Google's Best Perk — Transport

Reverse Gear writes "The New York Times has an interesting article about how different kinds of fringe benefits are starting to count more in the fight for the best brains in Silicon Valley. The article mainly focuses on Google's high-tech shuttle-bus system, which is quite extensive, covering a majority of the San Fransisco Bay area. The article quotes a transportation expert opining that Google's may be the largest such private system anywhere. One-quarter of the headquarters employees are now using it. A Google software engineer said: 'They could either charge for the food or cut it altogether... If they cut the shuttle, it would be a disaster.'"

Cost Cutting

[biocute]

As a listed company, what if Google is asked by shareholders to cut costs when the inevitable "down" periods start to kick in?

In saner parts of the world...

[dkf]

... there is real mass transit so that companies don't have to invest money in doing this for themselves. This leads me to ask a few rhetorical questions: How long before Google gets together with some of the other tech companies in the area to run a shared service? How long after that before it transforms into the sort of mass transit service that people elsewhere in the world take for granted?

Welcome to the consequences of high-density living.

Smart move

[26199]

I'm sure lots of professionals feel the pain of a daily commute. Anything that improves it is a fairly major perk.

Obviously the next step is to found the Googleopolis... or perhaps just purchase an existing city outright...

Trimming the verge

[HomelessInLaJolla]

Google will do what all companies do: Identify the largest portion of the employee population, usually those making less than $80k/year, and will initiate a program of attrition. Yearly raises will be slashed, performance reviews will be capped, and the incoming salary offers for non-priveleged candidates (ie. everyday technological associates) will be levelled off. Middle and lower managers will receive bonuses based upon how flat they can keep their budgets and not based upon any real technological performance--maybe a more preferred stock offering will be available to managers whose budgets increase by only justified amounts. In order to maintain a good image Google, as a corporate entity, will remind incoming candidates that "We may not be able to offer the same compensation as our competitors but we do offer transportation to and from work which we see as a valuable fringe benefit which both enhances the employee paycheck and works to preserve the environment."

Re:Cost Cutting

[aussie_a]

Given the Google owner's hold over 50% of the shares, can anyone do anything beyond simply asking them?

Tax status?

[UbuntuDupe]

I'm guessing that part of the reason is due to taxes. That is, employees don't have to count the "value" of the bus service as income, so it's not taxed. So if the bus service costs $500/employee-year and their effective marginal tax rate is 35% (state, local, fed, SS), as long as the bus service is better than $325/year in additional pay, it's a good deal.

Re:In saner parts of the world...

[NoodleSlayer]

This is *NOT* simply a mass transit system though. These busses are much more posh then you'd see in any public transit system, and are equipped with things like WiFi.

And considering the paranoid security climate around the valley, there's a good chance that no two companies would agree to share a shuttle service like that simply because they'd be too worried about company secrets leaking. And Google isn't the only company that has services like this, Apple has some shuttles available for employees that live in the Santa Cruz area and I'm sure there's a couple I don't know about. Those shuttles are usually organized by the employees though, which makes Google's system unique.

Re:In saner parts of the world...

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to the consequences of high-density living.

Not quite. Welcome to the consequences of badly-planned high-density living, with not-so-competent city governments...

Re:Why not Google Housing?

[fireduck]

This isn't necessarily such a bad idea. In Irvine, the big tech center of Southern California, the Irvine Company is building luxury apartment complexes adjacent to new office space. The best part is that it's also across the street from a large retail / entertainment center. So people literally live where they can work and play. I don't see anything wrong with this idea. At least for people who chose apartment living.

Re:Whatever happened to telecommuting?

[Tablizer]

So apparently, IT jobs in the United States can easily be outsourced to Bangalore, India, because the Internet makes it possible to do work remotely (across the world, across entire oceans) without skipping a beat. But a bus needs to be run to transport workers 45 minutes away from work?

Cutting-edge work generally needs close-knit collaboration and understanding of local culture. The stuff easiest to offshore are things that are fairly easy to define clearly up-front. I suspect that some of Google's maintenance work will eventually go there when they face a budget crunch in the future (and cut back on R&D).
     

Re:Cost Cutting

[TubeSteak]

if a public company is seen as incapable of adjusting according to economic trends (ie still spending big in slow economy), the share price will drop as minority shareholders start abandoning the company.

What makes you think Google's founders care about share prices?

Wall Street analysts have been pissed off with Google for a very long time.
http://www.google.com/search?q=google+stock+"lack+ of+transparency" [google.com]

My basic point is that Google decided not to play Wall Street's short term game from the very beginning.

Re:In saner parts of the world...

[NeMon'ess]

Define better.

For example, Google's shuttles don't run between 11am and 3:30pm.

