Steve Jobs Pitches Cupertino on Stunning New Apple Campus

[Hattig]

That was just a government parasite being her parasitical self.

Or trying to get something extra for the residents she represents.

It's just that when a company wants to turn an ugly urban car park and cubey offices into a large park with a stylish building, you don't have much to bargain with, unlike the company building on virgin land that needs to bribe the local government and residents.

The councilman asking about safety and pollution sounded like a complete toolbag

That sounds like a reasonable question to me, given that there will be a gas powered generator on site.

 

[manu chao]

Jeez the onslaught of patently ridiculous question shows just how large the disparity is between the political-statist-do-nothings and the private producers like Apple.

It is also partly a question of 'pay grade'. You cannot expect the councillors of a small town to be on the same level as the CEO of one the biggest companies of the world. Let Steve talk with a cabinet secretary (government minister) and things are a bit more on the same level.

 

[Michael Scrip]

Now don't comment about them anymore and all will be well.

Here's an idea... how about not telling people what to do over the Internet?

Or a better idea... why not comment on what started this in the first place?

The topic was how much the new Apple campus would cost. You ignored that and instead told me that I shouldn't be in the construction business (which I assure you... I will not)

There have been 200 comment made on this article... and you're the only person to pick up on my "metal building" comment.

Thanks for the attention... but really.

So... getting back on topic... how much do you think this new Apple campus will cost?

(I will only accept replies pertaining to that question)

 

[iggypod]

When I first saw this article heading in my Reeder feeds this morning, I assumed it was a Scoopertino story.

Now that's some arch-itecture.

 

[Newfiebill]

Wait. Why are they planting apricot orchards, rather than Apple orchards?

Because the Apricot Trees are already there on Site. Some of this land was an Apricot Orchard.

 

[fattire357]

Poor Steve just has to stand there listening to these Council people grovel, sleaze and weasel Free Wifi, Apple Stores and money out of him.

The council people are just doing their job. The question "what will this give back to the community" is so commonly asked it could almost be considered favoritism or corrupt if it wasn't asked.

Technically however, you only have to worry about giving back to the community if you are filing as a non-profit for tax purposes, so I thought Steve's reply about not paying taxes was appropriate and pretty funny.

 

[Shivetya]

Reminds me of the Umbrella Corporation.
Especially with the underground subway if it is built.

and not in a good way either

 

[KnightWRX]

Also, what could you expect from a council meeting dealing with such a huge project in 20 minutes? Sure, the "what is in for the city" question was stupid, but so was the answer of Jobs regarding the question of security and safety.

I thought the "What's in it for the city" question was pretty decent. Seriously, is Steve just wanting to build a Ivory tower for himself or is he building something that will help the city, surrounding area, state and even the country grow and prosper ?

What is in it for Cupertino long term and what makes this project more valuable than the other 3 dozen commercial projects that they were pitched by other players over the last XX weeks ?

I thought the "we pay taxes, that's enough" bit was quite arrogant. A better answer would've been "this extra building capacity will enable us to hire more of your citizens to our corporate positions, which means decent wages and job creation for the city. Sure, we could do free wifi, but we'd rather keep a few more of the citizens of this region employed."

We're currently having a province wide debate over a frickin Arena in Quebec right now. Of course, people have asked "What the hell is in it for us ?" and you know what, the biggest promoter behind it didn't freaking answer "We'll pay taxes". He's trying to bring in an extra NHL team which will create visibility for the city, jobs for managing the organisation, boost the local economy in that part of the city and help other surrounding businesses grow. Sure there's no "free wifi" in there, but that is much more than just "hey, we pay taxes, that should be enough for you if I just want to build a big statue of myself".

 

[jc1350]

In all honesty, wifi should be free. Anywhere.

Exactly. There are no costs for the hardware and network connections behind that wifi, I'm sure.

It's California. If Apple did provide free wifi, it would probably be sued by some "wifi = health problems" fanatics.

 

[fattire357]

Because the Apricot Trees are already there on Site. Some of this land was an Apricot Orchard.

If you went to this area back in the 1950's much of this land was farming land, and the fruit it was most known for was Apricots. It's a little bit local community pride.

Planting Apricots is a good way of saying, we're part of this community.

 

[manu chao]

I always thought you would have to be able to speak English in the US to work for a government body and also have a high level of qualification. (...) We are probably a bit old fashioned in this sense in Europe.

To be a counselor, you just have to be elected, no qualifications needed. Like in any representative democracy, you are there to represent the people.

And regarding the integration of citizens (or just plain residents) of foreign background into the formal areas of society, which includes politics, Europe is a bit old fashioned, a bit too old fashioned. If a significant portion of society is not represented in politics (and other leading functions of the civil society), that is not good for society.

 

[Jcoz]

Please never go into the Data center design and building business. How can someone even make a comment like this... Just a metal warehouse... wow.

While you are certainly correct on that point, it wasn't actually HIS point, message boards are so ridiculous with these types of things. What he was saying was concerning the difference between building a data center and building an office building with these types of architectural features, built to house 13,000 workers.

Having built a data center and office and residential buildings I can tell that in that respect he was correct, that the challenges in building a data center hold no where near the scope of work or cost.

Which was the effing point, which apparently went completely over your head when you went off on an inconsequential detail....

Forrest, trees, whatnot. Chill the **** out.

How typical of an American to forget the words of one of its great leaders.

John F. Kennedy is rolling in his grave hearing you propose the country should do something for a citizen instead of the opposite.

Right because this is exactly what Kennedy was envisioning when he said that. Free wifi and more taxes in return for permission to replace buildings on ones own property.

