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According to his Linkedin link, Charlie graduated in 2012 and went straight to work for Google, where he worked for 7 years. My hypothesis is that essentially everyone he knows after graduating, he met at Google.

Me, I've got friends and relatives. I've got stuff to do. For me, going to work does not equal hanging out with my buddies.

Oh, here's another one: the last time I worked in the office, my cubicle was directly across the hall from apparently the only large, not-completely-booked-up meeting room at MSFC. At least once a week I was up closing the goddamn meeting room door.

Do you work in software? I have never heard of a software company not providing free coffee. The increased productivity completely outweigh the couple dollars for the hot bean water.

Dell doesn't

My time at Dell immediately brought this to mind. No coffee offered other than overpriced you had to purchase from the cafeteria. I brought in my own espresso and coffee maker, and got chastised by facilities as a fire hazard. We weren't even allowed to put in the tiny kitchenette, which was a sink with plastic utensils in a couple of drawers. Ridiculous.

Then you're not looking very far outside your own bubble, because as someone like OP who doesn't have the pleasure of working in top tech companies in silicon valley, I never had free coffee at any place I had to show up at.

Heck, even being paid decently at those places was far fetch let alone all those perks.

You’re deep in the trenches if you’ve only worked in places that don’t even provide free coffee and teas.

No, I live in a place where the claim to technology fame is "We have an IBM support office here, we're a tech hub!"

Heck the biggest thing tech wise to come out of my city is founder and former CEO of GitHub Tom Preston-Werner being from here.

To elaborate the biggest "tech" company I worked at where I had to show up was John Deere. They had coffee, but it was just a Starbucks directly in JDIS (the "department" that handled software dev) and you had to pay to get a cup.

> I have never heard of a software company not providing free coffee.

Countless software development companies exist in offices without so much as a break room (much less a kitchen). SMH

This is unheard of inside the Silicon Valley bubble. In our defense, it also doesn’t make sense that an employer doesn’t provide it for free. Coffee is cheap. It also adds productivity.

One reason some companies dont is because they have significant NON tech work force also in the same building, and they dont want to provide perks for X that they dont for Y in the same building.

If the first 3 stories of your building are call center level employees who make barely better than minimum wages and the top floor is your well paid software engineers, then facilities just says "no free coffee" to everyone.

Though even in places that you would think would be stingy give out free coffee and snacks more and more. Most of the purse string people like having nice snacks too. Even small business owners will cater meals and buy nice coffee because they get to have a nice meal that counts as a business expense and their premium coffee blend they get on order and have every day gets to count as one too at that point.

The cost to benefit ratio of coffee is so high that it makes sense to provide it to the whole office regardless of whether or not they’re IT

The main thing I’ve seen is if the local executive uses the coffee. If he does, it’s free for everyone.

If the executive break room is hidden and secret, then there may be a lack of free coffee.

> non-tech

A Stinging reminder that if your company is not primarily a tech company, IT is a cost center; the perks there are for normie employees and not to retain tech talent

I have never encountered such a company in software or hardware engineering across multiple countries.

I didn’t like the skiing or whatever bit in the article, but coffee machines, etc are pretty universal

Closest I've come to no office coffee at a tech company is one that just had a Keurig machine and the very cheapest K-cups they could find. The only ones that even had a flavor were the ones labeled "dark roast", and that flavor was very bad. I'm pretty sure an electric kettle and a jar of instant coffee would have given better results. That place had 500 people and was growing fast. Nowhere near SV, though.

I guess clean up for those is easier?

traditional drip coffee and shelf stable creamer was the norm when I started.

Big tech is not all "free" and perks, and it depends dramatically on company or even just the division. There's the the big one of Google, with all its free food, etc but the other big tech don't do that - they have accumulated some free snacks and sodas, etc in recent years but they still basically charge for all food from the cafeterias. The free food at Google or startup-land isn't a huge selling point in practice - it simply is not worth much relative to the salary/wage comp.

> Do I work in software?

I sure do. Companies big and small. Some of them at one time offered free coffee but the bean counters took away that perk as a cost cutting measure.

Literal bean counting, eh?

I've worked at a few places where the provided "free" coffee was just what one of us decided to bring in and share in the kitchen.

