> So people shouldn't naively think that Google (or, for that matter, any other company) offers these perks out of the goodness of their heart.
It becomes s question of quality. It is one thing to offer free steaks at lunch (a real perk) vs offering beans and rice every day. [just using it to illustrate a point, not saying Google is serving rice and beans only]. The goal of Google is to present how they have very high quality food during interview then start scaling down the quality (and cost) until employees will still feel like driving is a hassle but now a meal is $10 vs $30.
In the end however they lose with this strategy. The people working there can read between the lines. Google might end up with better end-of-quarter bottom line, but in the long long run they will be shooting themselves in the foot.
> It is one thing to offer free steaks at lunch (a real perk) vs offering beans and rice every day. [just using it to illustrate a point, not saying Google is serving rice and beans only].
If they just offered (note: it's an offer, not mandatory) beans and rice, then the employees would just go out for lunch, defeating the purpose of the program.
The lunch has to be good enough to keep the employees there.
It becomes s question of quality. It is one thing to offer free steaks at lunch (a real perk) vs offering beans and rice every day. [just using it to illustrate a point, not saying Google is serving rice and beans only]. The goal of Google is to present how they have very high quality food during interview then start scaling down the quality (and cost) until employees will still feel like driving is a hassle but now a meal is $10 vs $30.
In the end however they lose with this strategy. The people working there can read between the lines. Google might end up with better end-of-quarter bottom line, but in the long long run they will be shooting themselves in the foot.