From the Office suite, through the Xbox, to the quantum computer. This is what the Microsoft campus in Redmond looks like

125 buildings. Over 20,000 trees. And 50,000 employees passing through endless corridors every day. Welcome to Redmond.

At the invitation of Microsoft, I crossed the ocean to visit the headquarters of one of the largest technology giants in the world together with dozens of other journalists. Seattle greeted us in its own way - rain and two-hour border control - but the opportunity to see the huge campus with its own eyes was worth the inconvenience.

First impressions? Green here!

There is a reason why the state of Washington says it is "green." I will not exaggerate if I say that Redmond is in the middle of the forest. The Microsoft campus area alone is over 20,000. trees (yes, each tree is cataloged), and it is enough to drive a few kilometers on the I-5 highway to find yourself among the innumerable green lanes. Another dozen kilometers and we land in the mountains. And turning a bit west, just a few miles away from the ocean. From the geographical side, the Redmond area is down.

We started the visit where all the guest visits at the Microsoft campus begin - in building 92, where the Visitor's Center is open to everyone.

This one building is worth a trip to the green state. You can interact with it with all of Microsoft's modern achievements ...

... as well as with the company's history. Building 92 is a peculiar monument to the giant from Redmond, commemorating the 44 years of corporate history that changed the world.

Of course, a huge souvenir shop and the latest equipment await the visitors.

For employees, building 92 has two roles. First of all, there is a library in it, where you can find not only the latest scientific, business and technical books, but also many albums with art and even novels. An even wider catalog of books is available to employees in electronic form.

Every month, the Microsoft management team recommends their favorite items here. What is Satya Nadella reading this month?

Speaking of art, Microsoft's campus is full of it. Under a different form, there are over 5000 works of art, by both local and international artists.

Returning to building 92, in its basement - ironically - there are laboratories in which one of the most secret projects of Microsoft arises. One of them we had the opportunity to test: first impressions from using Hololens 2 can now be read on Spider's Web.

Most of the stay at the Microsoft campus, however, we spent in the building No. 20, where the so-called. Reactor - a place where innovations are born. This place is consistent with the company's motto, which Satya Nadella implemented - "do not be omniscient, but want to learn everything."

As for a campus with over 125 buildings, logistic stands at the highest level. There are busses available between the buildings on demand, and Connetor buses take employees to the campus near Seattle, Redmond, Bellevue and Tacoma.

Crossing the streets of Redmond, you can observe that at the moment the campus is one big construction site. New paths and new buildings are emerging.

It is also easy to notice the differences between the old and new buildings on the campus. The former resemble quite classic headquarters (although these are not office buildings, because in Redmond you can not build more than 5 floors high). These new ones ... well, see for yourself.

In one of the buildings, for example, a large interactive wall greets us, with a hundred LCD screens hiding behind panels of sycamore.

In the newest buildings, where, for example, the headquarters of the Xbox team (building 37) is located, in the middle there is a large, open space, vaulted with glazing for sunrays.

Of particular interest in this aspect is building 83, where Microsoft is working on a quantum computer. In the center of the main hall there is a wooden sculpture, and if you listen carefully, you can hear a subtle, ambient sound. Interestingly, the nature of this sound depends on the current weather.

Buildings, however, make a smaller impression than what is outside of them. It's really the middle of the forest and ... there are even little houses on the trees here.

So far, there are only three, but from what the local Microsoft representative told us, interest in them is so huge that when the campus is expanded, more will be created.

The campus also clearly shows an attitude towards a healthy lifestyle and ecology.

This is evident even in canteens and ubiquitous garbage bins. All containers, cups for coffee, etc. they are fully compostable. According to official information, waste has been minimized in the last year, which is not subject to composting or recycling, to just 2 percent.

Along the campus there are also cross-country trails, marked with vertical signs and markings on the sidewalk.

Campus is also friendly to cyclists. In each building there are also showers and cabinets, dedicated to those employees who prefer this form of transport.

Care for the good health of employees can also be seen in canteens and restaurants. The menu definitely has more vegan and vegetarian options than meat. Interesting is also the fact that Microsoft is probably one of the largest technological employers in the United States, which does not guarantee free food and this is due to the employees themselves. The surveys carried out among them clearly showed that it is not important for them and they prefer to spend this budget on other benefits. On the campus, free drinks are available, from coffee to oat milk.

Like Microsoft's services, the campus is 100 percent. adapted to the needs of disabled people. Even the aforementioned tree houses can be reached on a trolley, and cans with carbonated drinks in refrigerators are sorted and described in a way that makes it easier for them to be obtained by blind people.

Microsoft's campus perfectly illustrates the change that took place in this company under the rule of Satya Nadella.

No matter who you ask, everyone is saying the same thing - it's a completely different Microsoft than the one that existed five years ago.

Instead of unhealthy competition, the company focuses on cooperation between employees. Instead of making empty man hours - for flexible but effective work. I had the opportunity to talk to Bartek, a programmer from Poland, who has been working at Microsoft since 2006. Currently, he deals with optimizing Windows on the Xbox.

Employees of many departments do not have rigid hourly norms. If someone works more effectively in the morning - he comes earlier. If he works well at night - he works in the evening. It is enough to communicate with the manager and you can adjust the work almost arbitrarily. What matters is not the hours spent in front of the computer, and the presented effects, which every employee is billed annually.

You can work in the office, on the patio, between vegetation and when you need it - also from home. The new Microsoft understands that work should be organized not in terms of hours, but for "creative energy", which everyone has a bit different.

This is not cold, soulless corpo.

Striking at the Redmond campus is how much ... human is the headquarters. You can not feel the corpo-atmosphere of Warsaw's Mordor here at all. And although undoubtedly there are strictly corporate structures here, Microsoft's head office is more like a huge think-tank than a corpo. A gigantic accumulation of talent, working together to create tools that will enable everyone in the world to do great things (it's not my words, it's the official motto of Microsoft, which in one form or another appears in every campus building).

You can feel the same change that has taken place in Microsoft's products over the last years. This is no longer a company whose services can be associated only with soulless tables in Excel, exciting as an accountant's job in a small city.

It is a company that attracts creative people from all areas, creating tools that you want to use.

And after visiting the place where ideas, ideas and products are born, I am not surprised at all that Microsoft - once a painfully boring company - is really exciting today.

From the Office suite, through the Xbox, to the quantum computer. This is what the Microsoft campus in Redmond looks like