Here's What A Former Facebook Employee Learned About His 'Soul-Crushing' 45-Minute Commute After He Quit

Sam LessinEx-Facebook employee Sam Lessin

Most of the biggest tech companies in Silicon Valley - including Google, Facebook, Yahoo - are a significant drive from San Francisco, where many of their young and wealthy employees prefer to live. Because so many people drain out of the city every morning to get to work, the traffic on the highway can be insane.

Former Facebook VP of product management Sam Lessin writes on The Information that since he quit the company six weeks ago, he's realized that he had overestimated how bad the drive was and underestimated the benefits of a tech company campus loaded with perks like free food, exercise equipment, unlimited conference rooms, and laundry services.

Although his roughly 45-minute, traffic-heavy commute from San Francisco to Facebook's Menlo Park headquarters could feel like a "soul-crushing waste of time," he realizes that he probably isn't saving any time by living in San Francisco. Now, the "little bits of friction" that come from leaving the office to get food or work out add up quickly.

Even meetings are a huge time suck, he says. All the emails about picking times and locations add 20% to the cost of meeting someone, he estimates.

"If you don't work at a company that has a well setup corporate campus, it may be worth paying extra attention to planning your travel and simply not taking meetings to help minimize the ongoing tax," he writes.

Read the rest of Lessin's post on The Information.