California HQ Pics

July 21, 2007 · 51 comments

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.

Digg HQ SF
Digg HQ SF
Digg HQ SF
Digg HQ SF

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.

Flickr HQ SF
Flickr HQ SF

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.

Yahoo HQ Sunnyvale

Mint

Mint is a cutting-edge, pre-launch finance web app startup in Mountain View.

Mint HQ

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.

Flock HQ Mountain View

Facebook

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.

Facebook HQ Palo Alto
Facebook HQ Palo Alto
Facebook HQ Palo Alto

Google

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.

Google HQ
Google HQ

And of course it wouldn’t be San Francisco without some fancy cars, such as this $440,000 Porsche Carrera GT.

Porsche Carrera GT

update: I forgot about OpenDNS.

OpenDNS HQ
OpenDNS HQ

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{ 46 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Ted July 21, 2007 at 3:36 pm

What no pics of the Cupertino giant? (I know, it’s about 40 min. outside of SF).

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2 Ash Haque July 21, 2007 at 3:50 pm

Looks like you had fun :-)

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3 Micahville July 21, 2007 at 3:51 pm

Awesome pics, Paul. I agree with you, Facebook would be a cool place to work.

P.S. Have fun at WordCamp!

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4 Coop July 21, 2007 at 3:52 pm

Looks like you are having a blast Paul.

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5 MattFM July 21, 2007 at 4:10 pm

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.

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6 Chris Marshall July 21, 2007 at 4:55 pm

Interesting insight – thanks for sharing them

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7 Andreas July 21, 2007 at 5:29 pm

I’d be happy working at any of these companies :) Great pictures!

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8 Blake Brannon July 21, 2007 at 8:43 pm

Thanks for the post Paul. Now that you sold FlickrSlidr, you can take me to all these places!

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9 Greg Ashbaugh July 21, 2007 at 9:45 pm

Thanks for sharing the pictures. Looks like you’ve made almost everywhere. Cheers.

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10 Jase July 21, 2007 at 9:54 pm

Oh man you are one lucky man!.. did you get any free software?

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11 Phil Freo July 22, 2007 at 1:48 am

@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.

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12 Sean McBride July 22, 2007 at 3:13 am

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.

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13 MattFM July 22, 2007 at 3:51 am

@Phil Freo
Yeah, fair enough then.

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14 Adam July 22, 2007 at 6:44 pm

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?

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15 thatha July 22, 2007 at 9:09 pm

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.

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16 Don Wilson July 22, 2007 at 10:52 pm

That main room for facebook looks like a great place to work.

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17 Lola July 23, 2007 at 7:05 am

Great places to work. Some rooms looks very chaotic, but this is what we need to create new things. :-)

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18 nithin July 23, 2007 at 9:51 am

nice pics
http://www.techrythm.com

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19 Andy Atkinson July 23, 2007 at 11:42 am

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. :)

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20 Adim Ofunne July 23, 2007 at 12:00 pm

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

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21 David Moore July 23, 2007 at 4:18 pm

nice pics…..

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22 terry chay July 23, 2007 at 10:35 pm

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/

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23 Paul Stamatiou July 23, 2007 at 11:58 pm

@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. =)

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24 Yohannes Wijaya July 24, 2007 at 3:41 am

Glad to finally meet you, Paul, albeit very briefly. Hope to see you again soon. Have fun taking your summer classes.

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25 Rial July 24, 2007 at 5:49 pm

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

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26 Kevin Peterson July 27, 2007 at 8:53 am

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!

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27 Dave July 30, 2007 at 10:48 pm

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.

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28 David Chen August 2, 2007 at 1:29 pm

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…

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29 Zach Kollegger September 3, 2007 at 7:58 am

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..;-)

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30 Juan Pablo September 6, 2007 at 3:14 pm

thank you for bringing us these photos!

greets form Chile.

jp.

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31 Mike October 4, 2007 at 12:36 pm

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?

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32 Mike October 5, 2007 at 12:12 am

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…)

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33 Nazira October 24, 2007 at 3:59 am

Missing LA much…..

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34 MarkF. November 12, 2007 at 12:05 am

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).

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35 Woody January 21, 2008 at 7:27 am

nice pictures dude!

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36 marx January 25, 2008 at 4:44 am

same porsche is there..watch;)http://youtube.com/watch?v=MkLjCYjqGDU

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37 raffyman February 4, 2008 at 7:23 pm

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).

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38 kumpul February 14, 2008 at 12:09 am

you are lucky man

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39 Michael Perlman April 24, 2008 at 5:40 pm

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?

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40 dreamweaverx May 2, 2008 at 2:55 am

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.

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41 SwamiNathan May 20, 2008 at 5:55 am

Hi Paul Great pictures… Great Work…

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42 Erick June 15, 2008 at 6:48 pm

VRAlexander is everywhere! That’s his infamous Carrera GT you have a picture of. His videos are all over YouTube and Streetfire.net.

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43 shopping July 8, 2008 at 8:34 am

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.

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44 Emil Swenson July 8, 2008 at 5:33 pm

These places all look very fun and inviting. I’m going to venture a guess that the atmosphere there is usually good and playful.

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45 sohbet June 12, 2009 at 2:51 pm

Thanks for the theme. I will just still have to get a different header image.

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46 Dana June 29, 2009 at 12:46 pm

How lucky you are to be able to visit them.

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