Insanely silly headline, the building cannot be a surprise or news the planning burdens in CA are non trivial and Google employs enough people it makes sense.
What's the enticement? $99. So it's a $99 hotel room which the company gets.. from payroll. I doubt it recoups profit but probably a tax side means the capex and opex to run the joint isn't a complete loss.
I expect in due course to see Googlers release news of the tailgate stupidities and the set of house rules which get creatively ignored and modified
I think I've stayed there while visiting the Mountain View offices for training. They were nice accomodations but felt a bit strange to be in a hotel operated by my employer. I got to expense it then but I doubt people staying there for RTO will get the chance.
When I was regularly traveling to the Bay Area for work my typical accommodations were like $180. However, when I was paying for it from my own pocket and had less money, there were some spots on El Camino Real in Santa Clara that were $59 or $69, run down a bit, but clean. And pretty good donuts for breakfast.
So I think for the typical work traveler this will feel like a discount, but I agree it’s not a great deal. Of course, my experience is 5-10 years old, so…
Companies, specially this ones with so much profit and high salaries, will eventually have to accept that there's no way around housing and politics.
It doesn't matter what you do. If moving to your place feels miserable you'll have churn.
Maybe Google can deal with this with some gymnastics for a while but if people around google employees keep getting poorer and more miserable, life for googlers will be miserable too, doesn't matter how many perks and colors their campus has.
I guess FAANG will eventually try to silo people in their campuses with their own housing, but either way it affects the bottom line of the economy, so you'll be affected in many ways.
Housing is not just another problem. Georgists, Piketty & critics, etc.
When market rates drop, new market rate housing projects stall and die.
They stall and die more quickly than they start as market rates rise.
Because investment syndicates fall apart as anticipated rates of return fall, because bank loans are harder to come by, and because existing revenue streams shrink available funding.
Real estate economics is very unlike widget economics. The amount of land in desirable locations is fixed.
It isn’t going to happen because you lack sufficient wherewithal to deliver the violence necessary to make it happen.
In the very best case significant land reform happens through the plausible threat of violence. But typically, actual violence is required and military operations are the most cost effective means of land reform at scale.
As someone who did work for companies that were too far and it didn’t want to move and so I paid for my own hotel room.
After 1 I was so sad, depressed of going alone to my hotel that I quit. There is just no money in the world that will replace personal connections (for me my wife and kids). So either housing goes down or work somewhere else - full stop.
23 comments
[ 21.5 ms ] story [ 1254 ms ] threadWhat's the enticement? $99. So it's a $99 hotel room which the company gets.. from payroll. I doubt it recoups profit but probably a tax side means the capex and opex to run the joint isn't a complete loss.
I expect in due course to see Googlers release news of the tailgate stupidities and the set of house rules which get creatively ignored and modified
So I think for the typical work traveler this will feel like a discount, but I agree it’s not a great deal. Of course, my experience is 5-10 years old, so…
It doesn't matter what you do. If moving to your place feels miserable you'll have churn.
Maybe Google can deal with this with some gymnastics for a while but if people around google employees keep getting poorer and more miserable, life for googlers will be miserable too, doesn't matter how many perks and colors their campus has.
I guess FAANG will eventually try to silo people in their campuses with their own housing, but either way it affects the bottom line of the economy, so you'll be affected in many ways.
Housing is not just another problem. Georgists, Piketty & critics, etc.
It will tank the west (and particularly europe).
If you want below market rate housing, it has to be subsidized.
As is the case here...try to find a $99/night rack rate hotel room in Mountain View.
Here, Google is subsidizing well paid workers, not ordinary working poor or even low wage employees of its cleaning contractors.
Subsidies on the other hand increase the market rate, below which, correct, you will not get much construction.
They stall and die more quickly than they start as market rates rise.
Because investment syndicates fall apart as anticipated rates of return fall, because bank loans are harder to come by, and because existing revenue streams shrink available funding.
Real estate economics is very unlike widget economics. The amount of land in desirable locations is fixed.
I am not suggesting you were thinking of London.
I am saying that analogous forces exist elsewhere and are equally resistant to land reform in favor of unlanded peasants.
And by extension that most people are unlanded peasants. Even though they don’t think they are.
The Google hotel is for its unlanded peasants. Not the C-suite. The C-suite doesn’t want those people living in their neighborhood.
I’m aware of that! But that has been true of most of society’s large scale positive transformations.
In the very best case significant land reform happens through the plausible threat of violence. But typically, actual violence is required and military operations are the most cost effective means of land reform at scale.
> You load 16 tons, what do you get?
> Another day older and deeper in debt
> St. Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go
> I owe my soul to the company store
—Sixteen Tons by Merle Travis[2]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_scrip
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixteen_Tons
Note: Yes, I'm aware scrip was outlawed in the US long ago but I suppose that's what lobbying is for.