looks like hangar 1 is still being deskinned and reskinned

I'm not too sure what's happening to hangar 3

We met at hangar 2, which has been hosting LTA for the last few years. I wish I had pictures of the inside, but we were requested not to take any, so I complied. Inside had the current version of the newest airship LTA designed and built, it was pretty massive. They are using some new manufacturing techniques to build an inside frame quicker than via other methods, probably lighter too I assume. The shape with motors allows for a speed of 80 to 100kts which isn't bad for an airship:

After a nice tour and presentation, we did a group picture and went to have lunch at a new google building with a cafe for visitors:

As expected, modern buildings with a super nice view in the middle of Warsaw, very happy and thankful to have been able to see them.

Spruce Goose, biggest wooden flying boat in the world.

Nice building, glad I got to visit:

this was cute

nice views

the 2 buildings are connected with a few bridges between floors

The game room (closed during covid) looked pretty rad:

The talk focussed on failures I've encountered in multiple fields, and what I learned from reading from other people's failures, a common practise in aviation that has saved countless lives in not re-creating failures and accidents out of ignorance.
As they say in aviation "experience is a cruel teacher: she gives you the test first, and if you survive, then you get to learn the lesson".

After looking at examples of failures we experienced at Google, I give a fair amount of examples from aviation, from AF447, QF32, and the Boeing 737 Max disaster which is so many failures in so many ways that it takes a while to describe in details. My hope is that engineers in a similar situation where they know they are getting overruled, can use other escallation steps to avoid disaster for others.

You can get the talk PDF or openoffice source from here. Otherwise, you can read the slides below and watch the video recording:

sadly the main room was way too loud, ruining that space for all conversations :(

We went to see some of the exhibits, which were all over the place. We looked at most of what was available:

As part of a 7H layover in Taipei on our way to Palau, I figured it'd be more fun to spend a bit of time around Taipei, than to spend the 7h getting drunk in some lounge, so we took an uber bright an early to New Taipei City/Bitan.
Then, we went to visit the couple of HTC buildings there. They were very empty when we arrived as we got in before official work hours:

ZXG88 is a big building, although either all floors were not accessible to Googlers or not part of Google

The HTC buildings didn't really have snacks in microkitchens during HTC days, and still don't today, so people brought their own

badge scanner inside the walls, first time, this faked me out as I didn't know where to badge since the reader wasn't visible

I hope the safety nets were only there to catch stray objects that might fall

5mn away was the Gigabyte building that has a small google presence on 3 floors, mostly wireless hardware testing from what I was able to see:

we mistakenly entered the gigbabyte lobby, the Google entrance was around the corner

it was still early in the morning (engineering hours-wise), so the floors were bone empty

lots of testing equipment, including this bad ass shielding room

After being done in New Taipei City, we went to Taoyan City, 45mn away by uber, somewhat in the direction of the international airport:

likely for historical reasons, there is a 7-11 inside the building

the google building is next to the HTC lobby

nice decors, but the first floor was also the only place where guests were allowed without written prior authorization

the upper floors were mostly seas of cubicles and not that interesting for guests anyway

nice view, lots of scooters

Jennifer made do in the café while I quickly walked the upper floors

big café, the only google café we saw in the 4 locations we saw

the gym was also quite well sized and equipped

Last, and in this case also least :) was RNGAN68, which was easy to miss, even when in front of it:

it's a very small building with a few testing labs and no pictures allowed

3.5H, 4 new building locations, a bit of a travelling, but interesting to see. Definitely better than just aimlessly spending time in a lounge.

Once in, the decors and attactions were well done. They also did a reasonable job of handling the crowd loads so that you didn't have to stay in line for too long:

curling

They had a haunted house which wasn't very big, but was well done and had good actors:

Then was time for the costume contest:

I didn't compete as my light outfit didn't look like much in the sun, so we went back to see the animations and games:

you could actually make wine

great costume

sun was finally setting, giving my outfit a better chance to shine :)

As I put this page together, I realized that Jennifer and I didn't get a good picture together with my outfit in the dark, small oversight which we will hopefully fix next time.

By 19:00, the event was over and we were nicely escorted off the premisses :)

nice patio view

typical looking guest

but it's a desk on wheels you can bike around (ok, not really)

nice patio by the cafetaria, on a beautiful day

little garden

new floor being built

nice 3D printer

They also nicely gave me a cool T-shirt, thank you:

Every year, they have a nice Xmas tree:

Nice decors as always:

Nice to run into friends every time :)

Obviously the food is good :)

The older French buildings are cool to see:

The Asian Art Museum was a nice venue:

Seafood was actually good:

As usual for those parties, people were dressed up nicely:

And of course, we were in a museum, so some of the rooms were open for us too:

We were there from open to close, and it was well worth it.

sadly googleween for kids was a cluster from what I heard (too many people, impossible to even get to for some)

Long line to get in, 30mn to wait to get through a security line:

Time for the costume contest. I played but didn't win :)

As I said, views from the buildings:

we got a bit of snow just before arriving

very nice patio and mountain view

nice climbing wall

very fancy bike shop

nice

On my way out, I went to see some coworkers in the thornton office nearby (north of denver):

some weapons are missing, is that a bad thing? :)

thornton used to be a doubleclick datacenter, not in use anymore

A few days later, we stopped by the Google office in the newer part of Madrid:

there was a 3D printer in the printing room, nice

2 nice cafes:

Spanish meal hours. Lunch until 15:00, and 'pre-dinner' until 19:00 so that you can have your real dinner around 21:00 :)

Funny thing was on the same floor was a wells fargo office:

this bike was connected to the kitchen to a blender I think, I didn't get to see it work, though

huge playing areas

The next day I went to check out the Bothell office. While it was not open to regular employees, I got a very quick tour:

The redmond office was a small office with a few logistics people, not much to visit. The next day was time to go to work in the Fremont office. Lots of buildings there:

fresh baguette, yum

Definitely very nice offices, glad that I got to see more of them than on my last trip in 2015.

The vendor buildings were interesting in that they had nap rooms apparently due to staff being there 24x7 to do support, and they also had lots of lockers maybe due to vendors not allowed to bring recording devices inside the building (which includes phones), they were probably also helpful for people who bring scooter helmets which may not fit at their small desk.
We went to see NETP (2 buildings), WCC, and UBT1 which had 10 different floors. The density was also quite high, but when we came to visit not too many people were working, it was probably a quiet time.

Some pictures:

nice padded elevator in case you go insane :)

nap rooms, called snug rooms

lockers for each person working there

it was nice enough when we arrived

ok, ice rink was short on ice

We took a shuttle to the lake/beach and had a late lunch there, felt like a swell idea at the time, until a snow storm happened and we barely got back to the ski resort:

got worse

bad enough that semis were turning around

Smart people stayed inside to play games, I probably should have done that :)

or that too

Then went to the evening party up the first gondola:

never quite seen northstar that way :)

generous snowfall

The next morning, I was hopeful that I'd be able to mountain bike, but the terrain was just too snowy/muddy, so it wasn't meant to be. Instead I went on a short guided hike:

After playing games for the rest of the day, Arturo came to pick me up and we went to Topaz Lake for our 4 day backpacking trip the new day