Zendesk CEO Mikkel Svane hearts San Francisco and hearts the company’s new location at 6th and Market streets. The company is scheduled to move to 989 Market Street this summer.
We’re moving. Not very far. Just up the street from our current SoMa digs, to the shall we say “colorful” intersection of Sixth and Market. It’ll be an adventure for sure, but we are totally up for it.
We first moved to San Francisco in the fall of 2009, and we were immediately taken with it. The city’s been an amazing incubator for some of the world’s most innovative tech companies. Its energy meshes well with our own disruptive aspirations, and its signature quirkiness is often in line with our own. This city has been very good to us, and in return, we want to be good to it.
Which is why we’re thrilled to be one of the first tech companies to move to the Mid-Market neighborhood. We’ll be taking advantage of the city’s new tax incentive to bring pre-IPO companies to that longtime blighted neighborhood. Our move enables us and other pre-IPO companies to benefit from a payroll tax exemption on any new workers we hire as well as reduced taxes on stock options, something that’s driven companies out of the city’s 7×7 grid.
It’s a chance for us to help turnaround a notoriously distressed area and helps us stay firmly planted in San Francisco. It will also help us expand our 80-person office to include an additional 70 new hires by the end of 2011.
Not to say we haven’t been happy here on good ol’ 410 Townsend Street, but the move to 989 Market Street, well, it’s going to be pretty cool. We’re excited to meet our neighbors: the Warfield, Show Dogs, the infamous Tu-Lan, and the soon-to-be Pearl’s Deluxe Burgers, and of course, our yet-to-be seen tech colleagues who we’ll soon be working next to.
These are exciting times for San Francisco and its tech community. The city hasn’t seen this kind of growth since the ill-fated dot-com boom so many years ago. This initiative will go along way to keep new and innovative companies local and will help bring revenue to the city’s stressed coffers and create jobs.
We can’t wait to be in our new office and our new hood. Make sure you stop by and say hi, and we’ll do the same.
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