I have also yet to work anywhere where the added "agitation" of getting folks talking in the kitchen wasn't the largest benefit of having said kitchen. (That is, productivity was probably lower, but it increased the odds of a productive conversation happening. Nothing guaranteed, of course.)

Interestingly, Atlassian (somewhat) famously didn't have coffee. They offered free breakfast and lunch, unlimited ice cream, more booze than you'd ever want, etc. But their philosophy with coffee was that they wanted you to form groups and leave the office for a few minutes a couple of times a day. It was supposedly a method of bonding and spontaneous collaboration. In my opinion it worked well.

Hacker news was built by silicon valley tech people, has a lot of silicon valley tech people posting. The author doesn't need to write for every single possible constituency. Also, many other industries provide lunch etc - historically many mining and oil and gas companies provided food, housing, everything. Some still do. The author wrote in good faith.

There are a lot of people at google who don't come from privileged backgrounds. They might have won an iq lottery or something, but someone working hard to get a job at a good company doesn't make them privileged. What's next? Elon is "privileged"?

Mines I have worked at in the US only provided meals when you were travelling. Although unlimited double brew and a plugin for every truck/car in the parking lot was provided. Can't speak for oil and gas.

It could be geography dependent - some mines are in the middle of nowhere in places like Australia and Canada.

on that, I've only ever worked at one company that provided free coffee (a large bank). And quite frankly, it being in Melbourne, Australia, only the absolutely desperate would touch it and not just go outside to cafes for meetings and buy their own at their own cost.

I also did some work experience at tidbinbilla tracking station when I was younger, as well as the radio telescope array out near Narrabri. the NASA aligned tidbinbilla one had a company cafeteria, which at the time I put down to some American cultural import thing, because it seemed weird as hell to me. the Narrabri facility isn't exactly in the middle of the city either, and is the only place I've worked with a bus that came round to pick you up from the town each morning (I've heard some tech companies do this in Silicon Valley?) and even they expected you to make your own lunch (there wasn't really an option to go get food from a shop). on the upside, they did have a volleyball court, so swings and roundabouts...

I generally avoid even talking about him due to his rapid followers but uh… yes, Elon Musk’s father is “so rich we couldn’t close our safe” and it’s hilarious you chose him - of all people - to argue against privilege instead of Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Jeff Bezos, literally anyone of more modest upbringing but you chose the actual one with family money.

Regardless, I don’t think OP was referring to privileged upbringing/background but privileged currently e.g. privileged for working at a place which provides many amenities and trips. I agree with your first paragraph, i.e. everyone can only write from their own perspectives, but just clarifying the difference.

I'm not an Elon Musk fan, but the impression I get is that both 'sides' exaggerate (or misunderstand) his family background. It seems - from what I've read - that his dad was the kind of slightly-mad entrepreneur who had money at points and no money at other points. I don't think they were stupendously rich.

Just look at Andy Grove [0].

Literally bootstrapped himself from nothing.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Grove

Andy Grove was "privileged" - he had about 200 iq points and had some weird genetic mutation which made him like working a lot.

Bill Gates dad was a hotshot lawyer. Buffett's dad was a congressman. All of them had nice backgrounds. They don't fly private jets and live in mansions because of that background - they worked like maniacs. People can have nice things without it being "privilege"

> An actual office, with a window, door, temperature control, and some kind of noise isolation.

Yeah, it would be nice to not feel like being back in kindergarten for a change.

Do people even get their own cubes these days?

Nope. Hot desking is in vogue now so be prepared to hunt for a new seat once in a while.

> Dude, your privileged is showing...

It’s not really a privilege. Google (especially the Chrome team) is extremely high impact work. Think of all the revenues funneled into search thanks to it. It’s deep, fundamental tech at a tech company and a core part of the strategy.

> I have yet to work for a company that buys me lunch, much less annual ski trips. Hell, coffee hasn't been provided at any of my jobs, I've always had to pitch into a coffee pool just to have it. That's not to even mention getting to go to conferences. If I wanted to attend a conference, it would be coming out of my wallet and vacation time.

That’s a series of red flags. Why did you even go work there in the first place? Are the founders unable to raise anything?

