Can Google beat the new-office curse?
Google is following in the high-tech footsteps of many Silicon Valley companies before it by dreaming big and building or leasing large new offices to accommodate a swelling employee roster.
The search giant announced on Wednesday plans to build a 1 million-square-foot campus at the NASA Ames Research Center, not far from its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters, which is dubbed the “Googleplex.”
Of course, some Silicon Valley companies are easily identified by their buildings. Oracle’s shimmering green towers, for example, are a landmark for drivers on the Valley’s Highway 101. And Sun Microsystems turned a historic mental-health facility just a 20-minute drive south from Oracle into a major office park.
But numerous others with grandiose plans overspent in the valley’s boom years, only to be humbled when the tech bubble burst. That includes Silicon Graphics, whose former offices Google is now subleasing.
Full article: C|net
