Google to build 1M square foot building in post-Brexit London

venturebeat.com

18 points·mundus··6 comments

> (Reuters) – Google delivered a vote of confidence in London’s future as a technological hub after the Brexit vote on Tuesday by announcing plans for a new building in the King’s Cross area of the city that will house thousands of extra engineers.

There's something wrong with this story. I've been hearing about a Google building in King's Cross ever since I moved here, so that's been around 2 and a half years. They didn't just announce it.

They spent over a billion dollars buying the land for this HQ in 2013... I mean, I guess it's good they aren't pulling the plug but yeah, there's no new news here.

It was actually meant to have been ready this year, but the initial plans were scrapped for being too boring.[1] I suspect this means that they might now have come up with a new set of plans that they're willing to go ahead with.

[1] http://uk.businessinsider.com/googles-new-11-storey-office-i...

Maybe they're betting on the British pound to drop so they can hire engineers on the cheap. My understanding is that salaries (for software developers) in London are already pretty low compared to the US and even Canada.

Or Google is getting sick and tired of being raked over the coals by EU bureaucrats with manufactured problems and wants to move its talent and money into a country without annual witch trials and billion dollar fees?

https://www.google.com/search?q=google+eu+fines&ie=utf-8&oe=...

I don't mind that we demand that companies pay taxes.

I can assure you that if it was up to me they'd either pay or get blocked. I really don't understand this mentally whereby companies avoiding taxes is Ok. Who do you think pays the taxes that they don't?

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