Google employee lives in a truck in the company's parking lot | Hacker News Reader

Google employee lives in a truck in the company's parking lot

sfgate.com

53 pointscpeterso91 comments

I've thought of doing something similar to that. I might try it at some point, probably just for a chunk of a few months. But I'm thinking more along the lines of buying a more maneuverable VW minivan, and retreating to the Santa Cruz hills or Big Sur over the weekends, because I currently miss nature terribly while living in SF.

A few thoughts (I don't work at Google, but a similar large tech company in the south bay):

1) Yes, $2000 a month is expensive for corporate housing. But if your goal really is to save money, you can find a room in San Francisco for under $1000 in a co-op or such and just take the shuttle to Google every day. It won't be the most beautiful house in the world, but it'll beat a truck.

2) If you like bringing home cute girls/boys, that's going to make things significantly harder.

3) I have a fair amount of expensive equipment (photography + music gear) that I would not be comfortable leaving in a vehicle for extended periods of time. It'd just takes once to lose a pretty significant chunk of cash (probably something like $5k in photography gear and close to $10k in music gear, for me).

4) Even if his name and face were withheld, anyone working at Google will remember that truck very distinctly now. Not the smartest move for him, he's probably going to be found out in the next week or two.

I have friends who did similar things - whether to save money, or to entertain a more minimalistic lifestyle. I'm still very curious about it, mostly for the latter reason, and would love to read any detailed experiences if anyone here has done it.

Here's one link for a few years back: http://austenallred.com/voluntarily-homeless-in-silicon-vall...

#2 doesn't sound like a problem for this use case

phrasing!

can't you get insurance for #3

• Heat is a huge issue, so shaded parking spots or air conditioning become very important. A roof rack with solar panels or a storage bin help in a minor way, but any direct sunlight will quickly raise the interior temperature of the vehicle.

• Upgrade the battery system with a deep cycle battery and a voltage switch relay or a manual switch to prevent your 'house' electronics from draining the starter battery. A pure sine wave inverter is more expensive than a normal ('modifed sinewave') inverter but it's well worth it if you have any expensive electronic devices.

• Secure climate controlled storage units would seem like an option for your music/photography gear.

https://www.reddit.com/r/vandwellers

When I was in my early 20s, it seemed like we always had someone crashing on our sofa, including employees of major tech firms. At that age, having a 'fuck truck' is probably not any worse than rooming with five other guys in a three bedroom apartment.

This is both savvy and ironic.

Being a Google employee, this guy is probably earning +100K per annum, which puts him into the top 1% income-earning bracket IN THE WORLD.

Yet this gentleman has chosen to live out of a truck... albeit a worse option when he could have purchased an RV instead.

Looking back, I am guessing he will not have many fond memories of his 20s.

I'm not sure if anyone else feels this, but as a developer there will come a time where my skills are less relevant to the industry, or the industry's bubble bursts or cannot support me. Might as well make hay while the sun shines and squirrel it away for the later time.

> Yet this gentleman has chosen to live out of a truck... albeit a worse option when he could have purchased an RV instead.

This is what stood out to me the most, and made me wonder why someone would do this in such a half-baked way. Granted, he's a young kid just out of college so maybe he wasn't thinking practically, but on the other hand it reeks of extreme hipsterism. "Look at me, I'm living in a box truck! I'm so original and minimalist!" For the $10k he spent on that hot, bare truck he could instead be in a comfortable RV with appliances, a shower, and solar panels for powering his gear, missing practically no luxuries of apartment living.

No, I think the last paragraph of the full article sums it up; he claims he's doing this so he has a good idea of how uncomfortable living conditions can be when he starts his world travel itinerary. He doesn't know the half of it.

$10k for an RV? Try ten times that for the specification you've suggested.

It doesn't have to be a new one, nor does it have to be a 40 foot luxury model. His truck is nearly 10 years old and he certainly overpaid for it. I've window-shopped for good used RVs and a small model in decent shape can be had for under $10k. Even with improvements like solar panels and new upholstery, he would have come out spending the same amount and been more comfortable for it.

Why would you compare against the income of the world? You need to factor the local cost of living, taxes, etc. The medium household income in Santa Clara county is something like $95K.

He says he himself that he's barely at home, except to sleep. He's out on the town a lot. He also hopes to travel a lot, and views this experience as a way for him to become comfortable with unusual situations that he'd experience globally. Given all that, how would living in a truck cause him to have fewer fond memories?

