The Golden Handcuffs Were Inside of You The Whole Time
I consider the phenomenon of “Golden Handcuffs”, first as corporate perks, then as pay, then as Silicon Valley’s cost of living. I reject every explanation.
You get kombucha on tap, organic granola, a masseuse on staff. Soon enough, you forget your passions, get comfortable, and never leave.
After a few years, an engineer at Google is making around $350,000. In contrast, organic kombucha is $0.14 an ounce. So even if you’re drinking 12 ounces a day 240 days a year [1], that’s just $400, or 0.1% of total compensation. To frame that otherwise, one year’s salary could buy you a 1000 year supply of kombucha.
What about the other perks? Google’s granola supplier sells to the public for $7.20 a pound. I don’t think it’s reasonable to eat a pound of granola day, but if you really wanted to, it would still only cost $1,700 for 240 work days. A nice massage is maybe $100, so if you go once a month, that’s another $1,200. Lunch is a pretty big cost, say $20 per day, or $4,800 per year.
What about your home office? The Wirecutter office chair is $1000, their 4k monitor is $500, and a top-line 16-inch MacBook Pro is $4,500.
