This is a misquote in the NW title; the original Vanity Fair article states "The new campus, which the company is calling Bay View, consists of nine roughly similar structures, most of which will be four stories high, and all of which are shaped like rectangles that have been bent in the middle."

Not sure if it applies in this instance but some customs have it so the ground floor is not counted and the second floor is referred to as the first and so on.

I'm British and that is what we do. But that is the label applied to each floor in the lift (some places omit the 13th floor label) and some have floors below ground. However that doesn't change how many floors a building has.

The article is written by an American residing in the US about a building in the US so using American conventions would seem appropriate.

They would still call it a two story building

Classic off-by-one error.

Maybe the first floor is mostly a parking garage