Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

businessinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 533 posts

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

#291

Post by jessaustin »

djcapelis wrote: post #247
everdev wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be nice if politicians had to disclose conflicts of interest when proposing legislation. I'm sure this shot to the top of the priority list not out of some moral imperative, but because someone somewhere was losing a buck, or could make a buck if this passed.

... Peskin is many things, but he's not someone who proposed legislation because someone bought him off.

Does he accept no campaign donations? Does he never meet with lobbyists? What do you think that is?

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

#292

Post by dunpeal »

Bramble wrote: post #240
danjoc wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suddenly everyone cares about their dear Facebook cafeteria workers? https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Facebook-cafeteria-worke... People cheating on their income taxes to the tune of thousands of dollars a year each in free lunches are now more likely to comply with the law. This seems like a step in the right direction.

It's a shame that bay area housing prices, which higher paid tech workers already struggle with, are even more of a burden for Facebook cafeteria workers, who make less money than many of those they serve every day. Thankfully, since your year-old article, Facebook cafeteria workers have unionized. I hope it's helped. Still, it's unlikely that food service and retail workers in these cities are having an easier time…

> Still, it's unlikely that food service and retail workers in these cities are having an easier time making ends meet. The article you linked acknowledged that the cafeteria workers were making well above CA minimum wage - do you think the same can be said for all the restaurant/shop employees in the bay?

Hit the nail on the head.

All this concern for a relatively tiny number of tech cafeteria workers who are actually in much better shape than the vast majority of food industry employees. McDonalds pays the absolute minimum to its legions employees, and has to give them booklets that try (and fail) to do the math of how they can survive on their meager income. Meanwhile, bit tech pays their workers much better, but let's pick on them since they're evil!

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

#293

Post by fzzzy »

dunpeal wrote: post #278
mikestew wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. I was reading articles about people and companies picking up and moving out of California to places like Nevada...thirty years ago. California is still there, packed as ever. 2. Been hearing that for thirty years, too. Now, that’s not to say that there isn’t a breaking point, I just don’t think we’re there yet. CA might be willing to amputate a leg or a wing, but there’s too much gold in the goose to kill it all a…

> I was reading articles about people and companies picking up and moving out of California to places like Nevada...thirty years ago. That's like saying "I was reading about government deficit 10 years ago, and look at it, it's still growing and we're still here and the deficit is even larger!". It's a growing problem. California grows less attractive as more of these exploitative measures and taxes pile up, and the…

> You've been hearing about fully remote virtual teams thirty years ago, before the internet really existed?

Sure, the Mother of all Demos showed off remote collaborative work in 1968.

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

#294

Post by jessaustin »

nostrademons wrote: post #210
dunpeal wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Googleplex has over 20,000 employees, and food trucks are among the least efficient ways to feed them. You'd have huge convoys of food trucks entering and leaving the Googleplex for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Access control is vital in a location like a tech company's headquarters. With hundreds of random food trucks coming and going every day, such control will become impossible. Finally, food trucks are noto…

The Village at San Antonio is not North Bayshore. This wouldn't work at Google's current campus because there are literally not enough restaurants to feed everyone - there were 4 when I worked there (Sports Page + the Sunnybowl/Falafel/Sushi complex), and since then Sports Page has closed and there are apparently a few new ones by the Computer History Museum. Perhaps the new zoning plans for North Bayshore include mo…

...Facebook has felt that the restriction is not too onerous for the building to be worth occupying.

Perhaps originally they thought they could inspire enough of a public outcry like that seen in this thread to get the rules relaxed eventually... with their recent PR troubles that probably won't happen.

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

#295

Post by ghein »

nashashmi wrote: post #254
ghein wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's taxable in the US as well. There have been occasional attempts to enforce the law - IRS recently made noises in 2014/15. The challenge is that it's taxable to the employees but hard to track and prove, it's for relatively little money per employee, and the firms argue that it's for their benefit to secure information/improve productivity/build cohesion... Google can and will fight far harder than the IRS is will…

Free meals are considered income? But free benefits are not considered income? I don't see the difference between the two.

Most benefits are taxable at least in part.

Health is the most tax advantaged, and then retirement. Comes from WWII era rules aimed to prevent wage increases.

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

#296

Post by jessaustin »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #113
bumholio wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> an alternative could be 'they buy up all the restaurants in the area and make them exclusively available for FB staff'. If Facebook is willing to pay substantial amounts of money for a restaurant, while at the same time guaranteeing customers to those who refuse to sell, it would seem the number of public restaurants in the area will explode.