The company store

[HomelessInLaJolla]

Whether it is a mining town or a fishing town or a technology town, people appreciate

Not as much as the upper management appreciates knowing both your wages and how much it costs your family to eat every month. Think modern day companies with in-house bank branches and with the right to scrape your screen when you check your ledger balance or recent transactions online at work.

What do you do when wages and cost of food begin to approach each other? At what point is the foul acknowledged when wages = CoF - 1 ?

Re:My Work Is My Life

[Anonymous Coward]

Horse shit. It shouldn't be anybody's mantra. To put it quite simply, I work to live. I don't live to work. Living to work just ain't healthy, hence the reason stuff like showers combined with cots and other "live in" amenities at work are frankly a bad idea.

Go spend some time in the light of the daystar if you believe otherwise. You probably need it.

Re:The company store

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Paranoid much? These are tech companies, not mining towns, and people can jump ship at a moment's notice. Also, squeezing people like that makes them dishonest, so it's not advisable even when you can get away with it.

Re:My Work Is My Life

[QuantumG]

Go do a PhD, then you'll know what I'm talking about, and you'll know what being a Google hotshot is all about.

Re:At some point...

[ximenes]

Yes, that would be great for working. However, a large part of the allure of working somewhere like Silicon Valley is the non-work components of the area. Actual culture somewhere nearby, other businesses that you like to shop at (or go work at if your job sucks), and so on. Plus Google has a steady stream of employees they can steal from other nearby businesses, and they're near businesses that they want to work with.

This is one reason why Gateway is not located in North Dakota anymore. This is why technology companies in particular all seem to clump together in a few locations. The companies themselves find value in it, and their employees (being generally well-educated and to a degree able to be more selective than some other industries) want to live in places that they actually like rather than, lets say, North Dakota.

Re:At some point...

[Anonymous Coward]

The genesis of the Google Shuttle was in a group of progressive-thinking employees living in the city of San Francisco who disliked the social costs and the personal frustration of driving vehicles all the way to Mountain View every day, but found the existing mass transit options inconvenient considering the nature and hours of their work.

The program was later extended to other Bay Area communities. It is a way of coping with the downsides of commuting to work through metropolitan congestion, while still being able to maintain the benefits of living in vibrant, densely populated and creative city like San Francisco. Moving the company to a rural area would mean losing access to those creative people, which would be bad for the Google culture.

Shuttle Rider.

I don't want perks

[jlarocco]

Am I the only person who doesn't want perks? I want three things from work: the ability to do my job, more pay, and less time there. If an employer wants to show their appreciation, they can increase my pay, let me work fewer hours, or both.

I expect an adequate computer, comfortable chair, comfortable desk, and a private cubicle/office. Those are things that help me focus on getting my job done. I don't consider them perks, I consider them mandatory for getting work done.

Besides that, I want to have as little to do with my employer as possible. I don't want a company car, I don't want a company shuttle, I don't want a company apartment, I don't want free food, I don't want free beverages. I want to work my 40-45 hours a week, then go home and forget about work completely.

Re:In saner parts of the world...

[hey!]

In saner parts of the world, private companies aren't asked to provide health insurance for their employees.

Here in the US, we expect private companies to provide health insurance, which has a host of evil effects on employees and employers. Employees get stuck in a job if they get sick, for fear of losing insurance. Employers end up fighting with employees over health benefits. More often than not when there is a big labor dispute, it's over health insurance.

In a global economy, when you produce in the US and sell overseas, you pay your employee's health care here, then through taxes pay for your competitors' employees health care over there.

We're big on talking about rugged individualism here, but what's the point of it if we don't use our brains? We act as if the world would come to the end if for once we admitted that everyone else in the world has got it right.

Re:Why not Google Housing?

[Giometrix]

It would really suck though, if you were to get laid off....now you're out of a job and a home.

Re:In saner parts of the world...

[phantomfive]

Qualcomm would not want their employees on this bus. Any company that considers their intellectual property to be their most valuable asset (as Qualcomm does) would not want ideas traded on the bus.

Re:I don't want perks

[hankwang]

I don't want a company car, I don't want a company shuttle, I don't want a company apartment, I don't want free food, I don't want free beverages.

If you value money more than perks, how about this? You have a commuting distance of 20 mi. By using the shuttle you save about $1000/year on fuel and 200 hours/year on driving. The shuttle might be comparable in time to driving yourself since it uses the carpool lanes. And rather than just stare at the car in front of you, you can check your email, surf the web, read a book, or take a nap. Of course, some people love to drive, but for others using the commuting time for other purposes might be worth $10 per hour (or whatever). For this example, a shuttle service that costs the employer $2000 per year could have a value of $3000 per year for certain employees, while the alternative was that the employer paid $2000 extra salary (minus taxes).

