[genericpseudo]

I'm very cynical about San Francisco, and given the choice I'd live in London in a second (it's a real city; San Francisco is a playpen, there's no comparison), but the ping-pong table thing is off-base.

A ping-pong table costs $200. (Maybe a really good one is $500.) That's about what your chair costs, assuming your chair doesn't suck. A decent engineer costs at least $150k basic, probably $250k all-in. That works out at an hourly rate of maybe $120? So if you get 15 fifteen engineer-minutes of work per employee through a catered lunch, it's a net cash win.

(Plus the tax treatment is very favorable for that sort of perk.)

There is a ton of excess in Silicon Valley, it's unbelievable, but the office perks are one of the less stupid parts of it.