In Monaco, there are a small number of 'Monegasque' i.e. actual ethnic people from Monaco - they are just 'regular folk' - not like the bankers and millionaires ex-pats that make up the most of the actual citizenry. The 'wealth inequality' issue is obviously a problem, so the government mandates that 'all citizens get meal chits' as part of their comp - this is to ensure that Monegasque folks literally are not priced…

Would you say this situation in Monaco is kind of like "universal basic income"? Has it caused any issues?

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

#297

Post by mikestew »

dunpeal wrote: post #278
mikestew wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. I was reading articles about people and companies picking up and moving out of California to places like Nevada...thirty years ago. California is still there, packed as ever. 2. Been hearing that for thirty years, too. Now, that’s not to say that there isn’t a breaking point, I just don’t think we’re there yet. CA might be willing to amputate a leg or a wing, but there’s too much gold in the goose to kill it all a…

> I was reading articles about people and companies picking up and moving out of California to places like Nevada...thirty years ago. That's like saying "I was reading about government deficit 10 years ago, and look at it, it's still growing and we're still here and the deficit is even larger!". It's a growing problem. California grows less attractive as more of these exploitative measures and taxes pile up, and the…

That's like saying "I was reading about government deficit 10 years ago, and look at it, it's still growing and we're still here and the deficit is even larger!"

Yeah, pretty much. I’m saying it’s nothing new, and things are still churning along just fine, whether it is in reference to the deficit or CA. Nothing has changed, CA is still ridiculously expensive, as it always has been. CA taxes the shit out of you, as it always has. And jobs pay better, so one has to calculate if the added expense is worth it, as we always have. Will it ever change? In the long term, yeah, it’s likely. In the short term? I see no evidence that a change is in the making. Those gleefully predicting CA’s demise have been around as long as I’ve been alive, and much like TSLA shorts, they’re probably going to have to wait a while longer.

You've been hearing about fully remote virtual teams thirty years ago, before the internet really existed?

Yes. Remote access to centralized and/or distributed computing resources was a solved problem long before the internet showed up.

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

#298

Post by dunpeal »

fzzzy wrote: post #293
dunpeal wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was reading articles about people and companies picking up and moving out of California to places like Nevada...thirty years ago. That's like saying "I was reading about government deficit 10 years ago, and look at it, it's still growing and we're still here and the deficit is even larger!". It's a growing problem. California grows less attractive as more of these exploitative measures and taxes pile up, and the…

> You've been hearing about fully remote virtual teams thirty years ago, before the internet really existed? Sure, the Mother of all Demos showed off remote collaborative work in 1968.

> Sure, the Mother of all Demos showed off remote collaborative work in 1968.

...and was certainly an exciting futuristic demo, but unfortunately neither practical nor feasible with the actual widely available technologies of its time.

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

#299

Post by alexforster »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #221
dunpeal wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm wondering the same. Two growing trends that I'm observing: 1. Businesses moving out of California, especially NorCal. Sergey Brin already said two years ago that he would not have started Google in NorCal today. He was right. There's a lot more interest in other locations, such as Austin. 2. Remote work, and fully remote virtual offices. Personally I know a bunch of people who declined offers in the SFBay to avoi…

> There's a lot more interest in other locations, such as Austin. Which, I hear, is quickly catching up to Bay Area in terms of cost of living.

Not even close, and new housing starts have been keeping pace with population growth for years (unlike most other tech boom cities).

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

#300

Post by jessaustin »

jancsika wrote: post #238
ardit33 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the Communist party in Albania had a great way to deal with 'community involvment' Every first Sunday of the month (Sundays were the only days people had off, as Saturdays were actually work day), people were required to get out, and help clean out the neighborhood in 'cleaning actions'. If you didn't do it, you'd be reprimanded, and if you didn't comply you'd be sent into re-education class, on how community i…

> Anyways, this is not communist 'community involvement' level yet, but the government should have no say on a person's personal private time. Zoning itself is quite a loud say from the government about what someone may do in their personal private time in their personal private property. For example, you can't run a bakery in your personal private time in an area zoned only for residential use. Do you think zoning s…

If zoning weren't legal, lots of things would change. Mostly for the better, but perhaps not entirely. There would be a lot more pedestrians and cyclists, and a lot fewer automobiles, in most urban areas. On the other hand you might live closer to a tavern. I lived in Denver for a few years; it's not so bad to live close to taverns.
Post reply on HN