Boom! Google pays $1B for Yahoo Sunnyvale sites it bought from Verizon | Hacker News Reader

Boom! Google pays $1B for Yahoo Sunnyvale sites it bought from Verizon

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33 pointsperryh222 comments

So how long until an annexation request for Googleopolis combining all these purchased parcels and becoming a city upon itself. That seems like a likely endgame here. Invokes a bit of a mix between a company town a mining operation might have, and a dystopian future.

Or maybe it’s a utopian future. I’d love to see how cities could operate differently if designed from the ground up with lots of funds to get it right. I wouldn’t be too worried for Googles who would choose to live there, since they wouldn’t at all be economically trapped if they didn’t like it.

They'd probably look a lot like Irvine CA.

In general top down master planned design works out quite poorly. https://www.citylab.com/life/2018/06/sleepy-in-songdo-koreas...

Wasn’t that the idea behind EPCOT?

Details about 10 min into this video: https://youtu.be/sLCHg9mUBag

It’s going to be a BlackMirror future: shiny and happy on the outside, soul-less depressing on the inside.

Maybe. But college campuses are quite planned and they’re not all depressing.

Moffet Field is probably the tough part. It's true they operate it but it's a federal air field. Privatizing the ownership may be challenging.

Feudalism has since been destroyed. Generally people want to increase democracy, not the other way around.

Feudalism and democracy are compatible.

I'm not interested in arguing against Feudalism, in the same way, I'm not interested in arguing against flat earth, or child labor. Those things have been put to bed a long time ago. There is nothing left to discuss.

I'm not arguing for or against either.

I'm just saying getting to elect your landlord doesn't necessarily make you any less of a peasant. Feudalism is about property rights of land and democracy is about political representation. They operate on different axes.

Feudalism wouldn't be compatible with capitalism or socialism because they are also about property, so that might be a better choice.

Politics IS about property and how it gets distributed. For example, the largest creation of private property in history was during the first years of the USSR when the revolutionary government created an immense amount of private farms. When Stalin came to power, he then took them away during collectivization.

If that isn't an extreme example of how politics and property are interdependent than I don't know what is. So I think your characterization of politics is wrong.

Interesting thing is, I can't see them needing both this land and the downtown San Jose land. I think the latter is a ruse just to park cash, and they can blame the leftist activism there to shift primary building in Sunnyvale.

Remember when Yahoo turned down $1 million to buy Google ?

They would have run it into the ground. Maybe their search would have gotten a little better but Yahoo wouldn't be what Google is today.

Is this going to drive up property prices in Sunnyvale? Amazon, FB, Google, LinkedIn/Mountain View, Apple are all in Sunnyvale. I heard that Uber is moving there as well.

Apple's mostly in Cupertino, including the spaceship.

These parcels are between 237 and the bay. There's no residences around there. A lot is former Lockheed land.

I was at Lockheed while they were selling off some of that land and the [then new] "Moffett Towers" were being constructed [constant, unavoidable pile-driving for years]. When the CEO was talking about such things as "cost savings in the coming year" it was clear that meant "reducing the land footprint in Sunnyvale" amongst other things such as layoffs at same. At the time I imagined which few, minimum buildings would remain if//when the trend continued.

The only "residence" there is the dump for the goats. For humans, it's just about 3 miles directly south on Mathilda Ave; I lived there for a couple years while I was at Lockheed.

It's so strange to drive up Mathilda and not see the Blue Cube or buildings 101-102 anymore.

I agree.

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