeper in debt.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
I've always wondered why a company like Microsoft didn't do this. Buy a bunch of land in the midwest where the land is cheap and create there own town. Rather than using money everything would run off of a debit system or be communal.
They could have the townpeople be the beta testers for all the new products they create in addition to having them work for the company.
Google probably owns the "souls" (online personalities) of its employees more than any country in the world.
Really?
My experience in Silicon Valley -- when a company announces that it is going to build a new corporate headquarters, then short the stock. This has an amazingly positive correlation. When executives are fusing about the house, they are not ruthlessly plotting to eviscerate their competition, enslave their workers, screw their stockholders, and take over the world. They are nesting. Now they are going to face the City Council, who are going to want 3,618 EPA, economic, and tax reports -- that is just for starters. Then, they are going to face 20,000 local residents who are going to hate any idea Google has just because Google is successful and lives on the side of the freeway that produces tons of tax revenue that cannot be shared with the rest of the city. This is called a morass. It is not what nimble companies like to kill time managing. Eric Schmidt would have more success fucking a tar baby.
The growth won't just stop there people.
There is a erason that they call it Google earth and Google Space.:)
You are not looking at a snapshot of once was, Rather you are looking at a blueprint of what will be. .
People with no faces feeding the Google machine more and more data. . .
Why do you think the mobile OS is called Android? Google have managed to create walking talking bological robots out of us all. .
. .
Is this going to be anything like McDonaldland?
Robble Robble Robble
. .
Why are you using a url shortener in a non-twitter-like environment? You could have just copied the URL, just like any other URL instead of passing it through Google, so they'd get click tracking.
They found this was the most convenient way to deliver ads directly through the power grid.
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
Better than being unemployed and asking, "Brother, can you spare an IPv4 address?"
Yes, but you probably had the ability to choose whether you would attend that university, live in that dorm, or leave campus.
Indeed the corporation now wields greater power than the nation-state. I saw an article the other day that Vienna, traditional, old stomping ground of national spies, has lost some of it's importance in that world. Although many of the national-spies now have the company of their new industrial espionage overlords. So indeed corporations now buy nation-state leaders. Presidents and politicians plead for time on the media, who makes them or breaks them. Lobbyists and their money and "favors" exert greater influence on congressmen than voters. Corporations often have greater effect on jobs than government policies. That is the state of the game today. But nothing lasts forever. The global economy teeters ever more often now, and corporations plead for rescue from who? Guess what, one of these days, the answer will be no - you corporate master, you go broke, we people buy your assets, and we own you now.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Yes if you are caught watching anything other than "don't be evil" on it.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Why start your own town when you can start your own country?
Maybe this is a good time to get a deal on one of those countries that's being swallowed up by a rising ocean?
A great spot to pile all that stuff that doesn't recycle so well, or to be someplace special for those that don't believe in global warming. Move them there and bring along their favorite tv network to make it feel like home.
Google are clearly putting all their staff together so they can only socialise with each other, eventually pairing off and producing Generation G offspring
Why don't you come back to my place in G-Town?
Shame they haven't just bought the old Bell Labs campus. Jersey could certainly use those jobs.
when someone forgets the term "G-Town" and accidentally says to a friend "hey man, have you ever been to that G.. spot?"
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
Think G-spot. I guess that name was taken.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
that Google was launching to counter Facebook. Guess I was wrong. People don't live on a virtual network when they could live in a real one.
Does that make the local nightclub the G-Spot?
Is it the "mill village" of the 21st Century?
I hope not. When the mill dies, the town dies with it and the mill village becomes a rundown slum. A town (or city) needs a diversity of industry and business in order to prosper over time.
"Don't be evil." The road to hell is paved with good intentions. This idea of G-Town is the start of yet another indentured servitude scheme to eke out as much productivity as possible while subtly applying pressure that will enslave Google-ites both mentally, physically, and financially. American history is replete with examples and is fundamentally anathema to the concept of Liberty. Just like modern American economic enslavement. How are the payments of that McMansion and Hummer coming along?
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.
I have been seeing a scarry trend in employers like Google trying to run the lives of their employees. It goes something like this:
You get a student out of University where the University was like their parent (provided their housing, food, rules, activities, goals to achieve, etc) and you recreate that in coporate life so they don't have to adjust to being an adult. You provide their food, their housing, their banking (through your own employee credit union), their healthcare and their activities/goals. It is almost like a cult.
In the end, it makes it difficult to distinguish your personal life and your personal space from your work and it makes it that much harder to leave that job because you'd also need to find a place to live, a new bank, a new health plan/provider and all of the rest of living in the real world as part of the process.
