Inside the Cafe at Facebook Headquarters | Hacker News Reader

Inside the Cafe at Facebook Headquarters

foodgal.com

50 pointsjakarta41 comments

Am I the only one who thinks it's absolutely crazy that they have a kitchen staff of 50 people for only 800 employees? That means 1 for every 16 other employees. I actually completely agree with a lot of the other posters who are saying how important good food is to productivity, and 50 employees to produce the kind of food they're producing doesn't sound unreasonable. But given all that, thinking of the overhead and expense involved, that number still just strikes me as an incredibly massive proportion of their staff being devoted to foodservice.

I'm with you there! If the hackers who work there are anything like me, a fridge full of Mountain Dew and a cupboard full of Pop-Tarts would achieve the same effect. If I wanted to provide something more nutritious, given my penchant for outsourcing, I would lean toward hiring a catering company.

When you hit 30 you may discover that Pop Tarts are too sweet and Mountain Dew gives you heartburn. :D

When I read this comment, I had just eaten a Pop tart (no Dew though). I'll let you know in 6 months when I turn 30 how it feels then!

We have fridges of Mountain Dew too you know.

As sacriligious as it may be... I gave up the 'Dew years ago after reading 3 strange words on the back of the can and Googling them...

Brominated Vegetable Oil.....

Am I the only one who thinks Mountain Dew is nasty? But then again, I rarely drink soda. Real, brewed, root beer, OTOH... mmm.

As for PopTarts? Well, I probably bought my last dentist a nice boat. Not going there again!

Not to sound elitist or anything, but the last time my palette was this simplistic, I was about 12 or so.

And what's wrong with beer at work? A nice cold Vanilla Porter would make most meetings a lot more fun!

Most of the them are probably only part time (i.e. 2-3 hours a day during peak hours and only 2-3 days a week) and they are probably counting the kitchen janitorial crew.

50 ends up just being a nice sweet marketing number (directed at both potential employees and for media hype).

I agree. Reminds me of the dot com days of excess, and is a reflection that the company is massively over-valued. Still, it sure beats our office canteen special - Baked potato and baked beans, anyone?

That's the difference between ramen profitable and gourmand profitable!

There's a saying... the Japanese invented ramen because the quicker you eat, the quicker you get back to work. In this way, I think they are the same.

Facebook is "profitable"?

I thought it was common knowledge that they were expecting a profit this year, on revenue in the hundreds of millions. I could be wrong though.

They've got goals to get cash flow positive in 2010.

But they've been running on credit for a long time now. It will still take a long while before they pay off that debt.

Last year it was estimated they had revenue at 350 and expenses at 500.

That's the difference between profitable and profiterole.

"Friday afternoons feature a happy hour with real wine and beer."

I hear MySpace only has the fake stuff.

Is there non-real wine? What do they call it? Imaginary wine? As an European, I really don't understand the joke...

Grape juice

Grape juice is to wine what wine is to vinegar...

Google has non-alcoholic imitation wine in most of their cafes.

Food isn't the most important part of a work environment, but it really is quite good.

For all that food, I didn't see anything that I would be excited about eating. Where's the pizza/pasta/sandwiches/food for real (hungry) people?

»There is always one vegetarian entree, and a choice of two different pizzas.«

Imagine how nice the perks will be after Facebook makes their first $1 in profit!

I hope that if I ever have a company this well-funded, my idea is exciting enough that I won't have to lure high-profile talent like this. Because stuff like this is probably not going to help a company get in the black. I know, this is a very utilitarian way of looking at things...food is very important! But regardless, I'd rather replace the two top chefs with a designer and developer. This sort of luxury can wait for when times are good.

When you have a good job, good food and good company times are nearly always good.

I'm sure the varied interesting diet pays off in staff motivation and happiness.

I disagree.

Personally, no matter how much work I have to do, the single most difficult thing I ever have to do is to get fed. Whether it's shopping, packing, cooking, traveling to a restaurant, waiting in line, etc., etc., etc., nothing is a bigger pain in the ass. And that's just for mediocre food, not good stuff like this. If I had something like this, my productivity would probably double. Multiply that by x employees and suddenly, these chefs are the bargain of the century.

I guess that the food around their offices stinks...I've never felt the way you do about the DC area. Either way, I'm not suggesting that they do away with the cafeteria, but they probably should avoid breaking the bank on it.

I completely agree with your point about having food around at the office. We don't have anything nearly as elaborate as the Facebook offices, just a snack room with an Odwalla fridge, pretzels, chips, etc, and another fridge full of lunch meat and other sandwich materials. And I agree that my productivity has gone through the roof because of easy access to food -- when I'm hungry, I just go and eat, and get back up to full potential.