An RV is actually quite pricey in many ways. But, an A frame that you can tow with something like a Subaru Outback, would be pretty nice for something $10K or less.

Not as nice as an RV, but still much nicer than that truck.

It's cool to see other people doing this. Until a couple weeks ago that's what I was doing. This is even my throwaway account for topics like this.

I lived in my car and didn't work for a big company so accomodations were a little less plesant. However even after 6 months I didn't really mind it. I went to the gym and lift every morning then cleaned up and went to work, then when I was unemployed I went to the library.

Not having an 'official' place to sleep was the worst part. I slept in Walmart parking lots. I rotated between 3 but had one main one. I got harassed by cops pretty frequently which was the worst part. Never had a single person (not cop) bother me, and I wasn't exactly in the best areas (as many walmarts aren't).

That wasn't the first time I was 'homeless' so I guess I'm used to that lifestyle now, and I'd do it again in a heart beat. (I live in a cold state now, so it's a little more difficult)

It's legal, as long as the lot owner doesn't mind, right? So why are the cops bothering you?

It's a phishing attack for them. They want to know if I'm drunk/high/or up to trouble(yes even though I'm sleeping) and they ask question after question to interrogate me and get me to slip up (implying they think I'm just feeding them bs about not being a criminal). They'd follow up with trick questions like 'well do you have any weapons to protect yourself?' they'd circle back and ask me multiple times why I was there trying to get me to change my story.

After a couple times of this you know their tricks and it becomes a game. I wasn't sure if it was illegal to be transient so I would always just stick with being too tired to keep driving.

Not once were questions out of sincerity or to offer help, just to find ways to pin me with a charge. It was despicable.

Many municipalities (cities, towns, and even counties) have local ordinance laws that address vagrancy or loitering, to prevent homeless and transient folks from using parking lots for a place to chill. So it's likely not legal. My own little town has a "move along" ordinance in place that says you can't hang out in a parking lot after the business that owns it has closed for the night.

My suspicion is that this fellow crashes on a friend's couch pretty often. Unless Google allows him 24 hour access, he doesn't have a bathroom at night or on weekends.

>"It's really hard to justify throwing that kind of money away. You're essentially burning it — you're not putting equity in anything and you're not building it up for a future — and that was really hard for me to reconcile."

Equity and saving for the future are things you do after you've established a home. Comfort and time off of work are essential to a well-balanced and healthy life.

What's sad, to me, is not that he lives in a truck, it's that he works so much that doesn't value any time alone in his own space. I know the rent is exorbitant in the bay, but his pay from Google has that factored in -- he's no Mission artist getting evicted, after all. I happily pay a significant portion of my income to have a home, even a rented one.

> Unless Google allows him 24 hour access, he doesn't have a bathroom at night or on weekends.

Google allows 24 hour access, unless that's changed recently.

Hope he got a good parking spot, then; either he's walking a mile at night to use the facilities or seriously irking whoever maintains the lawn.

He's got the middle of the night to get a good parking spot. After a few nights he'd easily have the best non-reserved/handicapped spot possible.

He probably really enjoys being in the office and produces a lot now. It could be a great deal for Google, just as it is for him.

Yeah, large companies seem to allow badged access after hours.

A chemical toilet is also a wonderful thing.

Large companies? Any company leasing office space with a badged security system (is, any modern office tower) would allow this.

Everywhere I've ever worked allowed 24 hour access. Never worked in an office tower though. Never lived on the West Coast.

Really not all companies even with a badged security allow this, in many places you need an authorization/pre-registration if you are going to come in late (say 2-3 hours past normal work day) or during weekends.

Well, clearly you're not in the valley, where people are expected to sleep under their desks and thank their employer for the privilege. ;)

Agreed, certainly at any company that has strong security policies (I'd imagine telecom, for example, is a lot more strict in this regard), after hours access might be an issue.

Nope and I would probably never want to work under those conditions :P

Most office buildings I've seen have restrictions, the office tower i work at in London (Reagent's Park) requires you to enter and sign in with security from 7pm till 7am and if you want to enter during the weekend you need to register explicitly for the day and tie and it has to be approved.

And this is pretty much the case for most shared offices / office towers I've worked in, if you own the campus and want to keep the same level of security staffing during the night as you would during the day I would think that 24/7 access wouldn't be an issue to facilitate in all other cases they rather that you wouldn't be hanging around.

