Why every new employee at a billion-dollar glasses brand gets Kerouac and pretzels as a welcome gift

pulse

April 15, 2017 12:52 AM

Cofounders and co-CEOs of Warby Parker, Neil Blumenthal and Dave Gilboa, spoke with Business Insider on the latest episode of podcast "Success! How I Did It."

Warby Parker cofounders and co-CEOs Neil Blumenthal (L) and Dave Gilboa.

New employees at billion-dollar glasses brand Warby Parker get the same welcome gifts: a copy of Jack Kerouac's "Dharma Bums," and Martin's handmade pretzels from the Union Square Greenmarket.

According to the founders, those gifts are key to building the company culture.

"When somebody joins Warby Parker they get a copy of Kerouac's 'Dharma Bums' because the name Warby Parker comes from two early Jack Kerouac characters, Warby Pepper and Zagg Parker," he said. "They get pretzels from Martin's handmade-pretzel company, which sells pretzels out of the Union Square farmers' market, because that was within a block of our very first office and we used to get pretzels from there all the time. I could go on and on, but we've established a bunch of rituals that we think reflect the values and the culture of the company we're trying to build."

Gilboa added that establishing those values and culture was a team effort. He explained:

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