PayPal, Google, Logitech.
These are some of the companies that got started in the commercial buildings that the Amidis family of Silicon Valley own. They are calling it the “Lucky Building” in their marketing material and they may be right.
If you are a landlord it is nice to have success stories when you are trying to rent and develop properties. The Amidis take it own step further, they have made millions investing in these start ups with a combination of discounted rent and cash in exchange for stock options when and if the companies go public.
Mr. Amidi and Mr. Nozad have tried to capitalize on the reputations of those companies by marketing the University Avenue offices as a “lucky building.” But they have also sought to take whatever magic the building had, real or perceived, and reproduce it on an industrial scale.
“Our idea is how we can bring the good charm down to Sunnyvale,” Mr. Amidi said.
Sunnyvale, some 12 miles southeast of Palo Alto, is where they created the Plug and Play Tech Center, a three-story 150,000-square-foot building where they rent space and provide other amenities to start-ups. Since it opened early last year, it has become a hub of entrepreneurial activity that now houses 108 fledgling companies. via the New York Times
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