SAN DIEGO—Some creative-office amenities are all form and no substance, while others only appear to be but are actually quite functional, iboss Cybersecurity's CEO and founder Paul Martini tells GlobeSt.com. As we recently reported, the firm has invested more than $6 million to completely renovate the former SAIC World Wide Data Center that was closed when that company moved to Washington, DC, in 2009. iboss's new global headquarters here is a two-story, 43,000-square-foot facility that incorporates leading amenities and interesting features meant to attract top talent—a 40-ft. slide in the center of the building, modern kitchens, indoor putting greens, swings and a spacious outdoor lounge with fire pits and barbeque grills. We spoke exclusively with Martini about the thought process behind the amenities—especially the slide—and why they serve an important purpose for this user.
GlobeSt.com: What was the motivation behind the types of features you included in your new headquarters?
Martini: The slide is actually pretty functional. You can get from the second floor to the first floor pretty quickly, so we had functionality in mind. When we looked at this particular building last November, we noticed that the connectivity and power we needed was there. It had 40,000 servers and generators, and being a data center it was all cement, but all the stuff we needed form a tech perspective—the guts—was there. We realized we could turn this into what we needed with three months of TI. The functionality of it is perfect for what we do, and it's worked out perfectly. A lot of the buildings in this campus are very similar—they were used for the same purpose. We blew out the front completely since we wanted a lot of natural light, and we put all glass and wood in the front so it's transparent. We were able to maintain the conductivity and power servers inside the building. We had two independent floors that were not connected, so we cut out a massive center in the bottom of the second floor and put a slide down the center, a putting green at the bottom, lounge chairs. We get top engineers working here, and it's a really nice and open environment.
GlobeSt.com: Do you think we're overcompensating by catering to the needs and wants of Millennials when a new generation of college grads is right behind them and may want different things?
Martini: I agree—one of the things we don't want to do is focus on an environment that's all about play. But this space is incredibly comfortable, we have music going and employees want to stay at night. The mood changes at night; the view is incredible since it overlooks the entire engineering campus of UCSD. It's more of a lounge, and the productivity goes up. One of the interesting things is there's a lot of unicorn tech companies where it's all about hype—all about the slide and there's no guts there, and they're burning through a ton of money. Here, it's instilled in our culture: work hard, play hard. We're not riddled with debt, and we're #70 on Deloitte's Technology Fast 500. It takes both sides, and we want to get the best productivity out of people.
GlobeSt.com: What other innovative features do you see offices implementing in the near future?
Martini: Facebook just opened a new building similar to what we've done inside our headquarters. There are offices around the perimeter, and the space is really open throughout. Internet connectivity and power are dropped from the ceiling and can be moved, eliminating as much as possible fixed cube spaces that limit what you can do in terms of working together. I like the idea of open space, with infrastructure, power and design you can disconnect quickly, and allowing tech companies to adapt quickly as needed without having to adapt a lot of physical infrastructure.
GlobeSt.com: What else should our readers know about your new office design and your company?
Martini: Identifying what's important for your company, like our connectivity and power, is important, but so is getting that flexibility. It's not just the open space, but the infrastructure, which can take a long time to build.
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Carrie Rossenfeld
Carrie Rossenfeld is a reporter for the San Diego and Orange County markets on GlobeSt.com and a contributor to Real Estate Forum. She was a trade-magazine and newsletter editor in New York City before moving to Southern California to become a freelance writer and editor for magazines, books and websites. Rossenfeld has written extensively on topics including commercial real estate, running a medical practice, intellectual-property licensing and giftware. She has edited books about profiting from real estate and has ghostwritten a book about starting a home-based business.
