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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

#281

Post by rco8786 »

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 remotely close. Like seriously not even on the same planet.

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

#282

Post by extradego »

dunpeal wrote: post #142
tidon12 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the real point. The idea that somehow the catering business serving startups or the kitchen workers in cafes are somehow less worthy of support than owners of restaurants

To be fair, there are a lot of efficiency gains and economies of scale involved. Google pays a lot less to provide an employee with a nutritious, healthy meal than the same employee would be paying for a less healthy meal in your typical local restaurant. So this law will create more local jobs in the short term... except the next Techplex will not be built in MTV, which will lose it far more local jobs than it gaine…

[dead]

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

#283

Post by noarchy »

null000 wrote: post #271
gnicholas wrote: post #170

This was covered by the local news [1] and the city council member who was interviewed said: > “We felt the employees who work there should be able to patronize the businesses—the smaller businesses—in this shopping center” Employees already have the ability to patronize these businesses. This law is about compelling patronage. 1: https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/New-Facebook-Offices-M...

It's really not compelling them. Employees are free to bring their food from home, or order outside the shopping center. It's keeping a handle on incentives, which is what any good government should be doing - incentivizing behavior that's good for the community and disincentivizing behavior that isn't. In this case, they're removing the ability for facebook to keep the path of least resistance for food on campus to…

>incentivizing behavior that's good for the community and disincentivizing behavior that isn't.

Or what this very small minority thinks is good for the community, and forcing it on everyone else. That's how it goes with all government decisions, of course.

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

#284

Post by dunpeal »

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.

> As of May 2017, the average market value for homes was $380,000 within the Austin city limits and $310,000 in the Austin-Round Rock metropolitan area, reported Austin HomeSearch.

https://www.tripsavvy.com/austins-cost-of-living-255111

Now let's do SF!:

> As usual, the result is grim for San Francisco, since, according to CAR, a house in San Francisco now runs over $1.5 million on average.

https://sf.curbed.com/2018/2/15/17016992/affordable-homes-me...

That's almost x4 times more. Austin has some headroom still.

Moreover, don't forget taxes! California state tax for an engineer will be about 10% of gross. 0% in Austin. Quite a difference.

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

#285

Post by noarchy »

mycodebreaks wrote: post #256

But, doesn't this contradict the spirit of free markets?

Do you think that matters one bit to those who advocate for these kinds of measures? Not everyone is a proponent of free markets, and some of them are in positions of power - and this kind of measure should illustrate that in abundance.

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

#286

Post by dunpeal »

PretzelFisch wrote: post #206
dunpeal wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So over 20,000 employees would leave the Googleplex every day at noon to get lunch? This just means the next massive campus complex will not open in Mountain View. Big profitable companies and their hordes of tax paying employees will go elsewhere, and definitely will not be supporting MTV's local businesses. Welcome to the wonderful world of unintended consequences!

Is there anything stopping the next campus from opening a restaurant and not charging their employees?

They'll have to provide access to the public, i.e. allow anyone to walk into their campus and have a meal there.

Plus it can't be the exact same entity, so they'll have to "partner" with some vendor to create and operate the restaurant.

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

#287

Post by thecommentary »

null000 wrote: post #265
jackconnor wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel what you're saying, and that definitely is something that happens. Especially for people who move for the job, it's very easy to keep oneself separate from the community. But making it illegal to feed your employees is a very stupid, very authoritarian way of dealing with it that feels like a terrible idea. I don't want to be told where to shop, ever, for any reason, and I dislike that these local governments…

I see these types of comments, and I have a really hard time viewing them as anything but pretty entitled. I mean, yeah, it's unfortunate for those who won't get free lunches anymore (I'm currently part of the group that does, although I'm not in the bay area) but it's not like you deserve free food as a perk any more than any other random worker. If it were my company inflicting the decision on me after a record ear…

Why don't you deserve the free food more? It's a job benefit that the company provides to entice talent (and yeah to keep people at their desks). Do you not deserve the high pay as well any more than any other random worker?

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

#288

Post by WalterSear »

rco8786 wrote: post #280
dmode wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no truth to your assertion that companies will be leaving Bay. Google, Facebook, Salesforce etc. are actually massively expanding their Bay Area footprint. Google is expanding their Mountain View and building a massive new headquarters https://sf.curbed.com/2017/3/8/14858200/google-headquarters-... Google is also expanding into San Jose Apple just recently completed their spaceship campus Facebook is massive…

I don’t understand the obsession with Austin. It’s actually quite a small player in the tech industry.

Its cachet is overblown in most respects. My friends living there joke about it being due to the requirement to drive through the rest of Texas to get there.

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

#289

Post by dunpeal »

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…

This is an informative comment, thanks.

It does make more sense for a development like the Village, but I'm still concerned about the encroaching and escalating intrusion of local lawmakers in a benefit employers wish to provide their employees.

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

#290

Post by necubi »

mc32 wrote: post #279
justinzollars wrote: post #114

I'm sorry but this is so f*cking stupid. As a Bay Area resident my priorities are the cost of housing, cleaning our dirty streets and alleviating traffic congestion. This is an example of progressivism gone awry. Solving the basics is incredibly important. Our quality of life is in decline (in the bay area) and this is the best our politicians can do? I'm enraged.

They're just pandering to special interest groups --groups they believe will like this move, and since there is no alternative party in the Bay Area, they know most tech workers will not break Repub, so they can do what they want. They still get the tech voter and now they will endear some small progressive cause. But, yes, it's utterly incomprehensible. It's reductionist. Like I said before, ban Uber, ban MUNI, they…

> They're just pandering to special interest groups --groups they believe will like this move, and since there is no alternative party in the Bay Area, they know most tech workers will not break Repub, so they can do what they want.

It's true that basically all elected officials in SF are Democrats, but in practice there are two semi-official parties: "progressives" and "moderates." The supervisors pushing this, Aaron Peskin and Ahsha Safaí belong to the progressive wing, which recently got a majority on BoS with Rafael Mandelman taking Scott Wiener's old seat.

While pretty much united on national political issues, the two groups differ on housing policy (generally, moderates want to build more, progressives less), homelessness, and the proper attitude toward the tech industry (the progressive wing tends to blame it for many of SF's problems).

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