Microsoft: The "Velvet Sweatshop" (1989)
krsaborio.net
Really illuminating article written in 1989 on Microsoft's culture. Any parallels you draw to large corporations of today are strictly your own.
krsaborio.net
Google's growth will slow, and the most ambitious employees will move along or retire (this is already happening), leaving the careerists to take over. As the management structure of the company ossifies, the young employees will stop working quite so many hours (why bother, if it's not going to make you rich?), and a job at Google will become Just Another Daily Grind (tm). Over time, the free food and massages will look as dated and manipulative as the free soda at Microsoft, and the company will become an elaborate, kabuki-theater version of its youthful mythology.
I think you know you're on the bad side of this narrative when you start to see Audis and Volvos in the company parking lot. Clunkers are good (the employees are young and hungry) and ridiculous sports cars are okay (the employees are newly rich and brash), but luxury sedans are the death knell for innovation. (And yes, in case you're wondering -- the lots at Microsoft are positively filled with them).