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Google Hire Details Three Months Living in His Car to Keep On-Site Role

A newly published first-person account highlights how campus perks enabled a temporary workaround to steep Bay Area housing costs.

Overview

  • Kento Morita recounts accepting a 2019 contract role in Mountain View while locked into a Santa Barbara lease he could not break.
  • He says he sold his motorcycle, bought a 2005 Volvo, outfitted it for sleeping, and relied on free food, gym, showers, and laundry at the office.
  • Campus security told him not to sleep in the garage, after which he parked near RVs and discovered a small community of colleagues living in vehicles.
  • He periodically drove 300 miles back to Santa Barbara, then secured a transfer to Google’s New York office and planned to sell the car to fund a Manhattan deposit.
  • The account was published by Business Insider and republished by Hindustan Times, and Google did not comment in the reporting.