Facebook is thinking about opening up an office in San Francisco, which would be a huge boon for employees who have been dreaming of an easier commute, the San Francisco Business Times reports, based on conversations with three real-estate sources.
Most of the biggest tech companies in Silicon Valley, including Google, Apple, and Yahoo, have a smaller office in San Francisco, but Facebook has always decided to keep its Bay Area employees together at its huge Menlo Park headquarters.
This decision has brought grief for city-based employees because the commute can take up to two hours with traffic, which can feel like “a soul-crushing waste of time” despite the Wi-Fi-enabled free shuttles.
Anecdotally, this issue comes up in almost every conversation we’ve had with Facebook employees. Apparently, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made it clear that he prefers to keep all employees together to foster creativity and better collaboration between teams. Facebook has even paid employees at least $10,000 to move closer to the office.
But Facebook is now reportedly contemplating leasing “hundreds of thousands” of square feet, though the plans are very preliminary, sources tell the Business Times’ Roland Li.
Though, having a smaller city office can cause its own problems, like having employees jockey for the chance to work there. We’ve heard that Google, for instance, has had to warn employees that they can’t work in the San Francisco office on Fridays just to make it easier to launch into the weekend.
Facebook didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
As reported by Business Insider