Open Source: Three tech giants created a buzz in the Triangle. Where are they now?
I’m Brian Gordon, tech reporter for The News & Observer, and this is Open Source, a weekly newsletter on business, labor and technology in North Carolina.
In a short span, three of the world’s 10 most valuable companies said they were coming to the Triangle.
First, Google named Durham one of its five U.S. cloud engineering hubs and projected hiring 1,000 downtown. A month later, in April 2021, Apple made national headlines when it announced a 3,000-worker campus in Research Triangle Park.
The next year, rumors surfaced that Facebook-owner Meta would establish a “significant presence” in Durham.
“There was excitement, but there was also nervousness in terms of what it would all mean,” said Matt Gladdek of the Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce. “For a long time, our region has been a powerhouse but a very humble powerhouse, and it was nice to have the recognition of Google, Apple, Microsoft, Meta all locating here.”
This validation, Gladdek said, came with trepidation.
Concerns of gentrification, housing prices, traffic. Was the Triangle big enough to support these companies’ ambitions? Did the Triangle want to be big enough to support these companies’ ambitions?
Such questions haven’t had to be answered, at least not to the degree people were asking them in 2021. Apple has paused its RTP campus plans for four years. Google’s mass layoffs early last year hit its Durham office And Meta’s “significant presence” hasn’t materialized.
To be clear, all three companies are here. None, however, will share to what extent.
Here’s what we do know:
Meta
In February 2023, the company confirmed it had an office in Durham’s American Tobacco Campus where it planned to employ 100 engineers. Around that time, Meta had multiple job positions in Durham posted for its Reality Labs division, which focuses on building virtual and augmented reality.
Today, the company lists no jobs on its website with a Durham or Raleigh location. It has not responded to N&O emails to confirm its Triangle office plans or share if it has new ones. Reality Labs continues to lose billions of dollars each quarter. While Meta remains committed to the investment, The Information this summer reported, “Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg has canceled the blank check he once reserved for his augmented reality and virtual reality teams.”
Meta currently subleases 18,000 square feet at American Tobacco Campus from Duke University, said Scott Selig, who oversees the university’s off-campus real estate portfolio. “I don’t know a lot more than that,” Selig said.
In its latest yearly filing, Meta said it had begun “shrinking our real estate footprint” to reduce costs.
Of the three, Google has the most local visibility with its sign atop the Durham ID building downtown. Online, it lists 52 open jobs with Durham (and/or Raleigh) as potential locations. A handful of the roles list only Raleigh and Durham as worksites.
Google Cloud is hiring in the area, as is Google Fiber. In an interview earlier this year, Google Fiber’s head of product Nick Saporito said his department had a “significant presence” at Durham ID.
Does Google still plan to hire 1,000 at its engineering hub? The company didn’t respond to my email this week to say.
In its most recent annual filing, the company described taking “office space optimization efforts,” which last year resulted in $1.8 billion in lease exit charges.
And finally, Apple
This summer, the company said it would postpone its promised $552 million campus in Wake County for four years. No construction had begun. But the Cupertino tech giant has been hiring in the area.
The economic incentive agreement Apple signed with North Carolina in 2021 required the company to have hired at least 126 local workers by the end of 2023 and 378 total positions by the end this year. The state hasn’t released its review of Apple’s hiring progress, yet all indications suggest the company has met its jobs targets so far.
For now, the company leases office space at MetLife’s tech campus in Cary. Apple also leases a four-story, 139,000-square-foot building in Durham, near Raleigh-Durham International Airport, according to multiple sources familiar with that site.
A famously secretive company, Apple has issued only two public statements about its RTP plans: Once when announcing the campus in April 2021 and again this past June when it postponed the campus. Last year, Apple representatives filed site plans that showed a future Triangle campus would include three office buildings, three accessory buildings and a parking garage — totaling close to 900,000 square feet on either side of N.C. 540.
Compared to its tech counterparts, Apple has retained (and even added) more office space amid the rise of remote work. It has also piloted a hybrid return-to-office policy that makes geography important. Perhaps that’s a good sign for its Triangle future.
Overall, tempered local plans of Google, Meta, and Apple might dint the Triangle’s standing as a top-tier tech force, one to rival Boston, Austin and the Bay Area for prestige. But the commutes are more palatable when you’re a humble powerhouse.
Plus, Google, Meta and Apple are small potatoes. The world’s current most valuable company, California’s chipmaker Nvidia, has been hiring in Durham.
Clearing my cache
The first-ever hotel just opened up in Pittsboro, the growing county seat of Chatham County.
- Raleigh has two Fortune 500 companies. One of them plans to close 700 stores across North America.
- Ex-North Carolina Commissioner of Labor Josh Dobson, who resigned last week, will become president and CEO of the North Carolina Healthcare Association.
- Lithium mining cuts. Piedmont Lithium cut its workforce by nearly 50% between February and October. Albermarle, another resource company hoping to mine lithium near Charlotte, recently eliminated around 500 jobs, too. The decisions come amid falling lithium prices.
- What’s the value in manufactured data? SAS Institute purchased the software of a major synthetic data generator.
- Raleigh’s Red Hat made a purchase, too. The open source software provider bought the startup Neural Magic, which helps AI models run faster on processors.
- VinFast, the loss-making electric carmaker that might open a factory in North Carolina, secured $3.5 billion in additional funding from its parent company, Vingroup, and its chairman (who is Vietnam’s wealthiest person).
The Select Group, a Raleigh-based technology consulting company with more than 2,000 employees across North America, acquired the Washington-based technology and business consulting firm Bluehawk Consulting.
A maker of specialty ice products, Abstract Ice, promised to create 26 jobs and invest close to $15 million to open a facility in Western North Carolina.
National Tech Happenings
- Reddit rising. The social media platform Reddit has surged 75% on the stock market this month alone. It now has nearly 100 million daily users and last quarter recorded its first profit as a public company.
- President-elect Donald Trump named GOP former New York congressman Lee Zeldin to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The agency operates its largest physical campus in Research Triangle Park.
The satirical publication The Onion purchased conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars in an auction. Jones is selling assets to pay off a $1 billion-plus defamation lawsuit he lost to the families of Sandy Hook shooting victims.
Thanks for reading!
This story was originally published November 15, 2024 at 9:31 AM.
