I’ve been so busy during my stay here in San Francisco that I haven’t had the time to post much – less even go online, other than to upload pictures to Flickr. I’ve been leaving the house around 8am in the morning and getting back at around the same time the next day. I did however get to visit a ton of companies and startups in the area. As for how I got into all these places, either I knew a friend or Mike Malone did at each place.
I posted a few pictures from each place but if you want to see them all, visit my Flickr set. I’m in SF for WordCamp, which is going on right in front of me now.
Digg
Mike and I met up with Digg/Pownce designer Daniel Burka on Tuesday. Great guy, great companies.
Flickr
Flickr was among the most lively places. Cubicles are only half height and in the “bullpen” format, which facilitates fun activities such as shooting finger rockets across the room and faceball.
Yahoo!
I went back to Yahoo! to visit with friends from my internship last year and friends currently working there. An internal hack day had just begun when I got there.
Mint
Mint is a cutting-edge, pre-launch finance web app startup in Mountain View.
Flock
Flock is the social web browser I have talked about several times before. They’re within a block of Mint HQ and near Meebo HQ.
I visited Facebook on Wednesday when they announced their purchase of Parakey, a web OS startup by two of the Firefox guys, so it was understandably very busy and active. The environment is amazing and has a huge number of people that appear to be under 30 if not mostly under 25. Definitely a place I might consider working in the future.
Google had a strict policy about photos and makes visitors sign an NDA, so I could only snap a few pics outside. The free lunch was great though. There are many cafes in different buildings with a variety of foods.
And of course it wouldn’t be San Francisco without some fancy cars, such as this $440,000 Porsche Carrera GT.
update: I forgot about OpenDNS.
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What no pics of the Cupertino giant? (I know, it’s about 40 min. outside of SF).
Looks like you had fun :-)
Awesome pics, Paul. I agree with you, Facebook would be a cool place to work.
P.S. Have fun at WordCamp!
Looks like you are having a blast Paul.
So Google are happy to use photos of the entire world in it’s products but the very people using those products aren’t allowed to take photos of Google? That’s pathetic! Great post though. Good to see where all the good stuff takes place.
Interesting insight – thanks for sharing them
I’d be happy working at any of these companies :) Great pictures!
Thanks for the post Paul. Now that you sold FlickrSlidr, you can take me to all these places!
Thanks for sharing the pictures. Looks like you’ve made almost everywhere. Cheers.
Oh man you are one lucky man!.. did you get any free software?
@MattFM,
Google’s policy is against taking photos inside of the buildings, mostly because there are random whiteboards and other potentially sensitive information visible, and the NDA doesn’t apply to viewers of the photos obviously. There’s no problem with taking photos outside.
CARZ! DO WANT!
Seriously, SF is full of nice cars, isn’t it? This would never fly in Boston, where everyone drives like a bat out of hell. It was nice finally meeting you in person at Wordcamp today. Maybe we can hang out tomorrow.
@Phil Freo
Yeah, fair enough then.
Its like a who’s who of the internet big boys! Thanks for sharing, what was it about Facebook above all the others that made you think you wanted to work for them?
Man, you should’ve told me about your visit at Google–I could have arranged a lunch or something with other cool people (also known as Techie Greeks), et alli.
That main room for facebook looks like a great place to work.
Great places to work. Some rooms looks very chaotic, but this is what we need to create new things. :-)
nice pics
http://www.techrythm.com
I’m supremely jealous, because those are the places I’d like to visit on a SF vacation, but I don’t think I could convince my girlfriend to come along, much less leverage many “insider” contacts. You probably aren’t in a rush to tour the software company I work for in MN? Gray cubes, few colors on the wall, not exactly a hotbed of creativity and cheerfulness.
Thanks for sharing the pics though. BTW- that Carrera GT probably has 5-10k worth of wheels and tires, so I’d say more like 450k. :)
Awesome pics man, I wish I could fly out to San Fran right now. I guess I have to live vicariously through you for now. LOL
nice pics…..
Paul,
Sorry I missed you at WordCamp (was sick). Maybe catch you and friends at Lunch 2.0 in SF and South Bay? There’s a cool intern Lunch 2.0 at Meebo coming up on Wednesday.
Take care,
terry
http://lunch20.com/
@terry – unfortunately I’m already back in Atlanta as I’m taking summer classes. I’ll let you know when I’m out there again. =)
Glad to finally meet you, Paul, albeit very briefly. Hope to see you again soon. Have fun taking your summer classes.
Looks like you’re having fun in SF again this year.
I stumbledupon an interesting tool that you might take a look at. Here’s the link (hopefully it doesn’t get stripped out of the posting): http://www.xinureturns.com/?lang=us
Great pictures, Paul. It’s nice to see the inner workings of some of the sites we visit all the time. Also nice to see that they’re real, with real people working in them. I just hope my own business takes off some day, when people realize there’s a great product out there!
Paul, thanks for sharing the photos. Interesting to see who’s still missing some furniture because they don’t have systems in places yet (one good office manager and you’re set). I think I told you to make sure you got lunch at Google. One of the best meals in the valley and the price is right.
Wow, such an interesting tech HQ visit in SF! I hope that we have that sort of environment all together here in Chicago. Well, I enjoyed it and thanks for show us these great companies in close up…
awesome pics, I’d love to work for Flickr or Facebook..
at flickr do they all use Apple? ‘cuz that’d make it even more awesome..;-)
thank you for bringing us these photos!
greets form Chile.
jp.
I didn’t know that the Flickr HQ was separate from Yahoo! Why is that? Have they just not merged yet? Or are they keeping the two HQs separate for a reason?
How did you get hooked up with all of these sweet places?
What other cool things did you do in SF? (I am headed out there in a couple weeks, looking for some tech related activities…)
Missing LA much…..
Paul, thanks for sharing the photos. Interesting to see who’s still missing some furniture because they don’t have systems in places yet (one good office manager and you’re set).
nice pictures dude!
same porsche is there..watch;)http://youtube.com/watch?v=MkLjCYjqGDU
thanks for sharing the photos. Interesting to see who’s still missing some furniture because they don’t have systems in places yet (one good office manager and you’re set).
you are lucky man
I know that it’s a bit late to comment here, but I’d like to add that there isn’t too much tech stuff going on here in NYC – could you point me to a startup or two on the East Coast?
All young casual dudes. I was young once. Still casual though. (sloppy more like) but always working. That Porsche looks cheap. Look at those silly rims. My 1983 mazda rx7 blows that thing away ;0) I’d do it though.
Hi Paul Great pictures… Great Work…
VRAlexander is everywhere! That’s his infamous Carrera GT you have a picture of. His videos are all over YouTube and Streetfire.net.
I think Digg definitely have the cooler looking offices compared to the rest of them. The colour choice and aesthetics are really nice. Everyone else looks pretty normal for an office. I like the blue at the Digg offices.
It may be, though, that because they haven’t moved in yet things look so good. There’s no boxes and things lying around. I’ll give it two months… then it would be good to check it out again and see if it still looks so stylish.
These places all look very fun and inviting. I’m going to venture a guess that the atmosphere there is usually good and playful.
Thanks for the theme. I will just still have to get a different header image.
How lucky you are to be able to visit them.