Microsoft was famous for its free all-you-can-drink sodas, until Google stepped up the game and offered free lunches (and dinners and breakfasts too). But, as a reader recently noted, do these perks really matter?
My personal opinion: yes and no.
No, most perks don't really matter. A free lunch does not fix a bad boss, and bringing your dog to work does not make up for a lack of career growth. Don't be too fooled by these sorts of perks. Instead, ask yourself, what is the dollar amount that this is worth to me? Free lunch, for example, is probably worth just about $2000. Rather than being swayed by some company offering you free lunch, just pretend you are making an additional $2000 in salary.
However, some perks - the less flashy ones - can make a real, substantial difference in your life. Microsoft's "We Pay For Everything" healthcare plan is incredibly important to some people. Or, flexible work hours might be very important to other people. These are the perks that you should really evaluate.
With all that said, while perks may be a flashy recruiting tool, perks are also often a reflection of the culture or history of a company. In Amazon's case, its lack of perks are likely a reflection of its truly being a retail company - not a software company (and of its less profitable history). Is it really fair to judge them by the same standard as Microsoft and Google? However, in other cases, a company's lack of perks might suggest that it doesn't value its employees the way that its competitors do (or that the company isn't as desperate to recruit people).
In the end, no, it generally doesn't matter that much which perks a company offers. You can assign a financial value to each perk by asking yourself, how much would you pay for this perk? Remember that each person values each perk differently, and the dollars you assign might not match the actual price tag. And that's ok.
Assign the financial value of a perk, and then look beyond all that. Ask yourself, why is the company offering these perks - or not? In the end, the culture of a company will make a bigger difference in your happiness than a few thousand* dollars.
* A few thousand dollars can obviously make a difference to some people. I'm assuming here that we're comparing jobs at major tech companies, where the difference between $75k and $77k probably doesn't change your lifestyle. If you're making considerably less or have a unique financial situation, then it can absolutely matter.