The rise of the multibillion-dollar corporate campus

BBC, 2017: "Tech giants like Apple are building vastly expensive headquarters – but university-style spaces have been used by companies for decades, write Agustin Chevez and DJ Huppatz.. By the 1990s, the possibilities of working from home (or anywhere), outsourcing and offshoring challenged the need for a campus. Committing to so much space represented a liability for businesses in an increasingly digital, economically uncertain environment. Changing political landscapes also presented challenges. For example, in 2014 RBS bank and Lloyds considered moving to England at a cost of £1bn ($1.34bn) to each company to manage the “irreversible risk” created by Scotland’s independence plebiscite. Natural disasters and terrorism also raise questions about centralising an organisation in a...

BBC, 2017: "Tech giants like Apple are building vastly expensive headquarters – but university-style spaces have been used by companies for decades, write Agustin Chevez and DJ Huppatz.. By the 1990s, the possibilities of working from home (or anywhere), outsourcing and offshoring challenged the need for a campus. Committing to so much space represented a liability for businesses in an increasingly digital, economically uncertain environment. Changing political landscapes also presented challenges. For example, in 2014 RBS bank and Lloyds considered moving to England at a cost of £1bn ($1.34bn) to each company to manage the “irreversible risk” created by Scotland’s independence plebiscite. Natural disasters and terrorism also raise questions about centralising an organisation in a single location. Given these risks, why would Apple build a $5bn campus?