Yep, $EMPLOYER requires a very good business reason for after hours access - safety / security are concerns.

In his blog, he mentions that some of the time he spends "at work" is spent eating meals, exercising, or socializing. It's not a complete lack of work/life balance.

>It's not a complete lack of work/life balance.

To me, doing all of your life at work is work, with no life. I need to disconnect, and I can't do that in the place where I work. Is this a corporate culture thing now? Work for Google, socialize only with Googlers, eat/sleep/breathe work?

The Circle!

> To me, doing all of your life at work is work, with no life. I need to disconnect, and I can't do that in the place where I work.

Indeed, at my new job I can get free meals, a free gym, free health clinic (not just a band-aid station, a fully staffed urgent care center with its own dispensary), showers, and so on. And this is not even corporate, it's a government job. But after a few weeks of just partaking of the free lunch/dinner, I decided to stop using the freebies. I felt like I was living there (12 hour shifts contribute to that feeling of course) and so I began leaving for lunch breaks and decided not to use the other facilities unless absolutely necessary. Given it's a government gig, it already feels like they "own" me as it is (mandatory uniform, strict rules about social media use even off the clock, etc).

You work for the military? Who else has this kind of rules?

Local government.

> Comfort and time off of work are essential to a well-balanced and healthy life.

It has been shown that reducing commute time significantly increases your happiness. Besides, I'm sure there's a higher purpose for what he's doing, otherwise it would be intolerable.

>Equity and saving for the future are things you do after you've established a home.

He has established a home, it's just not a traditional one. It's a really-not-up-to-code tiny house on wheels.

If he were living in a Winnebago or a trailer would you feel differently?

I was thinking that: why didn't he buy a Winnebago?

A truck is stealthy. It doesn't necessarily look like anyone is living there, which means you're much less likely to be hassled by the police. Compare carcamper's experiences below.

If this were a story about migrant workers employed by Google, would you feel differently? I suspect so; our standards for living spaces are not arbitrary. That this man chooses to forgo them despite his salary is certainly his prerogative, but this "hack" drawing admiration points to a central failure of both housing in the bay and the culture at large that values future profits over basic living.

I think if this story were about migrant workers I would feel differently about it because it would be an entirely different story—it would be about people not being paid much and forced to live in a truck versus a story about somebody being paid a lot and living an alternative lifestyle.

I'm perhaps looking at this differently because I am into the financial independence movement[1], and I also quite like tiny houses. I like the idea of saving as much as you can so you don't have to work for the rest of your life, and I also like the idea of reducing your ecological and physical footprint.

So that's how I'm seeing this story. This guy seems like a "mustachian" more than he seems like a guy forced to live in his car. I don't know how much he gets paid, but I'm certain he could afford an apartment—ridiculously expensive though it may be.

I absolutely agree with you that the housing situation in the Bay area is bonkers, though.

[1] See Mr. Money Mustache http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/

It is irrational to pay current Bay Area rents, especially if you plan on living here long-term. The only way to avoid eviction for sure is to buy, and that's going to cost you roughly half a million dollars at the low end. Better to minimize your expenses and ramp up to that than set half your paycheck on fire to pay the inflated rent.

I'm living in the east bay, and was recently running calculations on home purchasing... Take a 30 year mortgage, calculate the total interest+property taxes paid over the 30 years, and divide by 30*12 to get the amount of money per month not going into equity. Turned out to be pretty close to my rent, in most cases.

It also turns out that the appreciation of housing in the US has been negligible up until the post-2000 housing boom. From the 1920's to 2000, the average increase in a house's value was 0.6% per year. So the part that isn't going to the bank is going into a possibly really poor savings fund. And one that can burn down... At this point, I'm thinking it probably still makes more sense to rent, and do the usual index fund thing.

> Turned out to be pretty close to my rent, in most cases.

Let's take this house: https://www.redfin.com/CA/Oakland/2822-Myrtle-St-94608/home/...

Property taxes according to Redfin are $2,471 a year, for a total cost of $74,130. A thirty-year mortgage at 4.5% interest will see you paying $350,229 in interest over 30 years.

Together, that's $1,178 not going into equity.

Here's a Craigslist search for homes with 4 bedrooms or more in the same neighborhood:

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/eby/apa?nh=64&bedrooms=4

Note that there aren't any comparable places to rent, but even the ones that are close are more than double our "amount over equity per month" figure.

