Google hires goats
On Friday, Real Estate Director Dan Hoffman blogged that from now on, Google will no longer use lawn mowers to keep the hills around the GooglePlex free of weeds and and brush. Instead, it will unleash a herd of goats and let them munch to their hearts’ content. “A herder brings about 200 goats and they spend roughly a week with us at Google, eating the grass and fertilizing at the same time,” Hoffman wrote. “The goats are herded with the help of Jen, a border collie. It costs us about the same as mowing, and goats are a lot cuter to watch than lawn mowers.”
Let’s say it all together: awwww. With one move, Google gets to reassert its quirky, eco-friendly face and remind us that at the end of the day, we’re not dealing with Halliburton here. Hoffman even gets to trade in a few hircine quips (“We’re not ‘kidding,’” nyuk nyuk) and flash a pic of the adorable eating machines boppin’ around the GooglePlex. And none of the world’s Google-watchers can resist. “If Google keeps this up, someone might accuse the company of doing good rather than not doing evil,” writes InformationWeek reporter Thomas Claburn. TechCrunch writer MG Siegler raced down to Mountain View for an on-the-scene exclusive, but when you’re reporting that yes, there are some goats, and yes, they’re eating grass, it’s hard to work that into Pulitzer material if you’re battling a deadline. “The question of if it cost Google more in both money and fuel to have the goats shipped over to the site versus what it would have been to pay some people to mow the lawn, is a different question,” he writes. “But hey, nevermind that, cute friendly goats!”
January 12th, 2010
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