Got it chief.

 

[KnightWRX]

If you went to this area back in the 1950's much of this land was farming land, and the fruit it was most known for was Apricots. It's a little bit local community pride.

Planting Apricots is a good way of saying, we're part of this community.

I'm sure it has nothing to do with Apricot seeds being used as an alternative treatment for cancer. There's no symbolism in that and it's just a big coincidence.

 

[fattire357]

I'm sure it has nothing to do with Apricot seeds being used as an alternative treatment for cancer. There's no symbolism in that and it's just a big coincidence.

Are you being serious? I know sarcasm is hard to convey over the internet, so I'll take you seriously and assume you aren't being sarcastic:


What?

 

[Jcoz]

I thought the "What's in it for the city" question was pretty decent. Seriously, is Steve just wanting to build a Ivory tower for himself or is he building something that will help the city, surrounding area, state and even the country grow and prosper ?

What is in it for Cupertino long term and what makes this project more valuable than the other 3 dozen commercial projects that they were pitched by other players over the last XX weeks ?

I thought the "we pay taxes, that's enough" bit was quite arrogant. A better answer would've been "this extra building capacity will enable us to hire more of your citizens to our corporate positions, which means decent wages and job creation for the city. Sure, we could do free wifi, but we'd rather keep a few more of the citizens of this region employed."

We're currently having a province wide debate over a frickin Arena in Quebec right now. Of course, people have asked "What the hell is in it for us ?" and you know what, the biggest promoter behind it didn't freaking answer "We'll pay taxes". He's trying to bring in an extra NHL team which will create visibility for the city, jobs for managing the organisation, boost the local economy in that part of the city and help other surrounding businesses grow. Sure there's no "free wifi" in there, but that is much more than just "hey, we pay taxes, that should be enough for you if I just want to build a big statue of myself".

What other "players" are you talking about. That's not city property, it's Apples. And they are replacing buildings and parking lots with landscape for a large part of that, how much permission should they even need for this type of project, and why?

 

[ggg05a]

They should do a combination of solutions.

All that roof space would be good for the solar panels and all that land would be good for a few windmill generators as well.

Are you daft? Why would someone who is trying to be eco friendly use solar panels?

A) Making them is very toxic
B) Disposing of them is very toxic, and absent us ejecting them into space each panel will be a stain on the planet for centuries to come.

 

[Jcoz]

I'm sure it has nothing to do with Apricot seeds being used as an alternative treatment for cancer. There's no symbolism in that and it's just a big coincidence.

Yes, god knows the only way to obtain enough apricot seeds to save steves life is to beg a city council to let him build a billion-dollar facility and plant an orchard of apricot trees himself......

In four ******ng years.

See that's the beauty of this plan, its simplicity.

His troubles are over, dude.

 

[rufwork]

Wow, this all feels much too bucket-listy. He did not look well.

 

[Yujenisis]

One of the city councilors asked what the citizens of Cupertino would get from the new campus, and in particular brought up a free Wi-Fi network, like Google offers in Mountain View. Steve responded that Apple was the largest taxpayer in Cupertino and he felt that the tax benefits to having a company like Apple in Cupertino was benefit enough and the city should be providing a service like that.

"If we can get out of paying taxes, we would be glad to provide free Wi-Fi."

Anyone else surprised Steve's quote didn't go something like this: "If we can get out of paying taxes, like Google, we would be glad to provide free Wi-Fi."

Google is quite famous for their creative accounting to avoid paying literally billions in taxes owed to the U.S Government. Sadly, Google isn't alone in cheating the taxpayer. But good on Jobs to have the class to not call Google out directly.

References:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_44/b4201043146825.htm
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/google-2-4-rate-shows-how-60-billion-u-s-revenue-lost-to-tax-loopholes.html

 

[tigres]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

How do you ask that man for anything from a city council standpoint. They are just so happy to keep the roots there.
talk about solidifying a tax base for the next few decades. Most cities would just roll over for this opportunity, probably giving it away tax free.

Shows Steve is loyal, and remembers his roots. No surprise.

 

[goosnarrggh]

Seems weird for a company with 12,000 employees to build a new HQ that holds 13,000. Surely they'd have outgrown the new HQ before it's even completed.

The plan is not to open up this new facility and then shut down everything else. Rather, the plan is to use this facility as the new flagship office location, but still retain their other assets such as Infinite Loop.

So, if they currently have office space for 12,000 employees, and this new facility will be able to hold 13,000 employees, then they'll effectively be more than doubling their overall capacity to be able to accommodate up to 25,000 employees going forward.

 

[Jcoz]

I was just ironic, you know. I think the English of the Council members was not that bad as stated by the European guy. Sure, you could hear a Chinese accent, but the grammar was ok!

Also, what could you expect from a council meeting dealing with such a huge project in 20 minutes? Sure, the "what is in for the city" question was stupid, but so was the answer of Jobs regarding the question of security and safety.

Actually it wasn't. There are already laws governing how to safely build buildings, you have to pass inspections, adhere to regulations.....

There are already check and balances in place for that. It was a ridiculous question.

It would be like Ford asking to build a type of car and council members asking, "will it have airbags and pass this country's typical emissions standards?"

 

[wovel]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Why would you punish investors by intentionally devaluing a growth stock? It appears you really do not understand how dividends work

 

[lazyrighteye]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

One ring to rule them all.

 

[Sackvillenb]

Wowzers...

Although this is a little... extravagant... it's pretty damn cool! And it comes with it's own power plant and apricot orchards!!! I imagine it would be pretty awesome to work there...