The third day of our Talent Unleashed Awards Winners Trip started out with a visit to the brand new LinkedIn headquarters in San Francisco. The world’s largest professional networking company’s new 450,000 square foot office space accommodates 1300 employees across 26 floors with room to expand to 2500 employees.
Made possible by our Talent Unleashed Awards judge, Cliff Rosenberg, Managing Director, LinkedIn ANZ and South East Asia and our Talent account manager, Hannah Kissel, our group was greeted by Tara Merithew who gave us some unique insights into the corporate culture of LinkedIn.
Employee health and wellness is a key component of LinkedIn’s corporate philosophy, with the professional networking giant investing in providing their staff with a fully stocked cafeteria of healthy food options and an incredible gym and fitness centre which everyone has access to. Our CEO of EMEA, Jon Butterfield, thought he would do a spot of boxing whilst on the tour!
In addition the office has some cool features including a pool hall and fully functioning espresso bar, bike racks, floor to ceiling whiteboard walls and a wonderful roof top terrace with views across the San Francisco skyline.
Our winners really took away the notion that there are new ways of thinking and fostering an innovation culture within a business is something that can be done while still making work an enjoyable place to be and helping employees to achieve that work life balance.
Thank you to the team at LinkedIn for your warm and welcoming hospitality!
Following LinkedIn the group then headed off to their VIP lunch with Steve Wozniak and his wife Janet at one of his favourite local restaurants in the heart of Apple territory, Cupertino. It was an exceptional experience where each of the winners got to get to know Woz personally and hear about his pioneering work in developing Apple computers as well as some of the other philanthropic causes he supports. Woz is a brilliant storyteller and had the group entranced with stories about his days at Apple and the dynamic between himself and Jobs.
Woz was extremely generous with his time, spending over 2 hours with the group and giving each of them insights and wisdom on scaling and growing their own businesses and technologies. He shared with is some of his other hobbies, which included tinkering with raspberry pi and CHIP computers. We look forward to spending more time with Woz as the Talent Unleashed Awards programme progresses!
Find out more about the Unleashed Awards Winners Trip, Day 1 and Day 2 here.