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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

#231

Post by MrMember »

tsuyoshi wrote: post #190

As an executive at a nonprofit, I was renting an apartment several blocks from my office. The apartment building was purchased by a developer who proceeded to convert them to condos. I was offered some money (I think $1500 or so) to end my lease early. I was planning on leaving the country in a few months anyway, so I took the money, and just moved all my belongings into my office. I stored my clothes in an otherwise…

>Second, personal mail. The US Postal Service has a policy of not forwarding mail, addressed to an individual at a commercial address, to a residential address. This meant that when I forwarded my mail from my apartment to my office, I couldn't later forward my mail from my office to somewhere else.

You could get around this by renting a PO box for the duration of your 'stay' at your office.

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

#232

Post by paulhauggis »

bellerocky wrote: post #139
zak_mc_kracken wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't extrapolate based on one sensationalistic article. Most engineers employed at Google (or any other company) in Silicon Valley have enough to rent or even buy houses. Actually, a lot of other workers who make one half (or even less) that salary manage as well. People who choose to live in cars or on campus have something else going on with them. It's not just about money, most of us will always choose to have th…

As someone who lives and works in the bay area, you cannot buy a house with a software engineer's salary, not unless it is a very poor neighborhood, in which case you're contributing to gentrification, or you want to drive 2 hours from Pleasanton. I say that as a software engineer home owner who bought a house before the prices sky rocketed again in 2011. I wouldn't be able to afford my own house right now.

"in which case you're contributing to gentrification"

I guess keeping poor neighborhoods poor is a good think now?

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

#233

Post by squidbot »

stevewepay wrote: post #44
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…

I've been living in the Bay Area since the dotcom days and they've been asking the same question since I've been around. Until people in tech stop making money, I doubt SV will collapse, but it will go through boom and bust cycles. But the booms tend to be huge and the busts tend to be not as bad. I had the opportunity to get a job in Seattle at Amazon about 10 years ago. I would have taken a paycut, but with the 0%…

Global warming (maybe?) could be changing this. It's been depressingly hot this year in Seattle. I moved here from the Bay Area (well, Pleasant Hill) to get away from the heat. Ugh.

http://www.komonews.com/weather/blogs/scott/Seattle-Home-of-...

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

#234

Post by paulhauggis »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #141
dreamweapon wrote: post #137

Must be kind of hard to bring a date home to... a car in some corporate parking lot, with the windows blacked out. But I guess for Googlers, that's not such a high priority.

Rent a room in a nice hotel for a night and generally aim for dates that will appreciate the pragmatic approach to spending living in a van demonstrates :).

If you are a Google engineer, you can afford to rent an apartment. Living out of your car/van making that kind of money is silly.

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

#235

Post by mkal_tsr »

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...

So over or under on Ben Popper not contacting awjr before writing his arti-err ... copy-paste job.

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

#236

Post by [deleted] »

johan_larson wrote: post #184
netcan wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the paradox. You can phrase it as a question: Why don't blubsoft or blub.ly open offices in city X and continue to pay the same salaries there . Relocated employees would be richer and blub.ly should have an easier time hiring. Obvious'y this doesn't happen even though a simple common sense "story" suggests that it should. Hence unintuitive. I'm not saying that individuals don't have their reasons for doing w…

Not sure why Google insists on staying in such an expensive place, rather than moving. Some possibilities: 1. There are synergies to having much of the staff working together at the same place. And the only place an employer the size of Google can find enough staff who are up to Google standards is the Valley. 2. Once you get to the Valley, anywhere else is cottage country. Google is by necessity somewhat geographica…

[deleted]

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

#237

Post by eyeareque »

bellerocky wrote: post #139
zak_mc_kracken wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't extrapolate based on one sensationalistic article. Most engineers employed at Google (or any other company) in Silicon Valley have enough to rent or even buy houses. Actually, a lot of other workers who make one half (or even less) that salary manage as well. People who choose to live in cars or on campus have something else going on with them. It's not just about money, most of us will always choose to have th…

As someone who lives and works in the bay area, you cannot buy a house with a software engineer's salary, not unless it is a very poor neighborhood, in which case you're contributing to gentrification, or you want to drive 2 hours from Pleasanton. I say that as a software engineer home owner who bought a house before the prices sky rocketed again in 2011. I wouldn't be able to afford my own house right now.

If you are an entry level software engineer, living alone, you could buy and afford a condo. I agree house prices are out of reach now unless you're a sr. software engineer. All I can say is rent a room for as long as you can (~800 a month or less) for now, and save every penny you can. Once the next housing market crash takes place you will have a downpayment ready. It worked for me.

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

#238

Post by paulhauggis »

paulhauggis wrote: post #232
bellerocky wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who lives and works in the bay area, you cannot buy a house with a software engineer's salary, not unless it is a very poor neighborhood, in which case you're contributing to gentrification, or you want to drive 2 hours from Pleasanton. I say that as a software engineer home owner who bought a house before the prices sky rocketed again in 2011. I wouldn't be able to afford my own house right now.

"in which case you're contributing to gentrification" I guess keeping poor neighborhoods poor is a good think now?

There is nothing untruthful about my statement. Butt-hurt people are down voting it...the usual for HN.

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

#239

Post by xster »

Systemic33 wrote: post #2

Can't Google just setup dormitories? It's halfway on being it's own city, so why not go all out and have cheap living quarters?

Can't. They would have done it a long time ago and stop clogging the freeway if they could but Mountain View doesn't allow zoning of any additional residential areas in the city. Typical bay area NIMBY-ism.

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

#240

Post by trhway »

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…

>I wonder how long the housing situation in SV can keep up until everything collapses under its own weight?

it has already couple times at least during my time here - since 2000 - only to emerge with higher rents and higher real estate prices. Buying is the best solution for your own housing - it moves your onto the other side of the wave where you just enjoy the ride (and yes, i've been under water, didn't care as i bought to live in it, not to speculate)

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