Mountain view chocolate factory

Content
Mountain View Chocolate Factory is a nickname for Google. It is used as a comparison of Google Inc. and the fictional Wonka's Chocolate Factory in the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
The phrase attempts to portray a similarity in the cultures of the two organizations where each utilize a highly devoted workforce which is comprised of very talented, but seemingly strange, individuals. It highlights the efforts on the part of the heads of the organizations to provide a work environment with apparent rewards and benefits to foster the workers' devotion to the organization. As an extension of the analogy Google employees have been referred to as Oompa-Loompas which is the name of the workers in Wonka's Chocolate Factory. There is also an attempt to compare the isolation of the workplace and closely guarded design processes of Wonka's Chocolate Factory to the Google organization.
The first known usage of the comparison is in an article in The Register which refers to Google as Wonka's Chocolate Factory . The first usage of the phrase "Mountain View Chocolate Factory" was in another Register article which also refers to Google employees as Oompah Loompahs (Oompa-Loompa). In a later article, Ted Dziuba goes into detail about the similarities between Google employees and the Oompah Loompahs. He also refers to the Google employees as Google Loompahs. The usage of Mountain View Chocolate Factory is now occurring frequently in blog references to Google with or without any specific criticism of the company.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu