A corporate recruiter explained to me the forces driving the “perks war,” an escalating tit-for-tat of such freebies as steak dinners delivered to employees’ desks, free laundry service, free bikes and bike repair, free concierge service, and of course free drinks. “They might get a twenty-dollar steak, but with the extra time they’ve stayed at work, they’ve provided an extra two hundred dollars in value to their employer,” the recruiter said. Thus the seemingly lavish enticements were a way to attract profit-producing programmers, who were in exceedingly high demand, without offering higher salaries. The perks also provided effective cover for the companies’ slave-driving work schedules.

But my intern roommates seemed happy with the arrangement, at least at first. “Everything they say about Google is true,” one intern told me after his orientation at the Googleplex. “There are twenty cafeterias, a gym—everything.” Early every weekday morning, he and the other Googlers in his neighborhood swiped their ID cards to board a chartered bus parked near the BART station, then rode thirty-five miles to Mountain View. They started working onboard the bus, which was equipped with WiFi, and didn’t leave the campus until sometime around 8 p.m., when another bus ferried them home after they ate at the company cafeteria. This was a pretty standard deal at the big Silicon Valley companies. Even rinky-dink startups in SoMa warehouses offered free catering. “The perks, man!” another roommate, a non-Googler, raved after arriving home at 10 p.m. from his first day on the job. “I worked until nine because dinner is free if you work that late … And they’ll pay for your cab home,” he went on. That became his But my intern roommates seemed happy with the arrangement, at least at first. “Everything they say about Google is true,” one intern told me after his orientation at the Googleplex. “There are twenty cafeterias, a gym—everything.” Early every weekday morning, he and the other Googlers in his neighborhood swiped their ID cards to board a chartered bus parked near the BART station, then rode thirty-five miles to Mountain View. They started working onboard the bus, which was equipped with WiFi, and didn’t leave the campus until sometime around 8 p.m., when another bus ferried them home after they ate at the company cafeteria. This was a pretty standard deal at the big Silicon Valley companies. Even rinky-dink startups in SoMa warehouses offered free catering. “The perks, man!” another roommate, a non-Googler, raved after arriving home at 10 p.m. from his first day on the job. “I worked until nine because dinner is free if you work that late … And they’ll pay for your cab home,” he went on. That became his routine, and he never questioned it. Come to think of it, like a lot of his contemporaries, he never questioned anything.