We saw ONE recruitong focused example with the Korean bugman, but I doubt that Google would do this out of the kindness of their hearts or because they’re stupid.
1. Mama Google. How do nerd buy friends in school? Passing out candy and snacks is a tried and tested way. Likewise, the more Google can insert themselves into the employers life, the more they can shower them with seemingly generous but tax deductible expenses that are a rounding error in the big picture, the more Google becomes less of an employer and more of friend/comfort blanket. Look at employee reviews and a lot will say: Pay isn’t that great, but the benefits are GREAT!
2: Take over more of your employees life. Instead of doing a 9-5, the more you insert yourself into your employee’s life, the more the line between work and outside of work blur.
You can leave at 5, but there’s an awesome catered dinner at 6.15… Guess you’ll stay! Oh shit, drycleaning! You brought it in yesterday, it’ll be ready at 7.30. Might as well stay an hour more and look at the documentation instead.
Before you know it, you’ve developed a corporate culture of single, young men leaving at 8 or 9 with nothing but work in their lives.
“They’ll just slack all that time!” Ah, but that’s where Silicon Valley’s famous employee turnover comes into the picture. Stack ranking. Originally started at Microsoft, it exists in almost all SV companies in one form or another. Every quarter every manager need to assign their underlings a rating, and has to find a set percentage that performed the lowest.