[cscharenberg]

Indeed. At a former employer, when they announced removing free soda, I assumed they were about to stagnate very hard. Compared to the costs and profits of flying hundreds of sales engineers around weekly and any executive-level expenses the cost rounded to zero. It was routine to hear about the $200/person dinners for big groups of leaders when courting visiting customers. So when they start cutting something as cheap as soda maintenance, they're definitely desperate and going to cut all the wrong expenses.

Coincidence or not, their stock has slowly fallen and they've lost their shine since then.

I think "broadly cutting tiny costs" means the company is done believing in itself.

[influx]

Reminds me of this article:

https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-ear...

[hotpotamus]

Yeah, I talked to a project manager who was in the loop on one of these things once. They took suggestions for cost-cutting measures and apparently lots of people suggested getting rid of the soda (not me - I drank probably half a gallon of Sprite Zero a day back then). She said that for a global company with a couple billion in revenue, the soda costs were about $50K/year. Which tracks - these were fast food style fountains and my understanding is that the profit margins at retail are huge.