Like the last invaders from back in ‘75 (Seventeen Seventy Five that is), it seems that Google, a new dreadnought, has its sights on Boston and they’re planning on more than a fortnight’s stay. Amidst not so subtle clues, like job listings for Google and YouTube for the Boston area and search insider gossip, the one if by land two if by sea warning may be a moot point for this invasion; a move that may bring some much needed tech juice to the flagging overpriced economy of the city known for its chowder, funny accents and dirty, dirty water.
Google, one of the tech world’s hottest companies, is scouting for a major location in Boston or Cambridge.
Cambridge is likely at the top of Google’s list as it looks to establish a major presence near Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in one of the nation�s top pools for technology talent, executives said.
“It’s just further evidence of the world-class labor resources we have in our area,” said Robert Richards, president of downtown Boston commercial real estate firm of Richards Barry Joyce & Partners. “We are not the cheapest place to do business, but many people feel we are the best place to do business.”
(source)
Expensive? As anyone from Cape Cod will tell you in their Black Dog T-shirt, and best Kennedy accent, “Why be cheap, when you can be rich?” All kidding aside, Boston is an extremely expensive market in which to live and even more so to do business. Google has long proved the old idiom that bigger is better and that money can buy anything, (they’ll definitely get a bungalow on Nantucket) so what better place to invade set up shop, than Beantown USA.
Although Massachusetts is outwardly a liberal state, that moniker typically applies to politics, and even in that, there is an understood wink-and-a-nod conservatism that only old, old money can pull off with only the slightest swagger. This dichotomy makes Boston a unique city of extremes: at once a gentile colonial city, rich in heritage and Victorian architecture and an intellectual mecca, complete with ivy league academia, government contracts, big pharma and their own nuclear reactor (shhh).
However, Boston has fallen behind the times during the tech crashes of this and the last decade and we have experienced a tech drain that has moved our talent west and very far to the east. Boston needs an infusion if we’re going to suit up and get back into the game, especially since Boston is being criticized for not keeping up with Web 2.0 (Web Deuce to those in the know) even though Web 2.0 is soooo 2006.
Obviously, Google is looking at Boston because of the 40+ institutions of higher learning to fill their employee pool and Boston definitively needs the boost. I’ve been to Google my friends. Into the very belly of the beast. Ok. I had a great time and the food was awesome. I just wonder how the west coast, easy going “do no evil” mentality will go over in our freezing cold miserable fair city?