This also assumes your rent over 30 years is going to stay fixed the same way your mortgage payment is. It won't:

https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-oakland-rent-tren...

I couldn't find good data on housing appreciation for the Bay Area, but I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest it doesn't mirror the U.S. overall.

And either way, appreciation only matters if you're thinking of your home as an investment. Assuming you're thinking of it as a place to live, it makes sense both in pure cost terms and for some things that are harder to put a price on.

For instance -- how much is having a permanent address worth to you? Or the price of never having to move again, never having to sit in another group housing interview again, never being able to be evicted by "owner move in" or whatever shibboleth is currently popular in Bay Area eviction bootcamps? (this is a real thing: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Lawyer-pumps-up-S-F-la...)

You're comparing a two bed room house (at the low end of what's available for price, I'll add) to four bedroom rentals. I'm currently in a shared four bedroom house with five people; together, my wife and I pay $1500/mo for rent. Sharing one of the cheaper 4br houses equally amongst four housemates gives $800/mo. So, meh.

We are planning to get things together to buy a house; the quick survey just convinced us that it didn't make sense to rush in. We also feel that there's a decent possibility that the housing prices actually are bubbly, which makes us less inclined to rush out and buy something. Overall, the exercise convinced us to wait a bit and get together enough to shoot for a 20yr mortgage.

Read the ad again, its a 4 bedroom house split into two units. And you just went from "it costs you just as much to rent as it does to buy" to "cutting my monthly payment in half isn't a strong enough motivator."

I stand by what I said -- renting is irrational. The kid in the box truck is smarter than every Bay Area software engineer blowing their money on rent.

The property tax is almost certainly off by a factor of 2. You will be paying 1% of the purchase price of your home to start out, as that's definitively the market value at time of purchase in an arms-length transaction.

Buying a house in the Bay Area is an investment that you should only do if you absolutely believe that there's not a technological bubble and that tech companies in the area will continue to pay the highest salaries in the world for the next 30 years.

More power to him, it is his life after all, but I've seen this attitude of extreme frugalness/cheapness and it seems to be a trait that engineers are almost proud of, and brag about. Disclosure: I am myself an engineer, but also founder.

I've heard engineers complain about $49 a month for X or Y SaaS solution that would save a bunch of their time and effort. "That is expensive, I'll just build that myself..."

It is like they try to optimize everything in their life. In my opinion this attitude is toxic, especially in startups.

I knew a guy who did this years ago: lived in his van, ate the free food, showered at the gym, and had basically 0 cost of living. When he got a serious girlfriend, he bought a house in cash.

Amazing how with all the complaints about overpriced real estate in SF/NYC/LA/VAN etc that more people don't opt to own a vehicle that also serves as a sleeping space.

The world is so car-centric yet there's still somewhat of a weird stigma against people who choose to live out of cars/vans/westfalias/RVs etc..?

Also surprised no one's bothered to produce affordable tiny mobile homes for 3rd world countries or college kids: http://www.designboom.com/design/cornelius-comanns-bufalino/ (Elio's enclosed motorcycles are retailing for $6800..?!)

For awhile it was illegal: http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2014/11/18/palo-alto-stri...

Not everyone's got a workplace that has free breakfast, free lunch, free dinner, free gym, free shower, enormous parking lots, and laid back policy.

One way to get access to gym and shower is to sign up for a course at a university and pay a small extra fee.

Don't most companies' liability insurance policies prohibit employees from sleeping/living on company property outside of work hours because of their liability for injuries that happen while the employee is squatting in a truck in their parking lot? I would be surprised if Google's legal team didn't shut this down real quick.

It would be unreasonable if they were deemed to have liability, but that doesn't mean they don't.

On the other hand, what's the worst case scenario? Some miniscule probability that one day he'll fall out if his bunk, break his neck, and google will be on the hook for a few hundred grand. In the meantime, they're probably getting hours per day of extra work out of him, and he's less likely to leave for a new job at a startup without a giant parking lot, showers and free food. So overall it's a net win... at least until thousands of others start to do the same thing and google has a shanty town on its hands.

> On the other hand, what's the worst case scenario?

(1) I'm sure the city of Mountain View and its zoning committee will have some issues with illegal housing units

(2) I'm sure the fire marshall will have some issues with someone permanently inhabiting a flammable structure (literally on top of a barrel of flammable liquid) with no fire-abatement equipment

(3) I'm sure the California DMV will refuse to license a vehicle where the owner's home address is the vehicle itself with no real street address, or a street address where the applicant is not a legal resident and cannot receive mail. And if the vehicle is registered out of state while being in California for more than 60 days, he's violating vehicle licensure laws as well.