... Or are they paid in GoogleQuatloos, Google's own currency, which can be spent at GoogleStores? If Google did launch their own currency, I would expect that it would be accepted for all debts, public and private everywhere anyway. The local McDonald's where I live used to have a sign up posting their exchange rate for dollars to the local currency, because a lot of US servicemen would come in with nothing else in their pockets. The McDonald's dropped this, because servicemen tend to stay on base these days, because of terrorist threats. It's rare now to see someone in uniform in the city; this used to be a common sight before 9/11. At any rate, US military bases with housing areas could be a model for Googleville: the servicemen can spend months their, working and shopping, with no need to leave the base.
Is there a law in the US that requires employers to pay wages in dollars? Or can they pay in any form that they want: bales of hay, pork bellies, or teenage virgins? I know that some mining companies in the 1800's paid employees in company vouchers, that could only be redeemed at company stores.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Just driving down the street Google managed to compromise everyone's privacy. Imagine what they'd do if they built your house!
Google probably owns the "souls" (online personalities) of its employees more than any country in the world.
Really?
Yes, really. Next question!
Protip: come up with an actual objection if you disagree with something. It is much more effective and convincing that way.
How ironic that morass is what Google is doing, yet they live on the eastern side of 101, the muddy wetlands by the salt percolators of the South San Francisco Bay, next to the landfill.
You can't google the solution to that one! Sure, they'll give you the instructions, but unless you have experience you don't really know the ins and outs, if you known what I mean, and there are no console error messages to lead you in the right direction either.
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.
Not yet, but...
Come and work in silicon valley for $60,000. Your choices for housing: getting two roommates and sharing a 2 Bedroom apartment or living on Campus. No brainer! Of course, it's a great deal for you, and you'll graduate out, but ten years from now, new graduates coming into the company will earn less and pay more for the privilege, but still enough so that it seems like a great deal compared to housing off-campus. Except... there's only enough net income for a small amount of expendables. Maybe you want to buy fancy new computers to use that 10-gigabit line in your apartment. Maybe you can't afford a car because you like eating more than beans. As long as the company residences are just enough above board to not be classified as a "company store", then "keeping up with the joneses" will prevent the employees from leaving voluntarily, because it takes time and a little money to find a new job, and if you quit first, the company probably has a clause allowing them to kick you out of the housing.
And now they're going to build an arcology.
Foxconn has about half a million employees.
The USA has a suicide rate of about 10-14 per 100k: http://www.suicide.org/suicide-statistics.html
If you have 500000 employees, one shouldn't be so surprised if 50 of them kill themselves every year.
Google, Inc requires the services of a sheriff for its new company town.
1) Fast paced and dynamic environment.
2) Unmatched benefits.
3) Accomodation in a nuclear bunker.
4) Occasional travel in time and to other dimensions.
Pleas click the 'Apply Now' button below.
C. Northcote Parkinson described this in his landmark work "Parkinson's Law." He noticed that British bureaucracies were most effective when young, dynamic, focused, and invariably housed in makeshift quarters.
As these bureaucracies matured, they arranged better housing for themselves, and the completion of a grand edifice, complete with statuary, limousine parking, &etc. they had invariably achieved institutional senility, becoming utterly ineffective.
While dated, Parkinson's Law (1958) is still relevant today; it's simultaneously too funny to be true, yet too true to be dismissed as humor.
gawbl
We're in big trouble. Especially if Google buys stock in Global Dynamics....
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
There was a long software project that involved us testing and refining a child safety filter, which included many months on end of surfing pornographic websites and filtering about 80,000 domain names. Not strictly gay sex, but extremely sexual none-the-less...
Somewhat related, how this turned out for Philips and the place they did this (Eindhoven, Netherlands) in the previous era;
It is where Philips first put up office. Housing its own staff is what Philips did en masse after WW2 in the city of Eindhoven. These days the housings are part of Eindhoven itself, and the offices and factories are put to other uses. I especially like how Strijp (the former Philips campus ground) is now a cultural nexus for talented art, design, and tech folks with regular renowed festivals or other happenings for anyone. Eindhoven has much to thank Philips for, the city is still well known for both its design and its technology disciplines.
Hivemind harvest in progress..
Once again, a simple typo has not been corrected in the summary.
What are the editors doing ?
If Google, or any other company in the Bay Area, thinks their employees might need suicide nets, then they should probably be funding these:
http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/Funding-for-Golden-Gate-Bridge-suicide-net-proves-elusive-52559197.html
How many foxconn employees so far? I think they've got a fair number to go till they hit their "quota" for the year...
Some of those were probably "copy-cat" suicides too.
Foxconn also had a suicide payout policy which might have convinced some of those to suicide so that their families get money.
Pointless statistic made by overly defensive fanboys.
