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Comment by whoevercares | Hacker News Reader

That’s what happens When Google hired Wall Street executives to manage their actual business: all sort of politics and purging. Reducing cost by most primitive capitalism means(just look at the quality downturn of google cafeteria)

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Google's Cafe food has actually increased over last 4 years I've been at Google.

MK Snacks are better. Coffee Better.

Its less cost cutting and more about logistics. You can't buy Mom & Pop created chocolate for 60k Bay area employees spread across 100 offices. We'd be consuming > 100% their supply. Most of the changes are around streamlining our logistics in the bay area to single suppliers.

As for w-street's changes, its not all negative. E.g. When I First joined google I heard of a team spending 10mil on an experiment by buying custom hardware to test form factor...the same experiment could have been done with a 1000$ foam/clay/3d printed mockup. People like Ruth have tought many teams in google to be more frugal.

It will be interesting to see if the recent tax law changes will affect Google perks like the cafeteria. Providing food for employees on-site will no longer be expensable for corporations. So there will be no tax advantage.

Dear cobookman. You are batshit insane. I haven't seen a snack in an MK that I actually wanted to eat in over a year. I am pretty sure many of the same packages have been there for that entire year. I may start marking them with a sharpie to confirm my suspicions.

What office? Main campus in MTV is meh. But SFO / snv / the few smaller offices in redwood City and Palo Alto have some great snacks.

I'd also recommend checking out the playa Vista office in the spruce goose hanger.

Or maybe that's just reality of growth - the larger the organization the harder it is to keep a specific culture as founders can't align culture with all managers anymore, but have to let people go their way.

They aren't describing a specific culture, though, they're describing Google's general culture, the everyday experience.

Larry and Sergey were having affairs with subordinates since the early days, and even as recently as 2014. So maybe the culture was never really that squeaky clean in the first place. I never heard about them retaliating against anyone, or any complaints being filed against them. But . . . would you hear about that? I don't know.

I wish I could say that I don't know anyone who this has happened to. But that wouldn't be true. I know of at least one person who has experienced retaliation at Google. She left the company for a while, but ultimately came back.

just look at the quality downturn of google cafeteria

This is the most brutal takedown of working at GOOG I've seen in yonks. A legit reason to choose to work somewhere else, all else being equal.

You're probably joking, but the disappearance of fringe benefits like free food or drinks is a very early warning sign that you should polish your resume. Somebody is running a cost cutting exercise for some reason good or bad. In a modern tech company the only way to cut significant costs is to cut employees, so you might be next...

This narrative doesn't fit with GOOG hiring 20k people last year.

I don't think they're trying to cut on their headcount, but probably trying to cut on the cost per head.

This doesn't apply to GOOG, the OP was complaining about food getting worse, not it disappearing.

Free stuff disappearing is an early signal, it often occurs before the hiring freezes and layoffs.

Most were contractors, so "hiring" is misleading.

If this article is to be believed, Microsoft does double that every year. I imagine many huge companies do. I realize it probably sounds weird, but Google just ain't that special.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/16/how-to-land-a-job-at-microso...

Reminds me of:

https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-ear...

(Slightly startled to learn that was published nearly a decade ago!)

It could be a result of recent tax law changes. Many fringe benefits like on site food service for employees are no longer a deductible expense. So the cost of providing food to employees essentially went up by 40% overnight.

>You're probably joking

I am not. Google had been the gold standard of at-work perks for 20 years. Even Facebook copied them.

Been at Google for over two years and haven't seen the food quality go down in that period at least. Coffee actually keeps getting better everytime I move to new buildings.

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