Not sure about the law in the US, but I suspect serving free food could be a way to pay employees tax free? That is, the costs for the food will be losses for the company, but not taxed as earnings for the employees?
I think in Germany at least there is a limit as to how much a company is allowed to pay for food per employee, but I am not sure if it would also apply if food was completely free (I only know models where the company subsidizes the food).
From what I've heard, Palantir technologies in palo alto( who, as it happens, took over facebook's old building) goes FAR above and beyond google and facebook's luxaries.
This is also the 3rd or 4th time nytimes has written about life at facebook in the last few months.
I've worked at Facebook, and have a pretty strong relationship with the people at Palantir. I can outline some of the differences.
1. The food is much better at Facebook, but there's a much wider variety of non-perishable foods and drinks at Palantir.
2. Palantir has multiple game rooms with every piece of equipment possible, including the high-end Rock Band kits and dual projectors. Facebook has a 60" monitor and a Roland electronic drum kit hooked up to the X-Box, and is mostly community-maintained.
3. Facebook has parking, and a San Francisco shuttle.
4. Facebook's standard issue computer is the high-end Macbook and a 30" monitor. Palantir's standard issue is a desktop with multiple (3-4) monitors.
5. Palantir has a team called "Ops" that basically does any non-engineering grunt-work that helps your job, like moving your desk or equipment, getting snacks, etc.
6. Both offer free dry-cleaning.
7. Palantir has a lot of comped off-site events, like spa treatment, movie nights, and so on.
I couldn't say I could choose one over the other. In my opinion, the differences are relatively minor compared to whether you want to work with Enterprise vs. Web, large vs. small, evil vs. slightly less evil, or the company you'd keep.
Analyze credit? ;-) Seriously a company as big and growing as fast as Facebook doesn't just put it's financing in the bank and dole it out as salaries - it needs to have a capital structure that manages both debt and investment over the short and long term, working capital, and generally matches types of debt to the risk of the investment.
And as companies grow bigger and faster, their need for financing becomes even greater because generally outlays precede income. Using last year's sales to finance this year's growth limits that growth unnecessarily.
And that's my regurgitation of Finance 101, which I took about a decade ago, so just a rough description.
I think it is more likely that the credit analyst determines who has to pre-pay for Facebook ads with their credit card in advance and who gets to pay via a purchase order, net 30 terms with 2% cash discount, in chunks of $100,000.
I think in Germany at least there is a limit as to how much a company is allowed to pay for food per employee, but I am not sure if it would also apply if food was completely free (I only know models where the company subsidizes the food).