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Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet

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Re: Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet

#31

Post by krasin »

grogenaut wrote: post #24
oofta-boofta wrote: post #13

Google looked at how sailors share space on a sub and were like "yeah, that's the ticket". Hot-desking is the worst way to be in-office, on top of the worst way of working which is in-office. What happened to being a forward thinking and innovative company? These "geniuses" can't use their superior big brains just barely hiding under those infantilizing propeller hats to figure out a way to make remote work effective…

Is google actually hot desking or is that a extrapolation on them cutting office space.

actual hotdesking in some platform areas (for example, Google Cloud). I don't know how universal that is.

Re: Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet

#32

Post by skybrian »

oofta-boofta wrote: post #13

Google looked at how sailors share space on a sub and were like "yeah, that's the ticket". Hot-desking is the worst way to be in-office, on top of the worst way of working which is in-office. What happened to being a forward thinking and innovative company? These "geniuses" can't use their superior big brains just barely hiding under those infantilizing propeller hats to figure out a way to make remote work effective…

There's nothing about hot-desking in the article. What's your source on that?

A long time ago when I worked there, I didn't like working in the office sometimes, but sitting out on the balcony with a laptop wasn't so bad. Can't do that on a sub :-)

Re: Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet

#33

Post by bbor »

erehweb wrote: post #22
thesuitonym wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What happened to being a forward thinking and innovative company? Google went public is what happened. You literally cannot make good decisions when you have to base everything around what will make the most profit for the shareholders this quarter.

They don't have to do that, though - founders still retain control so could ignore shareholders.

Not quite - just because the founders have majority control doesn't mean that the BS financial duty "laws" don't apply to the company executives. They have a duty to all the shareholders, not just the controlling ones.

Re: Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet

#34

Post by grogenaut »

jeffbee wrote: post #16
grogenaut wrote: post #10

can anyone speak to: a) how dense was google office space in the before times? b) what their remaining portfolio of office space is?

Google floor plans were ridiculously dense. I don’t have hard numbers on my fingertips but I recall that the sf business press systematically underestimated the number of employees in San Francisco based on industry average floor space per employee that was far too high. They constantly moved us from one floor to another always with smaller desks. As for question B, Moffett Place alone was 1.9 million square feet, so…

I was in what amazon called double high density once. one guy had to duck under anoterh guys desk to get to his. so basically against fire code. the better way i've seen it there was where you will not quite bump into the person behind you if you push back. I was only in that once. usually I had an extra foot. I'm in low density right now it's good. Amazon never gave us smaller desks, they were always door desks. That would have gotten us more dense tho.

that's got nothing on what my animation co-workers dealt with in movies where they were just far enough not to bump elbows on the perimiter of a sound stage / mocap area. Worse they had a 2nd row of other coders above you on grating. They didn't let women on the upper deck due to look ups.

Re: Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet

#35

Post by bbor »

grogenaut wrote: post #24
oofta-boofta wrote: post #13

Google looked at how sailors share space on a sub and were like "yeah, that's the ticket". Hot-desking is the worst way to be in-office, on top of the worst way of working which is in-office. What happened to being a forward thinking and innovative company? These "geniuses" can't use their superior big brains just barely hiding under those infantilizing propeller hats to figure out a way to make remote work effective…

Is google actually hot desking or is that a extrapolation on them cutting office space.

TBF it's "two people share a desk on alternate days", and as the other commenter said, only in limited areas for now. How anyone thought that was a good idea, I have no idea.

Re: Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet

#36

Post by bbor »

alex_lav wrote: post #26
oofta-boofta wrote: post #13

Google looked at how sailors share space on a sub and were like "yeah, that's the ticket". Hot-desking is the worst way to be in-office, on top of the worst way of working which is in-office. What happened to being a forward thinking and innovative company? These "geniuses" can't use their superior big brains just barely hiding under those infantilizing propeller hats to figure out a way to make remote work effective…

> on top of the worst way of working which is in-office. It's funny how both sides of this debate present their opinions as fact

It _is_ objectively true that WFH is better for the environment. But oh well, so far wildfires are contained to just wildfire season, so not a big deal :))))))

Re: Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet

#37

Post by linguae »

thesuitonym wrote: post #14
oofta-boofta wrote: post #13

Google looked at how sailors share space on a sub and were like "yeah, that's the ticket". Hot-desking is the worst way to be in-office, on top of the worst way of working which is in-office. What happened to being a forward thinking and innovative company? These "geniuses" can't use their superior big brains just barely hiding under those infantilizing propeller hats to figure out a way to make remote work effective…

>What happened to being a forward thinking and innovative company? Google went public is what happened. You literally cannot make good decisions when you have to base everything around what will make the most profit for the shareholders this quarter.

I’m sometimes cynical about publicly-traded companies, but Google seemed more forward-thinking in its pre-Alphabet era, and Apple seemed to be very forward thinking from 1997-2011 when Steve Jobs was running the company. Being a publicly-traded company doesn’t automatically mean resorting to bean counting and other bad forms of management.

Re: Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet

#38

Post by bbor »

riku_iki wrote: post #18
slantedview wrote: post #12

How does this fit with return to office?

my guess is that they planed to grow previously, and built/leased bunch of offices, but growth didn't happen, and they cut many jobs, so now they shrink office space.

Honestly depending on the time scales you look at, this could be seen as "growing office space less quickly". They just built a massive campus in ATL and have two more coming up in MTV and CHI.

Re: Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet

#39

Post by lern_too_spel »

chubot wrote: post #25
oofta-boofta wrote: post #13

Google looked at how sailors share space on a sub and were like "yeah, that's the ticket". Hot-desking is the worst way to be in-office, on top of the worst way of working which is in-office. What happened to being a forward thinking and innovative company? These "geniuses" can't use their superior big brains just barely hiding under those infantilizing propeller hats to figure out a way to make remote work effective…

From 2012, to 2016, to 2020, google bled an incredible amount of key talent I think that was kinda known in the valley, but not sure any media really covered it Honestly a lot of the blame goes to Larry Page for turning the company toward G+, pushing top people toward Gundotra, the product failing quite badly, and Larry stepping back as CEO My view of Eric Schmidt is pretty neutral, but it was a little weird how Larr…

Google management has always been incompetent. It's just that now that economic conditions have forced them to make more drastic decisions that their incompetence is even more obvious.

Re: Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet

#40

Post by SanderNL »

oofta-boofta wrote: post #13

Google looked at how sailors share space on a sub and were like "yeah, that's the ticket". Hot-desking is the worst way to be in-office, on top of the worst way of working which is in-office. What happened to being a forward thinking and innovative company? These "geniuses" can't use their superior big brains just barely hiding under those infantilizing propeller hats to figure out a way to make remote work effective…

Their business revolves around ads. I don’t know where that’s going, but I’m not betting the house on it.

Their AI strategy has been a joke as far as I can tell. That’s not helping.

Their “regular” services are ok, but nothing I would pay for.

They are downsizing and dropping staff left and right. This might be a good signal: they are being realistic and riding this one out, but I’m not getting good vibes.

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