That's very interesting. I've always been irritated by the emphasis software companies (or at least, journalists writing about software companies) put on things like free drinks and ping pong tables. Give me great work with great people and you can toss the rest of it; conversely, all that free crap doesn't do a thing for me if the work and the people aren't great.

At the same time, I've heard from many sources that Amazon isn't such a great place to work. I imagine there must be other cultural factors besides cheapness that contribute to that?