On: Google Employees Secretly Live on Campus to Avoid Paying Rent

[potatolicious]

I see your point, but I'd still venture living on campus or in dormitories is worse.

I used to live in an apartment building Seattle that was immensely popular with Amazonians and Microsofties. Social interaction there was very limited to high tech (to an annoying degree), but at least we ate at local places, drank at local places, visited local grocery stores and barbers, etc.

So yeah, "insular techies" can't be fully solved by simply having people live in regular apartments, but I'd argue dormitories or campus-living is strictly worse.

[notacoward → potatolicious]

I guess the problem is that we define "living at" Google to mean sleeping there. In many ways eating there is more relevant. Someone who sleeps in a car in the Google parking lot but eats elsewhere at least gets that modicum of outside interaction. Someone who eats at Google before going to a real home and flopping straight into bed does not.

Of course, companies like Google know this. The whole reason they provide the meals is so that people's attention stays focused within Google instead of elsewhere. That probably leads into a whole 'nother discussion of whether meals at work are really a good thing, but I'll just leave it there for now.