Twitter Flies The Nest And Moves Into Its New 1355 Market Street Headquarters
After two and a half years, Twitter has moved out of its old office at 795 Folsom Street in San Francisco's SoMa neighborhood. — Employees filled their streams with tweets about the move on Friday.
Context & Ripple Effects
The move closes out a chapter that Twitter itself had been narrating since at least April 2011, when it used its corporate blog to frame its bond with San Francisco (The Tweets of San Francisco) — and it comes after the company had already begun spreading beyond its founding city, taking former Facebook space in Manhattan per Betabeat's March 2011 report (its New York expansion). Leaving 795 Folsom after two and a half years lands in the middle of a deliberate re-founding moment.
In the week before the relocation, Twitter rolled out a new little blue bird logo, aired its first-ever TV commercial during the Pocono 400 to promote its hashtag pages, ran a confirmed internal organizational reshuffle, and pressed a year-long talent raid on Silicon Valley companies. The new 1355 Market Street headquarters is the physical expression of that same reset.
First-order effects
- Twitter's workforce now occupies 1355 Market instead of the cramped 795 Folsom office, giving the company room to absorb hires from its ongoing Silicon Valley recruiting push under one flagship roof.
- The old Folsom Street site goes back onto SoMa's office market just as Twitter's public-facing identity — logo, TV advertising, hashtag pages — is being rebuilt around the new address.
Second-order effects
- Anchoring on Market Street rather than following the New York expansion path makes the SoMa block a recruiting asset: candidates joining via the talent raid are being sold a marquee campus, which pressures rival Bay Area employers competing for the same engineers.
- Landlords and brokers along the Market Street corridor gain proof that a scaled consumer-internet company will commit to large contiguous space there, sharpening competition for other tenants eyeing the same buildings.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, fast-growing web companies graduate from scrappy loft offices to single-flagship urban campuses early, tying their hiring brand and civic relationships to specific city blocks — a bet whose payoff depends on growth continuing, and one that leaves a conspicuous hole if it doesn't.
The trend: Consumer web companies are trading scrappy startup lofts for flagship urban campuses as they scale, converting real estate into part of their recruiting and brand machinery.