Inside Twitter Canada’s snack- and beer-filled office

By Peter Saltsman | March 28, 2016

By Peter Saltsman | 03/28/2016

WHAT: Twitter’s Canadian offices
WHERE: Half a floor of an otherwise nondescript office complex at King and Strachan
HOW BIG: 16,000 square feet for 40 employees (most of whom work in sales or communications)

Twitter’s Toronto office, which opened last spring with a launch party deejayed by Broken Social Scene’s Brendan Canning, is an ode to Canadiana. Still, the satellite office is inextricably linked to the company’s San Francisco headquarters and its 34 international outposts. The boardrooms and desks are tricked out with sophisticated telecom technology that lets employees confer with colleagues from Bogota to Mumbai. When they’re not video conferencing, they’re often playing Pac-Man on the office arcade machine or relaxing with a pint of Stella, which is on tap in the kitchen.

The kitchen is always stocked with cereals, including Frosted Mini-Wheats, All-Bran and Vector, as well as jars of jujubes, chocolate almonds and licorice.

The walls are plastered with Canadian-themed artwork.

Screens (on phones, tablets and laptops) are discouraged in the library. Employees use it as a place to stretch out and read or relax.

The wood accents throughout the office are meant to evoke cottage country and the Great Canadian Outdoors.

The conference tables are made of Ontario-sourced oak.

The Stella tap is always available, but staff are surprisingly judicious about its use. The water tap, which spouts both still and sparkling, gets more mileage.

The Twitter logo is ubiquitous, adorning everything from throw cushions…

…to arcade games…

…to gum balls.

The boardrooms are all named after Canadian neighbourhoods (e.g., The Annex and The Plateau).

Cutouts of Canadians with a strong Twitter presence pop up throughout the office. In addition to the Biebs, there’s William Shatner, Josh Donaldson, Marcus Stroman and Andrew Wiggins.