As you approach the offices of Facebook, 30 miles south of
San Francisco, there is a 2m high concrete monument displaying the iconic
thumbs up Facebook logo. It boldly welcomes you to the Facebook campus. What
few people know is that on the other side of this monument is the logo for Sun
Microsystems. Back in the 1990s Sun was a leading pioneer in the computing
sector, but they failed to evolve. The world of high technology is
fickle. Only the bold survive and Sun refused to embrace change. Instead
of being open to innovation Sun stuck to the old ways and rapidly
became toast. When Facebook moved onto the site they adopted the Sun
welcome sign, turned it around and put their own logo on the back. It serves as
a stark reminder that surviving in this sector is by no means guaranteed. You
have to keep thinking differently.
Fortunately thinking differently is what Facebook do in
spades. My visit was arranged through a good friend, Kevin Slover. In an
organization where the average age is 28, Kevin, being the wrong side of
50, is positively ancient. Yet he has the maturity and experience that comes
from spending a career working on tough problems, and has
miraculously not lost that childlike quality of thinking without prejudice
and exploring without fear. He bubbles away with a constant stream of
ideas. I understood less than 10% but I knew I was in the presence
of someone who will change the world (and by nodding every few minutes and
saying 'My word, how interesting' he never realized my stupefying
ignorance).
The Facebook mission is 'to make the world more open and
connected'. Kevin is working on a groundbreaking project that, through the
mindboggling use of lasers and satellite aircraft, will provide internet access
to the 4bn+ people who do not have the telecoms infrastructure that we enjoy in
the developed world. These are typically the same populations that lack access
to clean drinking water or adequate sanitation, also caused by a lack of
critical infrastructure. In comparison, internet coverage might seem a low
priority, but the educational, social and economic benefits are impossible to
refute. If successful, Kevin's project will deliver the internet
without requiring traditional infrastructure. Like this Facebook project,
there are some notable water projects which attempt to address the
same lack-of-infrastructure challenge (dlo Haiti for example), but we need
more. There is much the water sector can learn from Facebook's approach.
The Facebook campus is a cross between a modern theme park
and the hippest university one could ever imagine. There is a Main Street,
filled with quality restaurants serving free food to the 5000+ staff based
there. There are free bikes and everywhere you look there are bright young
minds beavering away. It is like a massive human bee colony.
Even inside the buildings, where the real work happens, the
quirky we-think-differently vibe is obvious at every turn. Every workstation
has an electronic desk which can be raised or lowered depending on whether
you want to stand or sit. Some even have treadmills. I walked past a
meeting where Sheryl Sandberg (the COO) was in an intense discussion.
Everything looked normal, apart from she was barefoot. I didn't see Mark
Zuckerberg, but I passed his desk, situated in the centre of the open plan workspace, next
to the worlds biggest goldfish bowl conference room.
Even the meeting rooms are named with a freedom of
expression that literally beggars belief. While I was there
Kevin attended a short meeting in a room named 'Rats live on no evil
star'. Other room names include "I know it is cheesy,
but I feel grate' and 'The door is alarmed, calm it down'. My personal
favourite however was 'Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a
banana'.
If the room had had a Like button I would have clicked it.
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