Why this startup wants employees to remix Taylor Swift, do one-armed push-ups, or play 'Rock Band' blindfolded in the office
Over the past few years, the company has had meditation sessions, K-pop dance routines, and puppy tricks punctuate its weekly, Wednesday-afternoon meeting.
Employees have also ratted off the first 100 digits of Pi from memory, taught a Zumba routine, and shared home-made cheesecake, thanks to a tradition that dates back nearly to the company's founding.
Udacity CEO Sebastian Thrun, who also launched Google's secretive hardware lab Google X, came up with the idea that the employees should get to know each other better as real people, not just as coworkers, in 2012.
So, each time a new person has started since, they're given a few minutes at the Wednesday all-hands meeting to introduce themselves to the rest of the staff by showing off one of their talents or favorite hobbies.
Here's Dathan Bennett, Udacity's new senior full-stack engineer, playing the folk tune "Deep River Blues" on guitar while his manager, Art Gillespie, holds the microphone:
Since the tradition started, it's become something that team members remember and look forward to. There's something fun and funny about watching your peers do one-armed pushups, remix Taylor Swift, or play Rock Band blindfolded.
"If you spend more time at work than at home, it's helpful to see your colleague as more than just a developer or marketer or finance person," Shernaz Daver, Udacity's global business and marketing advisor, tells Business Insider. "It give people the ability to learn more about each person outside of their work and find other connections that they may not have discovered before."
After all, learning is hard-wired into the company's culture. Udacity's goal is to help people learn new, high-demand skills through a series of online programs it calls "nanodegrees."
"There's definitely a culture of education," says Niji Mashruwala, Udacity's dev-ops engineer, "And a certain whimsical joy."
The company, which has raised $55 million, hit profitability for the first time in August and has about 130 employees.
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