Google will spend $13B on U.S. real estate in 2019

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/13/google-will-spend-13-billion-on-real-estate-moves-in-2019.html

by longdefeat • 7 years ago

78 23 7 years ago

A long list of states with maybe Georgia included. I really hope one of these tech companies opens an office in the southeast; every time I see an article like this I get my hopes up. It’s not like there’s no tech there. Georgia Tech produces quite a few CS grads and has a well ranked program. I currently live in the Bay Area but wish I didn’t have to make the trade off between career and being near family.

auiya4• 7 years ago

Google has had multiple offices and data centers in and around the Atlanta area, for at least 10+ years now. They have offices all around the southeast. I passed one on foot in Chapel Hill randomly which I didn't know existed. /xoogler

throwaway7132• 7 years ago

This is news to me. I thought Google’s Atlanta office was closed a while back. So there are software engineers and data scientists currently working at Google in the southeast?

StevePerkins• 7 years ago

There's a data center somewhere around Atlanta, but to my knowledge it's purely wall-to-wall racks and the IT guys who babysit them. There may be a handful of GCP salespeople with a water cooler and coffee maker somewhere, I'm not sure.

But the midtown office where developers worked (and user group meetups were hosted) has been closed for several years now. To my knowledge, that was the end of developers or data scientists based out of Atlanta (except for remote workers, perhaps).

jeffchuber• 7 years ago

The Straussian reading is "Google doesn't have good ideas on how to spend it's capital - might as well buy real estate"

doctorpangloss• 7 years ago

On the one hand, private academic institutions use their colossal endowments to buy real estate throughout their entire history. The economics of the specific transactions are just as sensitive to bull/bear runs in equity markets as Google is sensitive. But you'd have a hard time looking at a specific building and say, "Oh, they should have spent it on something else," even though we have the privilege of seeing academic real estate on timelines of a hundred years or longer.

On the other hand, if you step away from the economics, you'll have a better idea of why it's a bad sign for the company if they're blowing huge cash on buildings. The best secular reason this is a bad move is that it signals a change in the organization's ego. People build these things under the premise that (1) it's important to have glossy buildings to attract junior talent, and (2) it's important to have glossy buildings to retain senior talent. That's definitely the case with academia too.

But Google ain't Harvard, its brand can turn on a dime, and I can guarantee you that 22 year old compsci grads and 50 year old product management vice presidents who think the glossiness of the building is important are much bigger shitbags than 18 year old college applicants and 70 year old professors who might think so too.

sjjshvuiajhz• 7 years ago

and I can guarantee you that 22 year old compsci grads and 50 year old product management vice presidents who think the glossiness of the building is important are much bigger shitbags than 18 year old college applicants and 70 year old professors who might think so too.

Could you elaborate on that? I feel like those labels could all describe the same people depending on their life experiences. The psychological factors that result in high-achievers in academia and industry seeking prestige are too subtle for me to understand well enough to think of any of these people as “shitbags”.

baron816• 7 years ago

Well, if you actually read the article, it says they’re not just spending it on vast estates, but are building more data centers around the country, plus building new product development campuses in NY and SV.

goldfeld• 7 years ago

"This new seated nobility is bound for a French Revolution" comes to mind.

davio• 7 years ago

Worked well for Zynga

woolvalley• 7 years ago

Are they actually buying or opening new leases? If you want to spread out your employee base from the bay area, that seems financially wise. If it's just buying buildings, that is a bit different.

dmode2• 7 years ago

The capital spending is mostly for data centers and not opening engineering offices

Wonnk13• 7 years ago

People don't want to live in the valley. With their push on cloud it makes sense to bolster their regional offices as sales territories solidify. An added bonus is most teams will have a bit more flexibility in where headcount is- just look at the growth in Boulder, Austin and Chicago the last couple of years.

JamesSchriver• 7 years ago

I don't disagree, but I also feel like the current climate in the digital space, including in the "cloud", has significantly put the brakes on the whole notion of placing your business in the hands of some self-righteous tech company full of fanatics that wield their company's power like tyrants that could role the dice one day and all the sudden what you do and did for years is now "evil" and must be remove from their infrastructure at short or no notice.

kwizzt• 7 years ago

I don't quite understand this sentiment. Maybe it's because I or the company I worked for haven't experienced this kind of situation. Can you shed some light on what big corps like AWS, Google, MSFT did to other people?

dmode2• 7 years ago

Majority of this expansion is building out data centers. Their engineering hub will continue to be in the Valley, where they are massively expanding (and perhaps NY and London)

godzillabrennus• 7 years ago

Opportunity Zones make this decision amazing for them.

Every large company with their eyes open will be buying real estate as part of that tax plan benefit.

Google will spend $13B on U.S. real estate in 2019

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