(4) OSHA is going to have issues with an employee sleeping on company property -- for his safety. OSHA fines are a bad time.

(5) If the vehicle burst into flames and the occupant locked inside suffered a slow and agonizingly painful death, you can bet that Google will be found to have some liability for wrongful death, including lost wages and suffering, because they knew about an illegal squatter and did nothing to remove him from the property. Double their financial liability if another occupant was having a sleepover with him.

So: the worst case scenario is being in trouble with many local, state, and federal entities, as well as 7-8 figure wrongful death lawsuits.

> at least until thousands of others start to do the same thing and google has a shanty town on its hands

I hadn't even considered the moral hazard here if Google does nothing about this!

In light of this article, won't he be kicked of the lot? But well played by him. My only worry is if he will be able to get/attract a "little action" in the truck parked in the lot you know..

First thing that came to mind, too. However, he can always go to his partner's residence for action.

>However, he can always go to his partner's residence for action.

You are right I suppose. That thought process eluded me:). It all works out then.

Well, not if they've also decided on this money-saving option. Coming soon to downtown Mountain View: Japanese-style love hotels.

>Coming soon to downtown Mountain View: Japanese-style love hotels.

I had to google that. Interesting concept.

yeah I'm sure a software engineer intern living in a truck definitely has a partner

Actually, he does. There's an interview where he talks about it.

He mentions on his blog that he already had a run-in with company security. The verified that he was an employee, apologized for waking him up, and left him be.

>The verified that he was an employee, apologized for waking him up, and left him be.

Thank you for pointing that out to me.

C'mon man, at least do it right and get one of these guys:

http://www.tonke.eu/us/collection/woodline

I give it a week before this is spun into some sort of attack on the culture of the tech industry.

That long? I appreciate your optimism.

When I read the headline, I thought that's what this was going to be!

I doubt it, what this guy is doing is standard practice in the oil fields in North Dakota and nobody seems to have anything to say about that.

Journalists don't go to the oilfields of North Dakota and don't socialise with people who work there, so they might as well not exist.

Hi, journalist who went to North Dakota and socialized with oil field workers here. There were dozens of stories written about workers there last year, as well as photo essays and documentaries.

Heh. Well, there's always an outlier.

I wonder if he stays overnight on the campus, or if he parks the truck out somewhere. Not a bad idea, but ill take commuting via motorcycle and staying at my pops place. Although traffic on 880 is absolute shit.

This is cool and all but sometimes you need some distance between you and your workplace. Being there all day wouldn't be optimal for me.

I would so do this if I didn't have a family. Also, I don't think he's the first one at google to do this.

According to his blog, his savings will have broken even as of today and since early this morning, his savings have reached nearly $200 in the black. Thats pretty impressive all things considered, he's payed off the truck and other expenses and is now making money of this setup.

Lockheed has allowed employees to live in its parking lot for at least a decade if not two.

If only there was any sort of work in tech outside of Silicon Valley, us engineers wouldn't have to choose between saving money and pooping indoors.

Imagine that.

Try NYC, Boston, or London.

I wonder how popular arrangements like this can get before Google puts a stop to it. It would be easy.

companies could build a bunk bed on top of each cubicle, that would solve this issue perfectly.

how expensive is it to rent a normal studio apartment near Google? I seem to be the minority here, but it seems crazy to me to live out of a van, rather than a normal apartment.

edit: somewhere around 2200 a month? it doesn't seem worth the savings to not have an appt

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the smartest person working at Google.

I would do something very similar, in fact.

There was a guy who slept inside AOL's campus too, except on the couches: http://www.cnet.com/news/meet-the-tireless-entrepreneur-who-...

Google has sleep-pods specifically designed for naps. It would be easy -- and very comfortable -- to sleep in them through the night. I suspect security has orders not to disturb people who do this.

These sound neat. Surprisingly high tech too. From the pictures I just assumed it would feel claustrophobic and have that "tunnel sound" effect. I'm assuming they're meant for naps though, at least their original purpose. Google is also special in a way because they offer pretty much everything so people don't have to leave if they don't need to; they do call it a campus.

Whoa. So, one could theoretically live in the campus all year long?

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