Skip to content

Thoughts from Places: YouTube HQ

2010-09-14 · Hank, Rick · watch on YouTube · Internet & YouTube · reflection essay

Visiting YouTube's headquarters at 901 Cherry, Hank finds not a magical or evil place but ordinary people working hard, and argues that YouTube itself is not that street address but the non-physical place in front of all of us.

What is said

00:00:00 — 4 a.m. trips to the bathroom down a spiral staircase; Hank is in San Francisco to go to YouTube

  • ★ Hank says he woke at about 4 a.m. needing to pee, with a spiral staircase between him and the bathroom, and got up four more times without falling. (playful) — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Hank says he is in San Francisco to visit YouTube. — 00:00:00 · San Francisco, YouTube
  • ★ In the description Hank calls San Francisco beautiful and says he is extremely jealous of people who live there. — 00:00:00 · San Francisco

00:00:29 — Where is YouTube? A non-physical place vs the servers vs Google Maps' 901 Cherry; Rick's tour; the coolest-place-to-work fantasy vs the reality of hard work

  • ★★★ Hank says there is real confusion about where YouTube is: to him it is on his desktop, a non-physical digital internet place. — 00:00:29 · YouTube
  • ★★ Physically, Hank says, YouTube could be wherever the data for its billions of videos are stored, but he has no idea where that is and thinks it might be a secret. (hedged) — 00:00:29 · YouTube
  • ★★ Hank notes that typing YouTube into Google Maps gives the address 901 Cherry, where he is filming. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ Hank says Rick, a YouTube employee who was very clearly a giant nerdfighter, gave him a little tour of YouTube. — 00:00:29 · Nerdfighteria
  • ★★★ Hank says his first thought was that YouTube HQ must be the coolest place to work, people making YouTube more awesome between Nerf gun fights, but the reality is very different. (playful) — 00:00:58
  • ★★★ Hank says YouTube's staff get up early, drive to work and put in eight-to-ten-hour days making a playground for the rest of us to play in. — 00:00:58 · YouTube

00:01:27 — An ordinary workplace with office politics and perks; not magical, not evil, just people

  • ★★ Hank says it is all very normal: office politics, some people not doing all the work they should, many not recognised for their great work. — 00:01:27
  • ★★★ Hank says, don't get me wrong, it's not Dunder Mifflin: there's a massage room, scooters, a tiki bar, mini golf and a grass roof. But it is neither magical nor evil: just people. — 00:01:27

00:01:56 — 901 Cherry isn't where YouTube is; YouTube is here in front of us; thanks to the people who make it possible; sign-off

  • ★★★ Hank argues that 901 Cherry isn't where YouTube is: YouTube is right here in front of all of us, and 901 Cherry is where people work hard to make this weird non-physical place possible. — 00:01:56 · YouTube
  • ★★ Hank thanks the people at YouTube and is glad they know, as he does, that they are just people in a place helping to create something much bigger. — 00:01:56 · YouTube

Threads in this video

BR2_9da15dd392