How Google charmed the Israeli tech industry with this wild and beautiful office (GOOG)

August 04, 2015 at 15:02 PM EDT

Google came to Israel a decade ago, and its arrival made the nation's tech industry both excited and nervous.

Google's arrival was validation that the "start-up nation" had some of the best computer engineers in the world.

But they worried that Google would snap up all the best talent (which some startup founders say it has, indeed, done), drive up wages, and be yet another multi-national that doesn't "get" the tight-knit Israeli startup culture.

Today Google is known as one of the most important parts of the startup community. It is helping startups succeed, giving them resources for free. Its $1.1 billion purchase of mapping company Waze, a team still based in Tel Aviv, also helped jump-start a rush of lucrative exits for other startups.

And its executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, who visits this campus frequently, is one of the most lavish investors in the land.

Part of Google's success lies in its wild and beautiful offices in Tel Aviv.

Google occupies 11 floors of the "Electra Building" in Tel Aviv. Google also has another office in the city of Haifa, about an hour north.

Google employs about 600 people here. Besides the Waze team, many engineers work on the search engine team.

For instance, the Tel Aviv search engine team that created Google's "auto-complete" feature.

Our guide for the day is Paul Solomon, head of communications for Google in Israel, the Middle East, Africa and Turkey. Fun fact about Paul: He's got four kids and just got back from paternity leave.

Google's main entrance was designed to look like "Port Tel Aviv" an old sea port that's been converted into office spaces filled with tech startups. That's the Google Street View tricycle in the background. It mapped most of Israel.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider