I’ve been to the Googleplex a grand total of one time, but while there, I didn’t pass up the opportunity to eat a hot fudge sundae. It turns out that DoubleClick employees in New York have been benefiting from a similar arrangement (although this one has greater implications for the business world).
Louise Story of The New York Times writes, “DoubleClick, after all, is located in the same office building on the west side of Manhattan as Google’s New York offices. So it could have seemed a bit rude not to invite the new family over for lunch a few times. But the Federal Trade Commission is still evaluating whether to approve the merger, so Google has had to tread lightly.”
Story then continues, “At least three times, DoubleClick employees have visited Google’s luxurious cafeteria, which features organic produce and a great deal of South Asian cuisine . . .” But in the midst of all that healthy (and admittedly yummy) food, “Many DoubleClickers loaded up on a week’s worth of desserts in to-go packages . . .”
Now those are my kind of people. The NYT piece also notes that DoubleClick has moved its unofficial “pizza day” from Tuesdays to Thursdays, because the visits to Google have often occurred earlier in the week. Clever.
Of course, there’s more than at stake here than the stomachs of some DoubleClick employees; such chumminess between DoubleClick and Google provides a lot of insight into how the companies look at their stalled acquisition. But it’s almost dinnertime for me, so I’m more interested in the sound of that “South Asian cuisine.”
Hat tip to Nathan Weinberg.
