GoogleplexI recently went to a Stanford Engineering Alumni Association seminar held at Google.  It was my first time at the “Googleplex.” 

My first thought when I arrived, “I’m back on campus.”   Jeans, long hair, rows of colorful umbrellas outside the cafeteria, volleyball, marker boards covered with marker-graffiti (I assume what I saw was the famous idea board, or one of them), nearly everyone is under 40 — just like the good ol’ days of grad school.

When you live around here you hear stories about the Googleplex and what it’s like to work there.  So I was prepared for some of it.

There were, however, two things I wasn’t expecting:  whimsical architecture and tight security.  The architecture is more colorful and whimsical than the link suggests.  For example, there is a building designed to look like one of the stories has fallen over and is leaning into the floor below it.  It creates a bit of an optical illusion.  

I couldn’t find a picture of it on the web.  If anyone knows the building and has a picture, and you don’t mind sharing it with the world, I’d like to post it.

As far as the security, as soon as I walked through a door there was a guard telling me where to go, and then he watched to make sure I went there.  At every door. 

After the seminar I hung out at the bottom of the stairs reading the idea board.  I wasn’t interested in the board.  I just wanted to see how long the guard would let me loiter.  I was there for 5 minutes.  Then I decided I had better things to do with my time than bait Google security.  I left.

It was fun to see this place that is the subject of so many stories. 

Here’s an aerial shot of the Googleplex.

Here are a few more shots from the central hub of the campus taken by a Google employee.  The pictures are a couple years old but it looks the same today.