Similar for the food. You have to eat anyway. If they raise your salary and cut the free meals so that you can buy your own lunch you might very well end up with the same money in your wallet but with a tray of fast food rather than a decent meal.

Finally, it is in the interest of the employer to create an atmosphere where the employees feel part of a big happy family rather than that everyone is just minding their own business.

Re:My Work Is My Life

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait. Let me get this straight.

These people are getting the opportunity to do exactly what they love and what they've always dreamed of, quite literally for the rest of their living days if they so choose, and you think that *they're* the suckers here?

I... uh... don't get it, but okay. Whatever you say, chief.

Re:I don't want perks

[Rakishi]

From there its a short step in my mind to the return of the company store and the sort of employee dependencies upon that particular company that can easily change into a very bad thing.

You're just paranoid, I mean this is like a perfect example of using a slippery slope argument badly (and stupidly). If any company did that, guess what? All those employees would move to another company.

Unlike you many people do like convenience. They don't like wasting their time commuting, cooking or going out to eat (which in the Bay Area isn't always as trivial as in NYC with 10 places on every square block). Yahoo for example also offers an ATM (with no surcharge), dry cleaning, car tuneups, a gym and a few other things I don't remember. All those would usually take a lot more time to do otherwise.

Layoffs . . . Re:Why not Google Housing?

[mrs clear plastic]

This reminds me of a dream that I had one night soon after starting a job in a large company. . .

I dreamt that I was working for a company that had a beautiful campus high on a mountain overlooking this really beautiful city.

We each had a nice room, but we spent the vast majority of our time in the large and wonderfully appointed community rooms such as the dining room, the living rooms, the outside pool and tennis courts, and the very well appointed basement workshop.

We lived like a large family with the same people whom we worked with and it was very cozy and harmonious.

Then I started to feel very lonely. No one wanted to talk with me and they moved to the other side of the huge dining room table during the community dinner. The treated me like a leper.

In the workshop, my projects were being sabotaged and people started to get very mean to me and blaming me for lost tools and broken equipment.

Then I found myself alone in this large forlorn place on a gloomy day with no one else at all around except for the house staff, who were treating me as a tresspasser rather than a member of the community.

I remember walking out of the huge castle and turning around and finding the castle gone; nothing but a barren hilltop on a cold, nasty day.

A soggy newspaper lay on the broken sidewalk in front of me. One word.

Layoffs.

I awoke sweating and in tears. It took me a while to realize where I was.

Yes, I work for a large company.

But I also maintain a strong community that has nothing to do with work. If I lose my job. I only lose my job. I still have my community.

This dream has tought me to be very carefull and not let myself get to 'entrenched' with work. Sure, we have clubs and recreational facilities, but I have refrained from joining them. I keep my work and my social life separate.

When I got laid off from Boeing, this practice paid off very well. I only lost my job. I did not lose my 'mansion in the sky'.

Most respectfully years . . .

Re:The company store

[Short Circuit]

OTOH, when you get the baka that doesn't bother controlling his cholesterol, you'll wind up with a lawsuit against the company for negligence.

Re:Mass transit is useless for 90% of journeys

[drsmithy]

Public transport is useless for 85%-90% or so of journeys, it's a bad deal for the vast majority of the population.

And you base this on what, exactly ? Your utter ignorance of any remotely well-implemented public transport systems ?

Re:Mass transit is useless for 90% of journeys

[Rakishi]

Right, so of course, the rest of the population should subsidise business transport instead? Public transport is useless for 85%-90% or so of journeys, it's a bad deal for the vast majority of the population.

New York City will disagree with you. As will most of Europe probably. Much of the US may not but then again they have shit for public transportation, even the Bay Area which has a decent system by US standards is barely usable for a lot of trips.

Re:My Work Is My Life

[Anonymous Coward]

Google hotshot... whoop-dee-fuckin-doo. Live in the Mission long enough and you're bound to come across a Google hotshot. I have. They work long hours, they don't read very many books, and after they've gotten past the obligatory "I work for Google," they have very little interesting to say. A job is a job is a job, something no amount of Lego cubicles and free sushi can change. At the end of the day you're still slaving away for The Man, whoever he may be. Doing something that neither makes the world a better nor a worse place, but simply makes money for someone else. Spending 50% of your adult life toiling at something that no one will care about in 30 years, let alone 300. Half-time, half measures, half fulfilling.

Re:Wow, I guess I'm the only one

[Melfina]

I'm sure some of those 8,000 are in development, marketing, administration... Then you have to worry about in-house techs, people to manage their servers, handle the media, ect. Granted, most of the stuff listed in the labs are all side projects started by one or two employees, but it does take a lot of people to manage all those projects...

8,000 sounds like a bit much, but I don't run a billion dollar company so maybe it's the right amount...