Gawker: valleywag, workspaces

Google quarantines sales and marketers in New York

Nicholas Carlson — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 12:00:00 EDT

Google has a tremendously huge office at 111 Eighth Avenue in New York. But at about a 500,000 square feet, it's apparently not big enough to house Google's suits and Google's New York-based engineers together. The company's opened a new, 25,000 square foot office for its sales team and marketers on the second and fourth floors of Chelsea Market. New York Senator Chuck Schumer cut the ribbon on the place yesterday. There, the MBAs and failtreprenuers can hone their "soft skills" such as "business development" and "revenue generation," leaving grateful engineers to work on changing the world in peace. As a bonus, it should free up some of the Razr scooters, too.

Facebook plans to move out of downtown Palo Alto

Nicholas Carlson — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 12:00:00 EDT

Facebook employees losing the $600 monthly rent subsidy aren't the only ones moving out of Palo Alto. With plans to grow by more than 1,000 employees this year, Facebook is planning to move from its cluster of rented offices sources tell BoomTown. Relocation options include the old Hewlett-Packard buildings west of Palo Alto as well as office parks in Mountain View and Sunnyvale. At least one young man at the company isn't happy about it, though.

Founder Mark Zuckerberg doesn't want to make the move, preferring Palo Alto's quaint Main Street USA feel to the parking-lot archipelagos up and down the peninsula which house the likes of Google and Yahoo. But Zuckerberg doesn't make business operations decisions anymore. Those belong to Facebook's new adult-supervision, ex-Googler COO Sheryl Sandberg, who is charged with scaling the company. If Zuckerberg's allies CTO Adam D'Angelo and Matt Cohler can't or won't survive Sandberg's tough-love rule, then neither will Facebook's dank, cluttered and spray-painted home on University Avenue. (Photo by by antony_mayfield)

Googlers in Taiwan move into new office, could open a day care

Nicholas Carlson — Tue, 20 May 2008 10:00:00 EDT

Google's Taipei office used to be on floor 37 of the Taipei 101, one of the world's tallest towers. After a big move, it's now on floor 73. Flickr user tempofeng attended the move-in party and uploaded shots so the rest of us could marvel at the pace with which Google's kindergarten-themed offices march across the globe. The full gallery is embedded below.

(Photos by tempofeng)