Instead, employees will bring in their own toys like card games and basketball hoops, because that's what they like.

The culture happens because the employees themselves have the latitude and money to make it happen. The foosball table that they are all trying to mimic happened because some ceo/founder at a successful company always wanted one and brought one in for himself. Now it's offered as some kind of perk even though nobody likes the game. The perk should be extreme latitude and high pay. The culture will happen all by itself.

I really hope it was tongue in cheek quote out of context.

"Venture capitalist Michael Cardamone, the tournament’s co-organizer, approves of young companies buying tables with venture funds. “You absolutely should,” he says. “It’s part of building culture.”"

No kidding. My father's company wouldn't instill a culture where the expectation is to work 80+ hours a week and then try to (inadequately) offset it with shitty little perks like a ping-pong table.

Interestingly, It's kinda like academia in that way. Academics romanticizing research as being some kind of virtuous or nobel pursuit to justify their shitty wages and lack of personal time. (source, I am an academic)

I guess we all become devout monks of our own domain at some point in our careers until we realize the bullshit "culture" that was perpetuated, ultimately in the employer's interest.

In my experience, it's true. It does build culture. In our case, Foosball is a place were employees can bond with each other that transcends business boundaries. Marketing and engineering people both like Foosball - same can not be said for a lot of other extracurriculars.

We even hold tournaments during company time that at least 3/4 of the company chooses to play in.

When you are spending at least 1/3 of your time every day with the same people, I think it is healthy for you to occasionally do something together that is not work. I assume the people here who head straight home also have never gone out after work for drinks with their co-workers or gone to a sports game with them, or anything like that. Foosball and ping pong provide an opportunity to do that.

In fact, as a manager I often challenge my team members to a game of foosball when I get a sense something isn't right and it gives me an opportunity to chat with then 1:1 without feeling like an intervention.

Should you buy a $1300 foosball table when your company is not making money? IMHO, absolutely not. But if you have a good sales month, go for it. I'd rather be in a company where people get to know each other than one where everyone sits quietly at their desk all day and leaves just as quietly at the end.

Then again, I hold a different world view than some other people. I think that a FU money exit is unlikely for most, and getting a four hour a day job without a pay cut is unlikely for most, so if you're going to spend 1/3 of your life at work, a fair measure of success is if you can actually be happy while you are in the office.

Mark Cannice, a University of San Francisco professor, issues a quarterly index of venture-capitalist confidence. “I put more faith in venture capitalist insights and confidence,” he says, “than I would in ping-pong-table sales.”

[1] http://www.investopedia.com/articles/stocks/08/stock-market-...

Oh shit we've been doing it wrong. When PacketZoom moved to it's current office space (with a bit of spare room), we plonked down ~$130 for something like this bad boy.. http://www.dickssportinggoods.com/product/index.jsp?productI... and put it on top of an ikea table we inherited from the previous occupants. Perfectly good playing surface with decent bounce and no obvious defects after a year of use:

Interestingly, I rarely played when I was in a business role, but ever since I switched to a tech role I've played every day. I bought two paddles as well, it's some kind of metamorphosis.

To me the ping pong table and exposed surfaces in startups reflect wood paneling in law firms. It's symbolism rather than functionality. Symbols do matter.

I mean there's a limit to how many ping pong tables Twitter wants to load into their office.

https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=startup%20bubble%2C%...

make of it what you will.

Little things like free food and ping pong tables actually offer a massive return on investment.

In previous company, it was a pool table and game room with Rocket League. In one before that, foosball. Regardless of the game, having some game that is played regularly by coworkers together really helps to build positive relationships and create a team. Definitely worth investor's money.