Everywhere I've worked that's not a startup, I've had to pay for all my stuff. The startups I worked for, as they became non-startups, started ditching perks li

Everywhere I've worked that's not a startup, I've had to pay for all my stuff. The startups I worked for, as they became non-startups, started ditching perks like beer:30 Fridays, catered on-site lunches, free soda and the like. One took off and is wildly successful these days, the other became a non-startup by becoming a non-company. It's my personal observation. Of course, it's probably different here on the prairie (Kansas City) than it is in The Valley. Maybe the Oracles, ciscos, Googles and Yahoos of the world still provide plenty of goodies for free out there. I agree with many others in this thread that expenses are expenses. $16 per person per month is $10k at 50 employees. What about the 18-kilohuman corporation I work for right now? $16 per head per month turns into a $3.5M line item per year at that point. When does free soda become impractical? Also, the original article posits that it's more a symptom of the culture change than anything. Having to rifle through your pockets to score that Mountain Dew that used to fall out of the machine with only a button-press is often the first tangible effect of that culture change.