Company visits

Our lunch today was at the only Michelin star rated restaurant in Taipei.  It was a dumpling house which had at least 15 workers in a glass room churning out dumplings as fast as humanly possible.   I thought that the restaurant was good, but perhaps not Michelin worthy.  I do like dumplings though, so it was one of the better restaurant experiences on the trip.

In the afternoon, we went to HTC to get a company presentation and tour of the headquarters.   The office was very magnificent, all white marble tile on the bottom floor and a lot of glass rooms on many stories.  The gym was huge, but not a single person was using it even though it was open 24 hours a day.   We had a chance to hear about HTC's camera innovations and talk to the president, who spoke to us a bit about vague nothings and corporate indirection.  The visit was still worth it though. 

After this visit, we went to Taipei 101, and while the group had a short break, I checked out the Google office on the 73rd floor where you can see the entire city.   The Google office was pretty much the same as other Google offices, and of course it was located in the best location in the city, the tallest building.  

After that visit, the group went to L'Oréal for another visit.   Compared to Google, the office space was cluttered and messy.   It was 90 percent women in sales and marketing and everyone there seemed pretty happy to work there.   We met with the head of HR and the site manager, but who were very nice and informative.   I learned a lot about the different brands L'Oréal manages and some of there efforts in Asia.   One of our group members had worked there for a while so that was our hook up.