

Google spends $72 Million on Food - breily
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/4/googles_ginormous_food_budget_7530_per_googler

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SwellJoe
I used to think spending outlandish sums on employees was a bit silly...until
I actually did the math.

A lot of people choose to work at Google over working at Microsoft, IBM, Sun,
Yahoo, etc. Let's face it, if you can get a job at Google, you can get a job
at most of those other places. But, Google pays a lower salary than all of
those places for the same position. The way they make Google a more attractive
place to work is all of the _other_ non-salary compensation and the general
vibe.

Even if they spend $30/day/employee on food (I was also shocked by the snack
cost alone, which I've heard from folks inside Google...all those $3 juices
and such add up fast), it's still not all that big of a deal compared to the
thousands they don't spend on salary.

Likewise for the dual monitors, Steelcase Leap chairs, and the ergonomics team
that Google employs to keep their employees sitting and working comfortably
for longer hours.

All of this stuff probably comes close to making the cost per employee as high
as Microsoft, Yahoo and Sun pay...and yet, Google still gets first pick of the
best talent. And it's not because Google employees get to work on cooler stuff
--they don't. A large percentage of Googlers work on really boring crap.
Building tools to sell ads and scaling them out to a massive scale is probably
not an exciting development job.

Everybody at this point is probably wondering why MS, Yahoo, and Sun don't
just start doing all of the stuff that Google does, and make their workplace
as cool and attractive as Google. They can't, of course, because they'd have
to lower salaries for everyone in order to open the budget for it (or lock
everyone into their current salary for the next couple of years and eat the
losses until inflation catches up). And, of course, that would lead to a mass
exodus...because nobody will accept a pay cut.

Say what you will about Google, but the whole food+massages+snacks+etc. thing
is genius on a whole new scale from the recruiting and employee satisfaction
perspective. And, since they make $1 million per employee (a number beaten
only by Exxon and a few others) they can afford to spend a few grand each year
shoveling food into their employees to keep them feeling fat and happy.

~~~
procyon
Don't know if it really makes sense for companies like MSFT to follow these
tactics. Microsoft has around 80,000 employees compare to 16K employees at
google. Besides, I think, average age of Microsoft employees is higher than
google employees. Free food is not as lucrative for a middle age family man as
compare to a new grad.

I heard from MSFT old timers that though Microsoft never had free food, they
were quite lenient with food in their early days.

However, you have a point, in my opinion google has able to attract best
tallent. Not sure how much free food accounts for it.

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neilk
The statistic I heard was $20/day. And there have been cutbacks over the years
-- one day they removed a lot of the more exotic snacks and replaced them with
bigger bins of bulk cereals. Oh, the outrage on internal mailing lists that
day!

Google's cafes are so efficient so I wonder how much the labor really adds to
the cost. You have chefs and line workers that could work in a high-end
restaurant, so salaries are higher, but it's all set up for maximum
throughput, so perhaps that makes it cheap.

For example, at Yahoo's cafes, there's a lot of made-to-order stuff. You end
up waiting up to 10 minutes sometimes, and there are lineups. Everything at
Google is premade food done buffet style, or self-serve, like a sandwich bar.
At Yahoo I have waited for a long time for someone else to make the sandwich,
and sometimes that person doesn't speak English well enough for me to make her
understand that no, I don't actually want meat in the sandwich.

The Google taqueria is made-to-order, but that is run like an assembly line
and you add your own condiments at the end.

In the boldest move, Google does away with the checkout line too, which makes
throughput incredibly fast. Finally, for whatever reason, Googlers are more
conscientious about cleaning their plates before returning them to the cafe.
Yahoo has the same sorts of prominently placed garbage cans, but nobody seems
to use them.

The only reason that getting food at Google might take you more than 3 minutes
are

a) lines -- a growing problem

b) indecision because everything looks so great.

Caveat: this is my experience circa 2005-6.

------
mhartl
The relevant statistic is not the aggregate they arrived at, but the per
capita cost they started with. Even $30/day is incredibly cheap considering
how much it boosts productivity. Not only do people stay at work longer if
they can eat for free, but they _don't have to worry about food_ and can just
focus on getting things done.

I had lunch at the Googleplex yesterday and thought, "All big companies should
do this." Maybe small ones, too.

~~~
gscott
I feel a bit awkward for asking but I keep on seeing posts by people who have
eaten lunch at Google, but how do you do that... Do you have to know someone
there, just walk in, go on a tour?

~~~
kirubakaran
mhartl is YC SFP'08 applicant. May be he is working out a deal with Google ;)

~~~
mhartl
Close. I'm a WFP'08 founder.

~~~
kirubakaran
Thats right, you said you are _launching_ in a week, not getting _selected_ in
a week. My bad.