Let's break this down by demographic shall we. In the west, if we take away the unemployed and youth suicides you are left with about 2 or 3 per 100K. In Australia youth suicide makes up about 40-50% of all suicides (this is the sub 18 category). After that typically comes mental illness then old age. The suicide rate amongst healthy working adults is phenomenally low.
So when comparing the suicide rate of foxconn to the suicide rate of a western nation you are not comparing like for like because they are drastically different demographics. Now with Foxconn, I wouldn't go past putting a few suicides on drug or debt(gambling) problems (in fact, I'd bet a lot of the blame lies there), but these issues don't come from people who have good(happy) working lives either.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
So, when will Google be starting their own currency and paying their employees with it?
(oh wait, isn't that what stock options are?)
all exorbitance is disgusting. i can't even imagine what google pretends to need all these people for. the last few major changes to their search engine and news section could have been accomplished by a single coder. i understand they have their own language (or pseudo language, not entirely sure) but that itself seems like really awful bloat for a search engine. and their own browser? i haven't even given it a look-over. it's that unimportant. they shouldn't be trying to expand so much, they're just going to get top-heavy and sink. too bad for them, i guess, but they sure have been getting annoying, lately. and it might be off-topic, but facebook is never going to 'kill gmail'. they can't even make their 'notes' function properly. anyways, it looks really bad, to me, overly huge companies with all these ostensible 'employees' going after their own 'towns'. it's just the future of litigation; it'll all go wrong. nobody remembers pullman town? how about enron -- they were a utopia, too, weren't they? or the branch davidian complex. heaven's gate. etc.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Pullman company town. Hell can happen again, and if google ever takes a dive, you can expect a lot of hell.
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,
I get your criticism towards the government. However, if you have enough money to build your own country, why would you try to compete with other companies to buy representatives? Particularly, when you know some of those companies are just trying to screw yours.
All we need now is a zombie breakout.
G-Town, isn't that where gangsters go when they die? (I thought Tupac or something rapped about that).
The world is how you make it
I'd like a job where I can my dog to work. He's clean, doesn't shed and quiet and I'd be more likely to stay much later so let's see companies start offering dog facilities. Plus lunch time will be much more fun.
That was the theme of the Heinlein novel "Friday". Well, that and a bit of genetic engineering, but it was another bit of Heinlein forecast that came through. I wonder how much else he's got hidden ...
Honestly, love him or hate him, reading through Heinlein's novels is sometimes a bit like reading a more coherent Nostradamus, one who studied logic instead of funny mushrooms.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
I think G-Spot would have been a much better name. *
you're a TOTAL DISGRACE.
"MichaelKristopeit172" is operated by a pathetic individual attempting to steal my identity.
to the individual responsible: i assume you welcome death. present yourself to me; admit what you've done, then i will bring upon you the ultimate punishment for your transgressions.
if you want to see my wife and kids and dogs and probably only a single firearm for a very short period of time, present yourself to me.
does it comfort you to pretend that i might be lying?
why do you cower? what are you afraid of?
you're completely pathetic.
MichaelKristopeit is operated by a pathetic individual. Period.
Present yourself to me and I will mock you.
letting an idiot know they are an idiot is not a game... it's a responsibility. - by Kristopeit, M. D. (1892582)
i'm not pretending to be someone else. i'm not pretending to not be someone else. doing so would be PATHETIC.
you spend your days in a fantasy land addressing yourself relative TO ME. i spend my days actually BEING me. do you NEED to be me? OR, do you simply NEED to NOT BE YOURSELF?
you're a TOTAL DISGRACE.
you're completely pathetic.
where would you prefer i present myself to you? i assume you welcome death.
i assume you welcome death. if you come on my property, i'll bring upon you the ultimate punishment for your transgressions.
what is your address?
i assume you welcome death.
You know what they say happens when you assume: you make an ass out of u and (here's your favorite word again, MK Fail) me.
letting an idiot know they are an idiot is not a game... it's a responsibility. - by Kristopeit, M. D. (1892582)
Present yourself to me
i accept. tell me where i can present myself to you.
i assume you welcome death.
only a true coward would make such an offer and then withhold such information.
you are completely pathetic.
Present yourself to me
i accept. tell me where i can present myself to you.
i assume you welcome death.
only a true coward would make such an offer and then withhold such information.
you are completely pathetic.
Present yourself to me
i accept. tell me where i can present myself to you.
i assume you welcome death.
only a true coward would make such an offer and then withhold such information.
you are completely pathetic.
Present yourself to me
i accept. tell me where i can present myself to you.
i assume you welcome death.
only a true coward would make such an offer and then withhold such information.
you are completely pathetic.
Present yourself to me
i accept. tell me where i can present myself to you.
i assume you welcome death.
only a true coward would make such an offer and then withhold such information.
you are completely pathetic.