> Guess what, that lunch which I am already paying for, is also unpaid time. Ever since I've been working from home, my lunch hour is mine. I get to unwind, read or watch tv, all while eating a healthy meal.

Are you in consulting? Only place I heard of with billable hours.

If it’s a regular company with FTE, with a mentality like that regarding collaboration it sounds like they sure aren’t a threat to anyone in SV.

I agree on the open office plans (excuse to cram more people in a space) but a decent cube setup isnt all that bad (assuming decently high walls).

Not sure how a company buying you lunch makes you privileged - mine does not but many bigger companies provide that as a perk and it is not super uncommon or something.

FWIW, I definitely don't deny that my privilege is showing.

I no longer work at Google, but whether I want to go into the office is probably heavily influenced by the fact that I have a ~15 minute door to door bike commute through a nice town (Ann Arbor) to my nice coworking space.

I think that the scary part to me about the idea of all jobs going remote is that "going remote" seems an antidote to:

- Bad office designs (no privacy, poor light, etc.) - Bad urban planning (long commutes, poor transportation options) - Bad coworkers

Of those three, only the "bad coworkers" one seems inevitable that some people will have to deal with. (After all, those people need to work somewhere.)

If I had to commute two hours a day to work in an office with no privacy, my opinion on this would surely be different. One of the people on my team at Google lived in Oakland and commuted to Mountain View every day: that sounded awful. But we also don't have to design offices to offer no privacy and we know how to design better cities that don't offer horrific commutes.

You're thinking purely in the context of everyone living where these jobs physically exist.

Tell me what part of remote working is an antidote to me living in Dubuque, Iowa where relocation is not a possibility... Do I just not work in tech?

Wow a fellow Dubuquer on HN? Howdy.

Well hello there! You still a resident or former? I'm surprised to see a anyone in a 60 mile radius of Dubuque on HN lol.

Family lives there, I go visit couple times a year now :)

Well if you're ever in the area and want to meet up, feel free to reach out!

Indeed. "My gold-coated bon-bons are empty, the bottle of 20y scotch is half-full, and Im ONLY in a 5 star ski resort with my colleagues."

Whereas I'm making 150k/yr in the midwest as 100% remote engineer, and livin every day to its fullest. I'm certainly getting no ski trips or otherwise. Most companies don't do that.

I also don't look forward to working at a FAANG either. Way too much churn. And I frankly value stability as well. And the FAANGs aren't that at all.

As much as the admins here want us to think in the most gracious way, I really think these are commissioned hit pieces against remote-work. Ive been tracking them, and its long-form articles like this that advocate in-person work where it doesn't need it.

What? FAANGs are among the most stable in tech, Apple especially is notorious for lifers.

Yep, Microsoft is in a similar boat. There is a reason for why Red West part of the main campus is often referred to as Red Vest.

Even outside of that, about half of the people I used to work with at MSFT were lifers (7+ years easily, a good number of 10+, a few 15+). Not judgement whatsoever, it sounded like a win-win situation for all sides involved (them and the company). Most of them had kids, families, and the primary reason for staying was great life-work balance and stability. They weren't "delusional" or anything, they knew all the tradeoffs of being a lifer, and they've made an extremely reasonable decision to stay.

Note: what I said doesn't seem to apply to most Azure teams, as I've heard some wild stories from people who switched either to or from Azure (i.e., they experienced how it is to work at both Azure and the rest of MSFT). Azure is intense.

Amazon is probably an exception, and based on Netflix's stated attitude towards "adequate performance" I wouldn't necessarily expect stability there.

-nuff said. you nailed it.

It never happened for lunch for me. It happened while overhearing a discussion a few desks down during working hours.

And please, lunch is hardly a privilege. You can make lunch for $3. It’s a benefit for the company masquerading as a benefit to you. Coffee is so cheap it’s almost free. I buy it at Costco for around $20. I don’t know exactly how many cups I get, but it’s so cheap it’s not even worth calculating.

You're not making the office sound any better with these "just do it yourself bro" arguments. They can do that at home. If they're not even trying to make the office a place people want to be at, then just stop.

"Why do people want to stay WFH when we don't provide incentives for them to come to the office?" "Gee Bob I don't know."