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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

#261

Post by TeMPOraL »

paulhauggis wrote: post #234
TeMPOraL wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The original comments suggested that those Googlers were saving money to buy things like a house, etc. It's a very pragmatic attitude from my POV. Earning a lot of money only to spend most of it on housing anyway seems kind of defeating the whole purpose of earning a lot of money.

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

#262

Post by ahh »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #251
ahh wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you surprised to hear this? You're hardly the first person I'd expect to not realize the social stigma most men in the tech industry face trying to date; combine that with the supply/demand in the Bay and you should expect that most men will struggle to date at all (really, anywhere on the west coast except maybe LA.)

I've been to the bay area twice in my life. Most of my dating has been in either NYC or (recently) Pune, India. I'm aware the dating situation out west is unsatisfying, I just thought the issue was just that one might need to go out every night instead of only fridays and maybe compromise a bit on quality. The fact is SF has women and no parental supervision. How could it possibly be this bad? I'm honestly asking bec…

The mechanics are: you go to any bar and the ratio is about 10:1 on a _good_ night. All the girls are sick of seeing tech people and so will ask you what you do, and when they hear "Google", "Facebook", "tech", "engineer", or "programming", will walk away in disgust. (Literally. Hell, a friend went on a Grouper where the girls found out he worked for Google and immediately decided they'd rather wait the clock out on their phones than speak to him.)

There is no step 2, as far as I can tell. One of the many, many reasons I left SF. (For Seattle, which is...marginally better, but not good by any measure, in this aspect.)

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

#263

Post by vonmoltke »

Padding wrote: post #260
vonmoltke wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For your definition of perfect, at least. I love rain and humidity. I miss the 60+ inches a year in South Florida. Plus, your ocean is too damn cold. :P

I don't know about that .. Humidity is the one thing that isn't fun :x

Yeah, my wife hates it, at least when it comes with high temperatures. She thinks Seattle's weather is great, though.

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

#265

Post by bproper »

tomp wrote: post #191
slashink wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So I guess The Verge doesn't care if I copy-paste large chunks of their articles (along with their copyrighted photos) on my web-page? Good to know...

Hey Tomp - I wrote that post. I cited the author, linked extensively, and gave credit in multiple places. If there had been a contact on his HN bio, I would have reached out that way as well.

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

#266

Post by Iftheshoefits »

muzz wrote: post #203
netcan wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't have to be in silicon valley. The only reason for Google to be anywhere is employees and to a lesser extent investors, lawyers and other service providers of the cluster. It's mostly employees though. Why are they there, paying high salaries if they could be getting the same for less elsewhere?

> "if they could be getting the same for less elsewhere" Maybe it's because they can't get the same for less elsewhere

They could if they were willing to leave the CS chauvinism behind. There are plenty of non-CS engineers, mathematicians, scientists and even non-STEM liberal arts majors who are not just capable, but competent or very competent computer programmers and software developers.

Granted the concentration is likely to be higher in the Valley, but it's not that much higher. Then there is the argument that "if you build it, they will come."

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

#267

Post by muzz »

Iftheshoefits wrote: post #266
muzz wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "if they could be getting the same for less elsewhere" Maybe it's because they can't get the same for less elsewhere

They could if they were willing to leave the CS chauvinism behind. There are plenty of non-CS engineers, mathematicians, scientists and even non-STEM liberal arts majors who are not just capable, but competent or very competent computer programmers and software developers. Granted the concentration is likely to be higher in the Valley, but it's not that much higher. Then there is the argument that "if you build it, t…

Markets reward efficiencies and punish inefficiencies, "CS chauvinism" or otherwise

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

#268

Post by lawnchair_larry »

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…

It's very silly of you to advertise this if you don't want to increase demand there, too.

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

#269

Post by tomp »

bproper wrote: post #265
tomp wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I guess The Verge doesn't care if I copy-paste large chunks of their articles (along with their copyrighted photos) on my web-page? Good to know...

Hey Tomp - I wrote that post. I cited the author, linked extensively, and gave credit in multiple places. If there had been a contact on his HN bio, I would have reached out that way as well.

You're preaching to the choir - I wish all IP law was either abolished or changed significantly so that it actually promoted innovation.

However, that's completely besides the point. That's not how copyright works, what you did is most likely illegal, and the organization you represent would most likely not condone such behavior if the tables were turned.

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

#270

Post by marquis »

jrockway wrote: post #219
marquis wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indentured slavery has a long history. The cyberpunk take on it just subverts the concept, where it becomes control of the mind instead of the body.

You contend that gainful employment is indentured slavery? I don't think the slaves you're talking about were getting paid $200,000 a year.

I'm referencing the "cyberpunk universe" mentioned, not reality. I agree with you: there is nothing about cyberpunk nor mind-control going on in SF.
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