Google has one of the worst monocultures I've ever seen in my life with a heavy emphasis on commoditization. It's a giant machine treating software engineers as nothing more than easily replaceable cogs.
The perks and "easygoing" atmosphere play into this facade and are designed to delay the process of discovery. If you are after [significant] material benefits, by all means go work for Google but be prepared to be treated like a commodity. Ideally you will go through the same process of discovery the author did, faster, and will be able to adapt to extract the most out of the situation.
If you think programming is an art and despise corporate processes that constantly devalue it, then
Google is one of the worst places you could be.
The perks and "easygoing" atmosphere play into this facade and are designed to delay the process of discovery. If you are after [significant] material benefits, by all means go work for Google but be prepared to be treated like a commodity. Ideally you will go through the same process of discovery the author did, faster, and will be able to adapt to extract the most out of the situation.
If you think programming is an art and despise corporate processes that constantly devalue it, then Google is one of the worst places you could be.