A Look Inside Facebook's Campus, Part 1

Map of Facebook's Campus

Part 1 of 2. See Part 2 here.

I had the opportunity to visit Facebook's campus and I must say that it's pretty impressive. I can't think of many other companies, other than Google (from what I've heard), that offer the same level of benefits and perks. I took some unprofessional pictures (all on campus) to try and show off what I saw, but I didn't want to be too much of a burden for my host, Chiao. 

Facebook campus panorama

The main street that runs through the Facebook campus

First of all, there are 18 buildings on campus, which is pretty huge. One thing that I noticed is that the buildings are relatively flat with not many floors but I guess that's the luxury of having a lot of space out in Silicon Valley. There are also lot of shops and stores where employees can either get free or subsidized stuff.

Here is the view from Google Maps and notice the work "HACK" in the middle of the campus.

Hacker Culture
The culture at Facebook seems to be about doing things quickly and intelligently. The term "hacker" is not used in the illegal sense but more in the entrepreneurial, figure-out-a-solution-without-reinventing-the-wheel sense. There is a lot of motivational "propaganda" posters all over the place and a print shop on campus encourages employees to take or make their own posters. The design of the office spaces also seem to encourage self-expression with numerous whiteboard walls used for graffiti.

I left my mark with Garfield

Sarah added Gong Gong Bear

This is actually 2 stories tall, I took it from the second level

Two rockstar engineers, Chiao and Sarah!

Woodworking Shop
A subsidized woodworking shop opened just three weeks ago and the manager Larry was kind enough to show us his power tools. Yeah, that sounds kind of weird, but he was really passionate about what he does and it's nice to see something unexpected on campus.

Bike Shop & Bikes
There are quite a lot of random bikes scattered across the campus for people to freely take to get around. You don't have to bring them back anywhere, just leave them around for the next person. Love the concept and how open everything is.

Learn about and get your bike fixed.

Other Shops

You can get subsidized haircuts, visit the doctor, do your banking...why would you ever leave campus? ;)

Check out the FOOD at Facebook, with Part 2 of this post here!