Cherchez le chef

I do like The Economist's telling of how:

"the most telling indicator of the prospects of Silicon Valley's technology firms is ... the cooks.

The insightful few on Wall Street who understood this in 1999 are now rich. That year, Google, which had just 40 employees at the time, held a cook-off to anoint its “chief food officer”. Charlie Ayers, who had once fed the Grateful Dead, won. Over the next six years, he led Google, which was also dabbling in web searches and online advertising, to dominance in its core competency: ample, free, organic and exotic food."

I love that "also dabbling in web searches and online advertising" ...

"But by all measures gastronomic, Google was still the dominant firm—until now. One of Google's current chefs is Josef Desimone, who is admired chiefly for the kombucha tea that he ferments from scratch and that gets the employees' creative juices flowing. Now however, Mr Desimone is smelling the coffee. He has given notice to Google, and will soon start work at Facebook. On Wall Street, no doubt, the short sellers have taken note."