Google seems to be becoming just as famous for their workplaces
as they are for their immensely successful products and website
that has allowed for such luxury. Starting with around 350 workers
in a massive 75,000 square foot facility in Cambridge, to now
leasing an additional 60,000 square foot property that is under
construction with 2 new floors, Google has plenty of room for
increased staff in the Cambridge
neighborhood. Google employees are spoiled with gourmet food, nerdy
games to play during breaks and other forms of entertainment to
keep the morale high with the proven results that happy employees
leads to better production and people who actually want to come to
work and stay at work.
In the past eight years, Google has seen its primary location in
The Greater Boston Area change three times, but for good reason.
As we recently
reported, there has been an ever-increasing need for major
tech-savvy corporations to have a presence in the bustling and
growing Kendall Square
neighborhood of Cambridge. Major
companies with a global reach and influence like Google and its
chief competitor, Microsoft, are situating themselves in the area
because of the vast array of intellectual capital piping out of the
city of Boston every year. Microsoft owns nearly as much territory
in Cambridge as Google,
and Microsoft already envisions moving hundreds of employees from
around the world and from its Waltham, Massachusetts location to be
absorbed in the bustling city of Cambridge.
So why Boston, or Cambridge for that
matter for garnering all of this attention out of all the nearby
areas? A main attraction is that these larger firms are able to
take control of smaller companies as Google did by engulfing ITA, a
travel-software developing business for a cool $700 million
dollars. The ability to also collaborate with all of the other
great minds that are flocking to the Cambridge side of the
Charles River is very appealing. Rich Miner, co-founder of Android
who is now was bought out by Google to support their mobile
arsenal, has stayed on with Google and helped setup an important
program. This was the Venture Caf, which is a weekly event for
entrepreneurs in the area to meet at Kendall Square at the
Cambridge Innovation
Center. Movements to bring more intelligence into the Cambridge scene aids
in the effort for these individuals to network and learn from one
another in their attempt to further their own products.
With such a small workforce here compared to the global scale
that Google has established, one would be quite perplexed to learn
that the rather select, yet growing Google Boston is responsible
for much of the product development, decision making and releases
that drive the entire global tech industry. The pure talent that is
available here is hard to come across in other cities. As reported
in a prior blog post, Mark
Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, also wished he never left
the Boston area after briefly attending Harvard University. See the
difference now is that the vacuum no longer is coming from locales
such as Silicon Valley. There is no must to go anywhere, but a
choice to make camp in Boston, a place building a new reputation of
its own.
Googles venture capital being embedded into Cambridge has even
caused six prospering start-ups, one notable being SCVNGR the savvy
smart-phone application firm, to have confidence as to the
direction of the technological market in Cambridge. So with
bigger firms laying the foundation for smaller firms (like Facebook
once was), start-ups now see value in staying in Boston or moving
their business to the area for the prolonged future.
So clearly this transition in the location of where these
tech-sector giants and start-ups are moving is great news for them.
What does this mean for the average Bostonian? Well, Google
reported that in 2010 alone, $2.8 Billion dollars of economic
activity was gained by the State of Massachusetts for its
businesses and non-profits all from Google. With a likely couple
hundred or more individuals to join the Google Boston team sometime
soon, and as more firms continue to develop the area and grow as a
business, it appears that this amount of money is due to only grow
along with The Greater Boston Area itself!
Related Posts:
- Kendall Square
Neighborhood: MIT Improving Real Estate - Facebooks Mark
Zuckerberg: If I were starting [Facebook] now, I would have stayed
in Boston. - Boston Commercial and
Residential Real Estate: Boston Biotech Building Boom
More information: BostonMagazine.com