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Google techie sleeps in car for 3 months after landing job: ‘Couldn’t afford Bay Area rent’
A Bay Area professional has opened up about how he spent three months living in his car after landing a job at Google.
A Bay Area professional has opened up about how he spent three months living in his car after landing a job at Google. Kento Morita said that he could not afford the rent in San Francisco Bay Area — but rather than give up the opportunity of working for Google, he decided to live out of his car.
In a piece for Business Insider, Morita confessed to lying about his living situation during his interview at Google. “I have family in the Bay Area, so I can work locally,” he told the hiring manager.
At the time of the interview in 2019, Morita was living in Santa Barbara, which is about 500 km away from Google's main headquarters in Mountain View, San Francisco.
“It was 2019, the AI field was growing, and this contract role at Google seemed like my way in. I told myself that if I could just land the job, I'd figure out my living situation later,” Morita said.
A Google job
As it turned out, figuring out the living situation was easier said than done. After landing the Google role, Morita realized he could not break the lease on his Santa Barbara apartment for another four months. He could not afford to rent two apartments simultaneously — so looking for a new place to live in the Bay Area was out of the question.
“Plus, rent in the Bay Area felt sky-high. At the time, the median cost of a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco was $3,600 a month,” he added in his Business Insider piece, titled “I accepted a job at Google, but couldn't afford Bay Area rent. I lived in my car for 3 months to make it work.”
Eventually, he decided that the best course of action was to live out of his car. At that time, Morita used a bike to commute.
He bought a 2005 Volvo for a reasonable price and sold his motorcycle to raise more funds.
Google perks to the rescue
At that time, Google offered a range of perks to its employees. All the food in the office was free to employees, plus they could use the gym, shower on-site and even get their laundry done in the office. (Also read: In cost-cutting drive, Google to eliminate several perks for employees)
For the first two weeks, Morita parked in the basement of the Google office. “I'd go to the gym with my bag filled with clothes, take a shower, and then throw in a load of laundry since there were washers and dryers on campus. After a few meetings, I took the clothes out of the dryer, folded them, and then returned to my car to put them in the trunk next to my makeshift bed,” he revealed.
Life inside a car
To prepare the car, Morita had made cardboard window inserts with black felt on one side and thermal insulation on the other.
This not only offered insulation but also blacked out his windows, allowing him to sleep inside the car without attracting suspicion.
Unfortunately, even with the insulation, the car was too cold. “I'd grown tired of waking up shivering at 5 am., so I started going to work early,” Morita said. After his shift, he spent time on his desk till 11 pm, watching YouTube videos.
This arrangement continued until Morita’s lease came to an end. He then convinced his manager to transfer him to the New York office. “Though rent wasn't much cheaper than it was in the Bay Area, I wouldn't need a car, so I could sell my Volvo and use that money to cover my security deposit for a studio apartment in Manhattan,” he explained.
