Is it a dream to visit Facebook headquarters? Not necessarily!
Do you know the Silicon Valley, right?
That place in California where the greatest tech companies in the worldare born and grow.
A place where many people go to have a tour and take photographs of the companies’ signs from outside, but where almost nobody goes into because they are really locked down places.
On the contrary…I was able to visit Facebook Headquarters, the social network par excellence or maybe it is better to say one among the first social networks invented.
And yeah! I had the chance to visit Facebook Headquarters, the famous social network! Right there in the Silicon Valley at 1, Hacker Street!
Before telling you about this super place, I want to explain you how I got there.
Guess what?! As usual I started to send really many emails to all the people I knew in Italy who were working for big companies and could be a contact.
Some time ago at an event of Salone dello Studente I had told you about, I had had the honor to talk on the stage with Facebook Italia number-one so…what better chance to contact him again?
An exchange of emails with people working for Facebook in several parts of the world and here I am. Ready to leave for California with an appointment fixed to visit Facebook Headquarters.
The big day is coming…I cannot wait to see the headquarters!
Just arrived in front of Facebook entrance we begin filling a lot of documents. Apart from the common areas, it is forbidden to take photos and shoot videos.
Veniamo accolti da un ragazzo italiano, Giorgio, che lavora in quegli uffici da 4 anni e si è trasferito a San Francisco con la moglie.
We are welcomed by an Italian guy – Giorgio – who has been working at those headquarters for 4 years and moved to San Francisco with his wife.
Giorgio tells us his story. Do you know how he got there? He started to take an interest in English songs while his parents were telling him not to waste time with music.
He kept going taking an interest in videogames while he was being told to do something useful and…he was contacted directly by Facebook via LinkedIn!
All this happened while he was still studying. Have you understood the importance of a serious profile on the social networks? A
Be careful: I mean the essence (what you can do) and not the form (he has got blue hair!).
After several very long interviews he was chosen.
He deals with Big Data. He is a leader team. He is happy and satisfied with his job.
He made us see a lot of Facebook premises and he asked me lots of questions about our activity, so I told him about our 10 rules:
From the “older” part where there are thousands of restaurants and different entertainments – you can really pick and choose – as far as the inside gym, the FabLab zone made by 3D printers and other tools to build and even so much more.
Facebook is a big company which is strongly expanding and that in few years doubled the number of employees. It also created the biggest open space in the world and now it is going to double it again creating another building of the same size next to it.
Facebook is really an immense reality, with really many people and a very high exponential growth.
It was an honor to see a tech reality like this from the inside!
The Headquarters are a proper city and inside you can find everything: all sorts of restaurants and stores, arriving as far as a bank and a craftsman repairing bicycles.
The big companies try to facilitate the employees at the utmost so that they don’t waste times (moving in San Francisco is really hard due to big distances and traffic).
Do you know what this photo down here represents? The back of the huge totem you can see here above with the Facebook writing.
It is the totem of the old bankrupt company which Facebook got the spaces from to found its headquarters.
It is kept there as a sort of warning to work always well!