This picture was taken in the air in Seattle. When it comes to technology companies that started in Seattle, the most famous one is Microsoft, which was founded more than four decades ago and is currently the third largest company in the world by market capitalization! In the cool weather of early autumn, we come to Microsoft’s Redmond headquarters, which houses more than 40,000 employees, to uncover the mystery of the technology giant. If you don’t search carefully, you may be hard-pressed to find that this campus with the same architectural style is the headquarters of Microsoft in Redmond, Seattle. The city is well-known to people, thanks in large part to Seattle-themed love movies such as “Sleepless in Seattle” and “Beijing Meets Seattle”. But those who follow technology and consumer companies will know that Seattle is also home to the headquarters of Microsoft, Amazon, Starbucks and Boeing. Microsoft was founded in 1975 and moved to its current location a few weeks before the company went public in 1986. The exterior of the Microsoft headquarters building, in both color and height, is understated and austere compared to the general impression of the technology company campus. It is not futuristic, but more like a public institution. The campus is full of towering green trees and grasslands, and employees of different colors and races can be seen walking and talking at any time. In a way, the Microsoft campus is like an open university campus, where both employees and visitors can freely walk through the campus. Of course, only the roads in the park are concerned. To enter each building, you need to swipe your Microsoft employee ID. Some of these buildings allow photos to be taken, but many office buildings that may be related to trade secrets are prohibited from taking pictures. The Greater Seattle area is divided into four zones: east, west, south and north, centered on the famous landmark “Lake Washington”. In the central area, along the shores of Lake Washington is the famous mansion area, where Bill Gates’ mansion is located. The small town of Redmond, where the Microsoft campus is located, is located on the east side of Lake Washington. The entire park is open-plan and covers an area of 200 hectares, which is equivalent to about eight Daan Forest Parks. Due to the large area, most employees move by car or by shuttle bus. There are 126 shuttle buses like the one shown in the picture below in the park, and in particular, more than a third of these buses are powered by electric or liquefied petroleum gas. Every building at Microsoft is named after a number. Because of the large number of buildings, if viewed from a bird’s-eye view from a height, the entire Microsoft campus is more like a small town. The buildings in this “small town” are not tall, usually three or four stories, and the exterior of the buildings is mostly white walls with large green glass windows, which integrate with the surrounding environment. The X-shaped office building is one of the first buildings on Microsoft’s Redmond campus. Four such buildings were built first, and two more were built later, namely Buildings 1 to 6. In order to allow Microsoft employees to enjoy the tree-shaded view outside the window at any time, Bill Gates asked that the building be designed in the “X” shape, while ensuring that each office has sufficient sunlight. The original office of Microsoft founder Bill Gates was in Building 4 by the lake. After searching for a long circle, I finally found a building with the Microsoft logo in front of it. The small building in the back of the winding path and deep in the jungle must be familiar to everyone. If you work every day or live without word, powerpoint, then you should be here. This is the birthplace of the office system. Do you use MSN? How many people use this communication software in this world? This is its home. It is said that one of the most important large servers of Microsoft is in this building. Because the windows system is too large, each part must be placed in a super large server after it is done. Only a small group of people knew the password for this server. Of course, the complexity of the password can be imagined. At the same time, this password is a top-secret state-level secret in the United States. In order to prevent the appearance of piracy, Microsoft protects this server as much as a state secret. Building 34 is the office of many Microsoft executives, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft Global Executive Vice President Shen Xiangyang, who also work here. Mr. Gates also worked here before retiring. But this is not their regular office. According to Microsoft employees, Microsoft has a peculiar rule that personnel from various departments in the office building must change offices frequently, even high-level personnel are no exception. For example, the following is Microsoft’s most mysterious building, Building 87. According to Microsoft employees, this building does not exist in the map of the Microsoft campus. Building 87 opened in November 2014. The whole building is about 100,000 square feet. It is mainly used for the design, prototype development and product testing of Microsoft hardware products. The total cost of the project is $43 million. Yes, this is the birthplace of Microsoft Surface, which is the Microsoft Hardware Lab. According to Microsoft engineers, the sound laboratory in this hardware laboratory can be described as the quietest room in the world. To create this “quietest room”, Microsoft spent $1.50 million. The whole laboratory is “suspended” inside the building, which is very similar to the principle of matryoshka, and the laboratory is the innermost “matryoshka”. This can effectively eliminate all noise generated by the outside world. The moment the engineer closed the laboratory door and turned off the lights, the whole world fell silent, and you could even hear the swallowing sounds of the other people present. The feeling was a bit like working on an elevator, and it seemed to produce tinnitus. When they walked out of the room, everyone thought that their voices were so beautiful, “with its own reverberation effect”. Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, King County, Seattle, Washington, has built three tree houses for employees to work in meetings, eat and rest. The panorama of the Microsoft cafeteria, you can see only one-sixth of the cafeteria area. Microsoft’s food is at its own expense, but the price is much cheaper than outside, and I heard that the taste is also the best in the area. There are many Indians at Microsoft, and this is a special Indian food counter. It seems that there are also many Japanese employees, but there seems to be no Chinese dining table. There are also football fields and staff sports clubs in the park. In addition, there are standard beach volleyball courts, basketball courts, and the lawn by the side of the court is full of Indians playing cricket. There is also a large sports hall at Microsoft, which has all kinds of sports. Swimming, rock climbing, all kinds of balls, saunas, gyms and strength rooms… There are a large number of employee apartment buildings and branches of the famous Sears general merchandise company attached. It can be said that all aspects of employee life can be basically satisfied in the park. Although Bill Gates is famous for his maths and computer genius, it does not prevent him from having a heart for art – the Microsoft founder has many works of art displayed in the Microsoft office building. In the visitor center building at No. 33, there is a broken wall of the Berlin Wall that was torn down in 1989. It is understood that the German Mercedes-Benz company gave it to Bill Gates’s collection on February 8, 1996. The campus also houses the Microsoft Library, the Microsoft Museum and the Microsoft Store. From small refrigerator stickers and lipstick, to large clothes, backpacks and all kinds of software and hardware (mice, keyboards, etc.) developed by Microsoft can be purchased here. But the premise is that all goods here are only open to Microsoft employees. Of course, you can also ask a Microsoft employee to buy it for you. Although there is no free lunch, you can often see vegetable cultivation facilities like this in the park. A Taiwanese employee working at Microsoft told us that these vegetables are really edible!
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