Hacker News Reader

Data center has a few security guards. Everything is automated and run remotely. They fly people in from the UD if something needs to be done on site.

These places are basically windowless concrete boxes with a few underground basement levels. At least that's how it is done in my country where we worship ultra efficiency and employees are a liability you want to avoid as much as possible.

That's even worse, then.

But those 200 employees are probably earning ~10%+ of the towns GDP.

So the people earning the other 90% do not count? I thought wealthier people doing whatever they want was a bad idea, but not if it's Googlers.

I didn't say that, but if you think the wealth Google provides those 200 doesn't benefit the remaining 16k then you're delusional.

The benefit is about prestige, not only about 200 families.

The primary benefit is 200 Google salaries stimulating the relatively small local economy.

The primary benefit for whom? And the secondary?

Do you think datacenter security and techs in a small town get paid the same as software engineers in Silicon Valley just because they work at Google?

Ahh the old trickle down fairytale