It's official; Facebook is heading to Austin. The social networking giant is not wasting time getting started.
“We really thought carefully about it and wanted to find a special environment where we really could grow these teams and grow these careers and work with customers, work with people who use Facebook,” said the head of online operations at Facebook, Grady Burnett.
On the Mayor's balcony at City Hall Friday morning the Mayor along with city and state officials welcomed Facebook executives to the city.
Twenty-four hours earlier, the Austin City Council approved the $200,000 economic development incentive to bring the company to the city.
“This is not about getting people to Austin. Austin has about doubled in population every 20 years since the year 1900. This is about getting jobs to Austin,” said state spokesperson, Tim Crowley.
Facebook is one of the largest Internet based social network companies. It's only been around since 2004, but already it's grown to over 1,200 employees across the world.
Executives hope the new Austin office will be the next launching pad for growth.
“Austin is and has been for a very long time a hub of innovation and Facebook will have a great home here and we welcome you very much,” said Austin Mayor, Lee Leffingwell.
The Austin office will be a 200-person sales and operations facility.
The move is the company’s first big U.S. operations expansion.
In order to make the move to Austin Facebook secured incentives with the city and with the state through the Texas Enterprise Fund.
Facebook representatives say the hiring process begins immediately. Available jobs for the Austin office are already posted online.