That said, I agree with the original comment: this is not a good way to get your company in the black. Maybe I have a terribly uneducated palette, but the sandwiches I can make work for me. In fact, I've never heard anyone at work complain "I wish we had a cafeteria with a sous chef." Maybe that's because we're in downtown San Francisco, and there's a lot of stuff around. But seeing as how we -all- go to Mehfil 3x a week, I don't think the variety is helping.

The neighborhood I work in is just awful for lunch. About a dozen mediocre restaurants (half are fast food) with thousands of "office park employees" taking their lunch break at the same time. What used to be a pleasure is now just a pain.

Also, once you learn to eat fresh and healthy, sometimes it's better to eat nothing than Wendy's or shit like that. I shop 2 or 3 times per week and pack breakfast and lunch everywhere I go. And I'm sick of it. Really sick of it.

AFAIC, a cafeteria or dining room with real food is more important than just about anything else.

Dittoed. I haven't cooked a meal for myself in probably six months. That's not something I'm particularly proud of, and I kind of miss cooking, but its just not economically viable for how little time I have right now. I get in from work past 10 PM most nights, and would rather spend my hour or two of leisure working on my business rather than shopping, cooking, and cleaning.

That said, my bosses are of the opinion that providing food for their engineers is a waste of money, so we have to pay 100 yen a cup for coffee, and the tea is free but the cups were eliminated to save on expenses. (Because why pay for a paper cup when you could pay a senior engineer to wash out his reusable mug.)

"""If I had something like this, my productivity would probably double."""

Would your productivity double? (This is a serious question btw). Perhaps some fb employees are thinking about their next world class meal and overlooking a new idea, and employees at a facebook successor are grinding away while eating rice and beans for 2n.

Did Ion Storm ultimately end up beating out their competition due to their luxurious office space [1]? There is a difference between a perk and an indicator of success.

[1] http://www.rbdg.com/projects/ionstorm/

Would your productivity double? (This is a serious question btw).

Absolutely. (This is a serious answer).

Yesterday was a typical day. In the middle of 3 hot tasks that needed complete focus. A user wanted to grab a "quick bite" and discuss her project. "No problem," I thought, "I have to eat anyway."

Despite cell phone calls, it still took 15 minutes to meet out front. 10 minute drive to restaurant. 10 minutes in line. Eat. Wait for check. Massive traffic jam because of road work. (If we had known, we would have come back a different way.) 2 hours for lunch of which 10 minutes was spent talking about the project. Then, after returning emails, voicemails, and taking Pepto Bismol, I just didn't feel like getting back to what I was doing all morning. I lost half a day because management doesn't have enough fucking vision to provide some kind of "eating resources". (Sorry, such a disruptive problem with such an easy solution that I hardly ever see.) BTW, this facility employs 1600 people with the same problem every single day.

> the single most difficult thing I ever have to do is to get fed.

If you ever have kids you are in for a real shock if the most difficult thing you ever have to do is get fed:)

I disagree entirely. The best hackers can work anywhere they want, why not work at a place that cares and provides for their employees.

You forgetting the teamwork benefits. When there is good food, teams will come together and chat it up. The lunch hour at the cafeteria can be conducive to productivity. People catch up on what their team is doing or spark new ideas on the back of napkins. Munching on food and tossing ideas around with colleagues in a casual environment is my preferred way for generating original ideas.

Or let's talk some rough math... it's all about time saved. If you are saving your employees 30 minutes each from grabbing food or making it, that could be 30 minutes more of producitivity. A chef would only need to serve 16 people to redeem his eight hours of pay. The article says a kitchen staff of 50 serves 800, that means every person is serving about 16 people. That staff probably also makes less than your average employee it all adds up to easy ROI.

Edit: wordiness, then grammar, then spelling, then wordiness and grammar again.

The Zynga founder is all about the lean startup and "going ghetto" but he says that food is really important so even his lean startup (which employs many MVP testing practices) has a good chef and good food. He'll go cheap on everything else though, including developers... because often good developers want to work where they can eat good food, even if the pay is lower than market rate.

They compete with Google for talent. End of story.

For a company of facebook's size though, I'm sure the chef's hired would be a very small amount of the people hired.

It also would come off to employees that they care, they have probably pulled off lucrative hires that they may not have got without the meals they provide.

I can't imagine this costs them that much per employee at their scale, esp. considering the likely considerable benefits to gains in productivity.

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