Of course it's not any different. But the focus has changed. When you're an early stage startup, a 0.7% overhead for junk food (made up number, but that's pro

Of course it's not any different. But the focus has changed. When you're an early stage startup, a 0.7% overhead for junk food (made up number, but that's probably not too far off) is a fundamentally negligible thing. It's like 3 days of runway, if that. Basically: who cares, the company will live or die based on products and funding rounds, and you're just trying to make the company not die at this stage. But to an established company trying to make money, 0.7% of revenue is a huge (seriously, huge) line item in a CFO's accomplishment list. Consistent profitability is built on a long, grueling ladder of tiny incremental bean-countings. And to an established company trying to make money, that's where the focus turns. And those are the employees who get rewarded. It's not that either side is "right", it's that they have opposing priorities and that growing companies need to manage that tension and not just give in to the temptation to lock the soda machine.