> The working conditions at Silicon Valley companies are often the best in the world
I'd take regular, sane hours and the ability to have a life over worthless perks like ping pong/foozeball tables and customized snacks. I can bring my own snacks, buy my own lunches with as long as I have a decent salary and that really doesn't bother me. The only real perks in a startup are more control over what you are building as a team, the challenges you get (or have to, depending on your outlook) to face, and the ownership you feel in the immediate product and it's future development. You sacrifice everything else for that.
Ping pong tables are huge time sinks imo. And some other perks like that. A company where I interned just after college had a lot of perks. A great cafeteria where you could get anything for free, a gym and some pool and ping-pong tables.
End Result: People used to spend at least 2-3 hours of the day in gym/playing ping pong/partying in the cafeteria. Also they used to smell(cause they went to gym but were too lazy to wash up) in the meetings. Then if you needed someone's help then you had to wait until they came back from "play area". And no one used to complain about such a huge waste of time, cause no one wanted to be that guy who shut down the "cafeteria". Needless to say, they ran out of millions of dollars in 2 years, and Founders are in court for said "pocketing" the investors money.
Personally when I see the phrase "working conditions" I immediately think of hours worked, aka "work/life balance." And from everything I've heard, hours at Silicon Valley companies are far from the best in the world.
Either the author ascribes a much different meaning to "working conditions" than I do, or my perception of those working conditions are way off base.
I'd take regular, sane hours and the ability to have a life over worthless perks like ping pong/foozeball tables and customized snacks. I can bring my own snacks, buy my own lunches with as long as I have a decent salary and that really doesn't bother me. The only real perks in a startup are more control over what you are building as a team, the challenges you get (or have to, depending on your outlook) to face, and the ownership you feel in the immediate product and it's future development. You sacrifice everything else for that.