14 DAY TRIAL // Google recently announced plans to hire at least 6,000 more people this year. Facebook is not getting close to the web giant in this department just yet, but it has some bold plans of its own, to grow to 9,400 employees at its current Menlo Park facilities by 2017.
That's a huge increase over the current 1,400 Facebook employees that work in the old Palo Alto offices.
What's more, it's a big increase in the capacity of the former Sun Microsystems campus it bought earlier this year.
Facebook needs the additional capacity if it plans to grow at the current rate. The web company is on track to become one of the biggest in the world, it's already one of the very biggest by valuation alone, and it needs the workforce to continue the momentum and expand into new areas.
Facebook is well aware of the problem, this is why it moved to acquire the quite massive former Sun Campus, the headquarters of the once mighty tech company.
But Facebook also acquired land and buildings close to that location, leaving some to wonder what exactly was the company going to do with them. There's no need to wonder anymore, Facebook's ambitious plans have been revealed.
Facebook plans to upgrade the Sun Campus, which was built to house about 3,600 employees, to make accommodate about 6,600 people once Facebook is done with it.
But that's not all, it also plans to build five new buildings on the land it bought across the highway which will then be able to house some 2,800 more employees. This will be called the Facebook West Campus, the Sun Campus will be renamed the East Campus.
There are a few snags in Facebook's plans, mainly the Menlo Park's officials which are concerned about traffic issues. Facebook says that this will not be a problem and that it will take measures to keep car traffic down on the two locations.