On those little lifestyle perquisites, those can be good for morale, and can also mean a person spends more time and attention working. Before dotcoms, I worke

On those little lifestyle perquisites, those can be good for morale, and can also mean a person spends more time and attention working. Before dotcoms, I worked places that would pay for delivered dinner for anyone working late (otherwise, as soon as you leave the office, you call it a day, plus company is feeding you like parent, plus little social camaraderie break with other people working late), or would provide cab vouchers for people who worked late (no going home only because don't feel safe walking home after dark), etc. I don't think anyone has illusions about the motives there, and there's some alignment. The "make it harder to leave to another job" I dislike is things like stock options that must be exercised within 90 days of leaving, before the stock is liquid and before you know whether it'll be worth anything. Or health insurance situations for some people (improved since ACA). Or bonus or retirement contribution schedules that mean waiting until the end of the year (and with no guarantee there won't be layoffs shortly before, especially given that a sociopathic company has incentive not to pay). (One of the big reasons I didn't take a nice non-blockchain fintech job offer with FAANG-like TC level was because of all the complex structuring of the compensation, with several kinds of bonuses and shares and retirement contributions, which supposedly were all but guaranteed, but all on annual schedules, and the salary alone wasn't going to elevate my lifestyle from an early startup. Contrast with a company that routinely deposits so much money into your bank account that you don't much have to think about money -- that's a nice way to retain people and let them focus on the work.)