Give a company a $200 million investment round, and it’s going to want to hire a lot more people. Hire a lot more people, and that company’s going to need a bigger office.
Twitter, for so long one of the most well-known tech business fixtures of San Francisco, is outgrowing its current office location, and reports say the company might be moving its headquarters south to Brisbane. Specifically, Twitter could fill the former Walmart.com campus, a 200,000 square foot complex on Sierra Point, a small peninsula that extends into San Francisco Bay. (Walmart is moving to San Bruno.)
Currently based in the SoMa district at the corner of Folsom St. and 4th St., Twitter would be greatly missed by San Francisco, since the company is one of the two major titans of social media and, for that reason, draws a lot of positive global attention to the city by the bay.
Jennifer Matz, the economic development director under newly-named Mayor Ed Lee, tells the San Francisco Chronicle that the city is in the process of creating an incentive package with tax breaks for Twitter in order to dissuade the company from ditching for a new home
“We are doing everything in our power to keep Twitter’s headquarters here and help them find space that allows them to grow,” Matz said.
Twitter hired its 300th employee in late October 2010 and, with a new massive round of funding under its belt, aggressive hiring is still underway. The company’s site lists just over 40 open positions right now, which is ten more than were listed back in October.
“We have about 350 employees. And based on our current growth trajectory, we can’t stay on the two floors that we currently have,” Twitter PR representative Carolyn Penner told VatorNews. “So, at some point we’re going to have to look at other options.”
Brisbane is less than twenty minutes south of San Francisco, so the move wouldn’t drastically affect any Twitter employees.
