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Google Employees Secretly Live on Campus to Avoid Paying Rent

finance.yahoo.com

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

#171

Post by awjr »

slashink wrote: post #158
awjr wrote: post #73

I did this on a 6 month contract as an experiment over a mild winter in the UK in 2011. You can pretty much do this anywhere. Couple of tricks: 1) Get a small camper/van that can park in one car parking space with a diesel heating system. Kitchen is irrelevant. Bed/toilet/heating system/space to sit and type/space for clothes to hang. 2) You need a toilet but usually you time your bowel movements to only need to use…

You made The Verge! http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/9/6126305/tech-employee-lives...

Lol I never. :D

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

#172

Post by clamprecht »

twistedpair wrote: post #112
guard-of-terra wrote: post #92

Moscow University main building has cafes, shops, dormitories and even a barber's shop. I've heard rumors that some students spent months without leaving the building. On campus this should be even easier, come on.

At MIT, it's a badge of honor how many days you spend during finals living in the library, studying all day, every day. Students literally move into the library and live there. There was even a student that secretly built his own dorm room in the steam tunnels. It's on the unofficial tour as the "Tomb of the Unknown Tool".

Is his name Lazlo? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa8kCQQUjHM

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

#173

Post by JabavuAdams »

blazespin wrote: post #50
bsaul wrote: post #9

Does anyone else feels like we're really getting towards the cyberpunk universe ? with corporations that completely own the life of their employees by providing them with everything, and a violent lawless and miserable outside world. And as always, it all started with the best intentions.

Tech folks tend to live in their heads. Houses, etc, is just boring distractions.

True, but environment matters. It affects your thoughts and ability to design. I'd be really sad if the 60' trees across the street were cut down. Also, sitting in a lovely garden thinking about how to solve a tech problem is nice.

That said, our home furnishings just kind of peter out for the reasons that you mentioned.

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

#174

Post by JabavuAdams »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #79
blazespin wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech folks tend to live in their heads. Houses, etc, is just boring distractions.

This. Currently all my stuff fits into two backpacks (a big backpacker one and a small one for the laptop). The only thing I miss from my old stationary lifestyle is a regular gym, sparring partners and a coach. The only thing I don't understand about living in the googleplex is sex. Logistics is everything - I remember once dealing with a month of involuntary celibacy due to a bad living situation. NOT an experience…

Apparently a co-worker of mine was quite the fan of handicapped washrooms in the office. But still. Ew.

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

#176

Post by JabavuAdams »

vonmoltke wrote: post #138
blazespin wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech folks tend to live in their heads. Houses, etc, is just boring distractions.

Software folks, maybe. I have a spare bedroom turned into an overstuffed electronics lab, and I use my garage as a small shop. Many electrical and mechanical engineers are like me.

Yeah, this is a big deal, depending on your hobbies.

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

#177

Post by Clanan »

narrator wrote: post #148
Clanan wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't a huge part of the housing issue in SV the zoning? I recall reading about how large swathes of land have been zoned away from residential, largely because of the influence of the wealthy who live in and near the area. Never underestimate the politics!

And that is the paradox. In order to make cheap housing you'd have to destroy all the open space and low density zoning that made all the tech and VC people want to live here in the first place. Besides the current economy isn't permanent at all. The tech bubble will bust and this will all go back to normal in a few years. People who are living here for the long haul, and not just for the gold rush don't want it to g…

Well, I think you're oversimplifying quite a bit. There are more options than {develop nothing, develop EVERYTHING}. Through politics, the former options has been selected. But perhaps a better options lies somewhere in-between.

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

#178

Post by [deleted] »

electrograv wrote: post #15

Silicon Valley: Where highly paid ($100-$200k+) engineers sleep in cars to save money on obscenely expensive rent. Honestly, recently moving to Seattle has been refreshing to me in this regard. I find Seattle tech industry pay no less than SF, plus no state income tax, and for the same rent as SF you can practically live like a king/queen here. I wonder how long the housing situation in SV can keep up until everythin…

[deleted]

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

#179

Post by bitJericho »

golgappi wrote: post #152
awjr wrote: post #73

I did this on a 6 month contract as an experiment over a mild winter in the UK in 2011. You can pretty much do this anywhere. Couple of tricks: 1) Get a small camper/van that can park in one car parking space with a diesel heating system. Kitchen is irrelevant. Bed/toilet/heating system/space to sit and type/space for clothes to hang. 2) You need a toilet but usually you time your bowel movements to only need to use…

This seems tempting. But i can't live without gaming on a big screen :(

There's always the Oculus Rift.

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

#180

Post by ufmace »

notacoward wrote: post #72
onion2k wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And thus, Google becomes The Circle completely. I'm being a bit flippant, but really the last thing Google employees (and every other successful tech businesses to be fair) need is to be more isolated in their ivory towers. Meeting people outside of the tech industry keeps you grounded and stops you forgetting that there are vast numbers of people who aren't so intelligent and happy with massive changes every couple…

"Meeting people outside of the tech industry keeps you grounded" But does where you sleep affect that at all? Even where I am, many people live in apartments or houses and yet have almost no social interaction outside of high tech. I'm sure that's at least as true in Silicon Valley, with its corporate citadels and meetups and apartment complexes that specifically court techies with fast networks etc. Civic/community/…

In theory, no. But we're all a little lazy. If you live at the CompanyX campus, surrounded by other CompanyXers, and have to drive a bit to get to the rest of the community, then people mostly won't do it. Maybe you'll mean to, but gradually you'd have busy or tired days here and there and not have time to do it, and you start to miss things and lose touch with people, and gradually the people and places closest and most convenient become your social circle. Maybe not for everybody and not right away, but it'll happen.

Spread those same CompanyXers around a larger community at random, and you get the opposite effect of them tending to form social groups more with people outside the company who do other things.

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