14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier this month, rumors surfaced about Facebook's impending move to much larger headquarters, Sun's former campus. That transaction is still in the works, apparently, but Facebook has also purchased some space near the Sun campus. It's unclear what Facebook would want with this space since it's also working on buying the Sun campus with enough space for a company several times bigger than Facebook, in terms of employees.
Palo Alto Online writes that Facebook purchased 312 and 314 Constitution Drive, two addresses very close to the proposed new Facebook headquarters and not too far away from the current ones.
Facebook didn't buy the properties directly, but acted via an intermediary, Giant Properties LLC, which is registered at an address owned by Facebook.
The newspaper also uncovered the value of Facebook-owned properties through the years. In 2007, they were worth $8 million and they doubled in value each year.
By 2010, they were valued at $63.4 million. If the rumored transaction closes, Facebook will own property worth several hundreds of millions of dollars.
Facebook currently owns several locations apart from its main headquarters which can't house all of the company's employees anymore. Still, moving into the former Sun headquarters, a huge property with plenty of office space should get rid of Facebook's space problems.
Facebook could simply be buying the new properties for some adjacent projects, less connected to the main product.
Facebook is known for its informal approach. Everyone, engineers, product managers, even Zuckerberg himself, shares a common space at the current headquarters, with no offices or other artificial boundaries.
There are also some questions about whether Facebook will be able to maintain its startup culture as it grows and moves into the more formal offices.
Every growing company has faced this, Google is facing a crisis of sorts trying to foster innovation and entrepreneurship within the confines of a big company with growing bureaucracy.