MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--The perks of working at Google are the envy of Silicon Valley. Unlimited amounts of free chef-prepared food at all times of day. A climbing wall, a volleyball court and two lap pools. On-site car washes, oil changes and haircuts, not to mention free doctor checkups.
But the biggest perk may come with the morning commute.
In Silicon Valley, a region known for some of the worst traffic in the nation, Google, the Internet search engine giant and online advertising behemoth, has turned itself into Google, the mass transit operator. Its aim is to make commuting painless for its pampered workers--and keep attracting new recruits in a notoriously competitive market for top engineering talent.
And Google can get a couple of extra hours of work out of employees who would otherwise be behind the wheel of a car.
The company now ferries about 1,200 employees to and from Google daily--nearly one-fourth of its local work force--aboard 32 shuttle buses equipped with comfortable leather seats and wireless Internet access. Bicycles are allowed on exterior racks, and dogs on forward seats, or on their owners' laps if the buses run full.
Riders can sign up to receive alerts on their computers and cell phones when buses run late. They also get to burnish their green credentials, not just for ditching their cars, but because all Google shuttles run on biodiesel. Oh, and the shuttles are free.
But if the specifics sound quintessentially Googley, as insiders call the company's quirky corporate culture, it is the shuttle program's sheer scale that befits Google's oversize ambitions. This is, after all, a company whose stated goal is to organize the world's information--and whose founders' corporate jet is a Boeing 767.
"We are basically running a small municipal transit agency," said Marty Lev, Google's director of security and safety, who oversees the program.
Not that small, really. The shuttles, which carry up to 37 passengers each and display no sign suggesting they carry Googlers, have become a fixture of local freeways. They run 132 trips every day to some 40 pickup and drop-off locations in more than a dozen cities, crisscrossing six counties in the San Francisco Bay Area and logging some 4,400 miles.
They pick up workers as far away as Concord, 54 miles northeast of the Googleplex, as the company's sprawling Mountain View headquarters are known, and Santa Cruz, 38 miles to the south. The system's routes cover in excess of 230 miles of freeways, more than twice the extent of the region's BART commuter train system, which has 104 miles of tracks.
Morning service starts on some routes at 5:05 a.m.--sometimes carrying those Google chefs--and the last pickup is at 10:40 a.m. Evening service runs from 3:40 p.m. to 10:05 p.m. During peak times, pickups can be as frequent as every 15 minutes.
At Google headquarters, a small team of transportation specialists monitors regional traffic patterns, maps out the residences of new hires and plots new routes--sometimes as many as 10 in a three-month period--to keep up with ever surging demand.
Many employers run programs for commuters, including van pools, shuttles to and from transit hubs and subsidies for public transit and alternative modes of transportation, but several transportation experts say Google appears to have built an unparalleled transit network.
"I don't know of any program in the Bay Area or in a metropolitan area nationwide larger than that," said Tad Widby, the project manager for the 511 Regional Rideshare Program, who has studied transportation systems nationwide.
As much as it is a generous fringe benefit or an environmental gesture, the shuttle program is a competitive weapon in Silicon Valley's recruiting wars.
One of the biggest challenges facing the Google juggernaut, with a staff that has been doubling every year, is to continue to attract the best. Many technology workers say that the potential benefit from stock options for new hires is limited, since the company's shares have already surged more than fourfold since its 2004 public offering of $85.
The shuttles may not be able to lift Google's stock price, but they have struck a chord with employees.
"It's the most useful Google fringe benefit," said Wiltse Carpenter, a 45-year-old software engineer. Carpenter has been with Google only a few months, but before that he had commuted from San Francisco to the same Highway 101 exit since 1992, having worked at Silicon Graphics and Microsoft, two Google neighbors. "It's changed my quality of life," he said.
It's amazing the things Google is doing beyond search. It is not always what they do, but often how they do it. They are the most advanced process of evolution that our species has yet seen. They seem to be the most quality company that has ever existed.
I agree it sounds like a great place to work - but this level of benefits and respect for individuals well being and own time, is by no means unusual in many countries in Europe. It does unfortunately make companies and economies weaker in the longer term.
But, I'd like to hear from people who work within this Google culture. It can't All be that good - someone somewhere much have issues. That's human nature.
Otherwise, it starts to remind me of Fritz Lang's Metropolis...
... like Google Buses... but will offer them holiday trips around the world aboard the CONCORDE whenever they begin to fly again; perhaps, even an outer space trip for those really "outstanding" geeks who can enable us to Google - Google. Duh!
Here in the southeast, traffic is low in intelligence and midddling in volume.
Google's aims are noble, and their approach is novel. But calling silicon valley's traffic bad without context is par for the course with C|Net.com. In fact, Silicon Valley's traffic isn't all that bad at all, given the load per lane.
Try checking the same metrics for an interstate or state highway in other major cities and you'll see that someone is doing something right between the Diablo and Coast ranges.
Point is, C|net likes to fire for "affect" rather than effect.
It definitely influenced my decision to even consider Google
I was asked to interview with Google a couple of years ago - until I learned about the bus I said no. Living in Oakland the commute to Mountain View would have been a couple of hours out of my life every day, not to mention the huge waste of gas since there is no practical way to take public transport across the Bay to Google HQ (and many other South Bay destinations). I didn't take the job there but without the bus factor I wouldn't have even considered it.
And to the person who says our traffic isn't so bad - I agree its now a lot better than at the height of the dot com era but commute times are high from most of the places Google runs a bus, and getting in the carpool lanes makes a huge difference. Its too bad the bridges don't have dedicated car pool lanes too - that would make cross bay buses and carpooling in general a no-brainer.
Web giant is spending $120 million to beef up its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters, according to filings with the city reviewed by the San Jose Mercury News.
The Samsung Galaxy Mini 2 S6500 could make its debut at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona later this month, according to a leaked promotional image.
MIT creates a simulation to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Spacewar. A relic of the early days of minicomputers, it was one of the first computer video games and set the stage for many others, including Asteroids.
It's a work of art, really. Beautiful...
Otherwise, it starts to remind me of Fritz Lang's Metropolis...
Here in the southeast, traffic is low in intelligence and midddling
in volume.
Google's aims are noble, and their approach is novel. But calling
silicon valley's traffic bad without context is par for the course
with C|Net.com. In fact, Silicon Valley's traffic isn't all that bad at
all, given the load per lane.
Try checking the same metrics for an interstate or state highway
in other major cities and you'll see that someone is doing
something right between the Diablo and Coast ranges.
Point is, C|net likes to fire for "affect" rather than effect.
And to the person who says our traffic isn't so bad - I agree its now a lot better than at the height of the dot com era but commute times are high from most of the places Google runs a bus, and getting in the carpool lanes makes a huge difference. Its too bad the bridges don't have dedicated car pool lanes too - that would make cross bay buses and carpooling in general a no-brainer.