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Google's New Campus Will Open Its Restaurants To The Public (recode.net)
Google's new 18-acre campus will feature a 595,000-square foot building for 2,400 employees, most of them engineers -- and its bottom floor will be open to the public. An anonymous reader quotes Recode:
People will be able to walk through the middle of the building, where they can shop in retail stores and dine at cafes also frequented by Googlers... A summary of plans from Google also describes spaces for workshops and demonstrations of new technologies such as virtual reality. Visitors might encounter a pop-up store devoted to virtual reality or demonstrations of smart-home devices made by Alphabet subsidiary Nest, according to the spokesperson... This is the first time Google has built a campus from the ground up...
Generally speaking, Bay Area tech companies have tended to of cut their workplaces off from the communities surrounding them. Employees take private buses to their campuses, and stay on-site for non-work activities like meals in private cafeterias and exercise classes. Google offers similar amenities to its employees, but makes its open, grassy areas open to anyone.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports Google's new building will be "shaped to resemble a puffy white cloud, with solar panels on the roof... The campus also will have a plaza where the public can soak in performances."
Generally speaking, Bay Area tech companies have tended to of cut their workplaces off from the communities surrounding them. Employees take private buses to their campuses, and stay on-site for non-work activities like meals in private cafeterias and exercise classes. Google offers similar amenities to its employees, but makes its open, grassy areas open to anyone.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports Google's new building will be "shaped to resemble a puffy white cloud, with solar panels on the roof... The campus also will have a plaza where the public can soak in performances."
I work in SF, I'll keep the name safe, for a company who does not provide food perks. The reason they don't is that it destroys local businesses. I was not really sure about the impact until Google opened an office not far away. The bottom floors of most buildings in SF are local restaurants. Within a few months of Google opening with free food for their employees, the bottom of the building was vacant. Hundreds of jobs lost, from cooks and restaurant workers to food delivery and cleaning services.
Not that Google cares mind you, as is obvious with this new deal.
The populace does not need this, and it creates a public dependence on Google. So much for the small guy and competition.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.