The rental and housing market is disgusting. I wouldn't consider it except for my wife.
Really? You honestly can't fathom why some people might desire their own, private space, away from their work environment, where they might, I dunno, live their life outside of their day-to-day drudgery?
I'm not even sure how to react to that. It's such an alien way of thinking, I simply can't relate to it... it's baffling.
I mean, the minute humans formed fixed communities instead of hunting and gathering, we've been driven by the need to build public and private spaces in which to live. Questioning that need is questioning one of the founding tenants of modern human society...
I agree, but you do have to admit that $2k-$3k per month is a huge trade-off, especially considering how little you're actually going to get for that money.
Would you prefer to spend the same money on a shitty, expensive apartment now, or a nicer, cheaper house later?
There's private space to live in his van, there's no problem there, yes he too wants a private space to live in like the rest of us. The difference is the van does not provide a box around him unlike the 2-3k box.
I could leave my business clothes at work, 3 pairs of pants and 5/6 business shirts. At the end of the week I dry clean it as needed. I can shower at work and I have all the entertainment I could possibly need on my laptop.
If I had a convenient and dependable car and safe overnight parking I would DEFINITELY not pay rent. Oh yeah I'd have to lose the girlfriend too of course...
These two lifestyles are not merely incompatible but imcompossible. What you describe sounds to me like living like a drone - as in, an actual bee.
There you go. It is not in our nature to optimize for efficient use of money. There are other desires that will outwit this including the desire to reproduce, the desire to fit in socially, the desire for space and boundaries, the desire for inertia.
I used to think about living in a camper van to 'protest' against ridiculous house prices and paying rent. I never quite wanted to do it, and mainly because of what other people would say. Of course some people have the guts to be daring and different :-)
If you could save $75k of the $135k salary, you could go a very long time living in a van in somewhere like South Dakota.
I'm sure it's somewhere up there, but I see this as more of a compatible lifestyle choice than a suffer-in-the-short-term-then-cash-out scheme.
Doesn't this beg the question: Why would you suffer such an unreasonably irrational wife?
http://www.designboom.com/design/cornelius-comanns-bufalino/
I don't know about college students in the US, but German students live pretty cheap in shared flats. I pay 350 Euro for my share of an inner city Wilhelminian apartment house. It goes down to maybe 200 Euro. I can't see this to be a bigger problem in developing nations.
I'd consider those mobile homes for the mobility though..
One that I'm thinking of even has a full commercial kitchen that you can use (for extra money).
Yes. I want to leave the office. I want to have my own space, where I can do my own thing. I want to have a place where I can cook my own meals, and raise my plants. Possibly a pet.
Like what does Google even do that’s really deserving of that kind of dedication? There are religious orders that are less demanding than many of these stories. I kinda get the practical argument about SV housing costs until I think about it for two seconds and go "What? Fuck, no!"
It's a job. Might even be a good job. But if your work-life balance ceases to be so much a balance as 'just work all the time until you're rich' I can't see that as healthy. It's like some people are entirely voluntarily recreating the company town, and employees are lapping it right up.
Our future farmer may've been more 'practical suffering' than 'true believer' but some of the other tales, and the more beyond I've heard over the years, very much seem to come from the latter.
Interview with guy because of above answer.
I've been approached to help with some bay area startups, but the mere thought of having to sit in a car and spend a bunch of hours in the Valley? So not appealing right now. I've done the sleep at work thing randomly over the years, never again.
http://www.businessinsider.com/tony-hsiehs-home-in-a-trailer...
http://www.irs.gov/publications/p15b/ar02.html#en_US_2014_pu...
Athletic facilities: Many companies have a locker room, maybe a shower, maybe a treadmill or two. Is the IRS going to force employees to buy a gym membership so they can take a post lunchtime shower prior to a customer meeting?
As for meals/on-premise lodging/etc. Historically (and currently still, modulo Google-type outliers) this sort of thing typically applies to people living on a job site as I did when I was running projects on oil rigs and in shipyards. Plenty of other examples as well. Especially in a remote location, these services can be quite expensive to deliver. It would be pretty unreasonable to make employees declare them as taxable benefits.
i.e. this seems to imply that optional lodging is taxable.
I could imagine someone single simply living inside for short periods of time, if necessary.
I wanted my wife to be comfortable so I spent a fortune out of pocket on a four room Marriot appartment/suite place. But, it was fairly close to work and my wife loved it.
To assuming considering doing this I would say please please don't. If a dozen people did it the company would crack down and amend it's policies.
Because I've been noticing a lot of RVs and vans (with windows blacked out) that seem to be permanently parked in areas of Palo Alto. Sometimes on fairly busy roads. So have been curious as to whether any were actually being used that way.
I thought someone who works at google should be smart enough to know that these type of personality tests are pretty vague and can be applied to many people?
He only used his van as a sleeping place.
He should definitely do an AMA:
What about Internet access?
What about the cold? Sleeping bags? Isolation inside the van?
What about the hot? Air conditioning?At Google HQ?
Being an employee?
...no clue :(
Probably wi-fi
You don't need to go that far… Google has nap pods[1].
(Note: He mentions them in the article, "Those Google nap pods are a joke. It’s an awkward bench with a cone over your head."; but this is as a reference to nighttime sleeping, not afternoon napping.)
In Silicon Valley mythology, sleeping at the
office is second only to working out of a garage
But I'd rather work at home.
Nobody cares if you click a link to porn site. In many cases, it might even be a part of your work. ("Dang, porn again, this query shouldn't show porn!")
Thanks for the link to his website! It looks awesome!
Hell maybe apartment buildings should accommodate things like this instead of just having a gym/pool included
Same goes for the homes of everyone I knew in Lake Tahoe, where I grew up. The climate's similar to the bay during the summer, but it's still (partially) in California. ;)
Heck, I have central AC in my house here, and I keep the house generally at 75, but have a window AC in my bedroom that lets me crank it down to 66-68 in there.
in california, it's the older buildings that aren't fitted for it. most new buildings have it.
i live in an old building (built in 50s) and a year ago i finally couldn't stand it any longer and bought a floor standing unit that i vent out the window. it's nice.
We'll see how El Nino ruins things for us holdouts.
I lived in one in Menlo Park that I wished had air conditioning...
If the Elio [1] can retail for $6,800 new, it's not a stretch to imagine a modern minimal camper-motorcycle/tuktuk/scooter for under ~$20,000... models for countries with less regulatory requirements like India or Asia regions might have much less expensive versions.
There are ford/dodge van campers but they're cumbersome compared to the slimmer Volkswagen Westfalias and similar early Toyota TownAce models. Westfalias have a much larger userbase and parts aftermarket though.