More than a thousand Googlers have been through Search Inside Yourself training. Another 400 or so are on the waiting list and take classes like Neural Self-Hacking and Managing Your Energy in the meantime… The search giant even recently built a labyrinth for walking meditations… Across the [Silicon Valley] Valley, quiet contemplation is seen as the new caffeine, the fuel that allegedly unlocks productivity and creative bursts. Classes in meditation and mindfulness …have become staples at many of the region’s most prominent companies. There’s a Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute now teaching the Google meditation method to whoever wants it. The cofounders of Twitter and Facebook have made contemplative practices key features of their new enterprises, holding regular in-office meditation sessions and arranging for work routines that maximise mindfulness. Some 1,700 people showed up at a Wisdom 2.0 conference held in San Francisco in February, with top executives from LinkedIn, Cisco, and Ford featured among the headliners… – read more

Enlightenment Engineer, By Noah Shachtman. Wired.com
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Meanwhile, as Noah Shachtman pointed out, “there is in fact little data to support the notion that meditation is good for Google’s bottom line” … So, what is all about – next wave of the corporate rituals, the most recent version of Kool-Aid or …?
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PS. So, if you are a software engineer, be careful, because in today’s Silicon Valley, there’s little patience for what many are happy to dismiss as “hippie bullshit”