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Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

businessinsider.com

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Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#51

Post by dsfyu404ed »

dunpeal wrote: post #42
seehafer wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the usual refrain from the "die techie scum" SF denizens: "go back to the suburbs!" Unfortunately the suburbs are now hostile too: https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/New-Facebook-Offices-M...

MTV isn't "hostile" to tech. It just got greedy and is trying to get more out of its resident tech companies. "So we have all these big tech companies opening offices in our town... How do we get more out of them... Let's force their employees to buy their food in local stores by banning free food... Let's tax them a bit more..." Etc. This will work in the short term, especially when some of these rules only apply to…

>It will fail on the long term, as more and more companies question the wisdom of setting up shops in the Valley and California in general, and move to locations with much lower tax and restrictions, such as Austin TX.

But that will only last a decade or two before they turn Austin (or wherever) into SF 2.0 and all the business goes elsewhere.

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#52

Post by DannyBee »

Since the article doesn't have it that i saw, here's the text of the facebook development condition in san antonio center:

""CAFETERIA CONDITION: In order to foster synergy between office, restaurant, and retail uses in the Center and realize the economic vitality of the project, the project anticipates employees in the office space will utilize food and retail services available in the Center. The applicant will encourage tenants and employees of tenants to utilize food and retail services available in the Center. Neither the applicant nor tenant(s) will subsidize meals by more than fifty percent (50%) or provide free meals for employees in the office space on a regular daily basis. An employer can subsidize or pay for employee meals as long as they are patronizing restaurants in the Center.

In addition: The applicant may make a request to amend this condition. The City Manager or a designee may make a recommendation to the City Council on this matter."

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#53

Post by sonnyblarney »

ironjunkie wrote: post #31

This is one of the most stupid policy I have ever seen in the bay area (and there are a lot of stupid ones over here). As much as I dislike some of the big tech cos and the TechBros working there bragging about the free food all the time, I still believe a company should be able to decide if they want to offer food or not. Restaurants were unable to turn a profit, so they lobbied successfully and now everyone beside…

To be fair, it's not quite 'economy 101'.

Or rather, 'economy 101' is that anyone with enough leverage, will use monopoly powers in one area, to take control of an adjacent economy.

American Oil empires were not built on some new amazing way to get at oil, it was because some had control of the railroads, and charged their competitors a little more to transport therefore putting them out of business (through aggressive consolidation).

The FB cafeteria example is not a very good one admittedly, but an alternative could be 'they buy up all the restaurants in the area and make them exclusively available for FB staff'. Which they very well could do, and it would then seem kind of crazy, no?

Economically speaking, it would be 'above bar'. After all, 'free market', right? If neighbourhood residents want to eat in a restaurant, screw them, they can go across town!

We live in communities, not economies.

The city ordinance is stupid, but the motivation is not.

Ironically, these are 'rich people problems' ... the kinds of things that happen when little dots of wealth blow up and there is a huge economic inequality, even if most people are 'kind of well off'.

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#55

Post by bkmartin »

satsuma wrote: post #12

as someone who works in a place a solid few miles from restaurants, and has a break room with a few microwaves/a toaster oven as well as a vending machine with gas station tier food... how common are workplace cafeterias like this? is it just sv megacompanies or is it smaller firms across the country?

I work for a medium sized company in the commercial insurance space in PA. We have a cafeteria. They do charge for meals, but we have access to unlimited drinks. I think larger companies in general will have a cafeteria of some kind, but free food is very much a perk of software companies on the whole, I do believe.

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#56

Post by im3w1l »

I can kind of see where Mountain View is coming from, basically the "San Antonio Center" (if you didn't read the article, MV is only applying the restriction in that particular place, not in the whole MV) is one of two places in MV with some life and bustle (it's kinda the day destination, having a bunch of grocery shops as well as a walmart, kohls and target and the other is kind of the night destination, being more focused around restaurants and nightclubs), and if they allow some big company to have their own cafeterias and self-segregate it could risk killing the life of the place.

One thing they should do in my opinion is make the place more pedestrian friendly. Maybe they could replace the big parking lots that create sprawl with denser garages?

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#57

Post by ropans808 »

klipt wrote: post #47
ropans808 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the proposed legislation mentioned in the article in San Francisco just banning the construction of onsite cafeterias seems to recognize this at least.

So you can construct a cafeteria so long as it's "offsite", and even give employees free meals if they show their badge?

That's how I am reading it. And if their aim is to drum up foot traffic on streets to stimulate local business, I don't think that violates the spirit of the legislation.

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#58

Post by GordonS »

ropans808 wrote: post #14

This is very interesting, I had never considered the impact free food at a large office has on its surroundings. The legislation certainly sounds backwards, but to me the situation is reminiscent of a company using profits from one sector to subsidize another, in order to drown out competitors in that space. I don't think Facebook is actually trying to kill off restaurants, but this is definitely how you would do it…

I don't see what's anticompetitive about it - surely they buy the food they give out from local retailers?

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#59

Post by beenBoutIT »

California's found a unique way to incorporate only the shitty parts of European socialism without adding in any of the massive benefits. We get the same high taxes and restrictive overreaching laws without any of the free healthcare, free university tuition, or pension plans.

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#60

Post by dunpeal »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #51
dunpeal wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MTV isn't "hostile" to tech. It just got greedy and is trying to get more out of its resident tech companies. "So we have all these big tech companies opening offices in our town... How do we get more out of them... Let's force their employees to buy their food in local stores by banning free food... Let's tax them a bit more..." Etc. This will work in the short term, especially when some of these rules only apply to…

>It will fail on the long term, as more and more companies question the wisdom of setting up shops in the Valley and California in general, and move to locations with much lower tax and restrictions, such as Austin TX. But that will only last a decade or two before they turn Austin (or wherever) into SF 2.0 and all the business goes elsewhere.

> But that will only last a decade or two before they turn Austin (or wherever) into SF 2.0 and all the business goes elsewhere.

I don't think local government in Texas is as amenable to well-meaning but ultimately intrusive and disruptive policies like in Northern California.

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