Puff, puff, pass the spreadsheets.
Tech companies like Palantir and Hello Patient are stocking office vending machines with tobacco products to increase productivity among employees—and it seems to be working.
Tobacco startups Lucy and Sesh have installed branded vending machines in Palantir’s Washington, D.C., office, full of nicotine pouches that are leaving employees zipped up and ready to work.
Long a safer (and legal) alternative to the drugs that Wall Street bankers of old would use to follow market updates, tobacco products have started to make a comeback in the workplace, especially in the form of nicotine products as companies like Zyn and On! offer a less invasive way to get that nicotine high without clouding up office air.
Now, as companies stock their fridges with these pouches—usually the size of a piece of gum that remains tucked between one’s gums and cheek—they’re seeing an increased byproduct of the new office treat: If you can’t get them hooked on the work, get them hooked on the office perks.
The pouches are available for free in Palantir’s offices for employees and guests over the age of 21, a Palantir spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal. Palantir, which did not respond to requests for comment, pays to stock the products.
Eliano A. Younes, Palantir’s head of strategic engagement, posted a photo on X of a Lucy-branded vending machine filled with nicotine products, with the caption: “Palantir DC Office 🤝 @LucyNicotine 😵💫 🚀.”
No smoke without fire
Palantir’s move is just one of the ways biohacking has taken the Silicon Valley tech space by storm. As people in the tech world become microcelebrities in their own right thanks to the extent they take their biohacking—Bryan Johnson for one gets transfusions of his teenage son’s plasma—the influx of biohacking clinics has led to people taking health matters into their own hands.
(Culturally, Zyn has a certain cachet among right-of-center figures such as Joe Rogan and Jake Paul, with Max Read coining the phrase “Zynternet” to describe the online aesthetic of pretty much anything Joe Rogan–tinted. Palantir, cofounded by Peter Thiel and notable as a unique firm that offers consulting, defense contracting, and artificial intelligence, is arguably a Zynternet poster child, but it’s unclear if these Zyn vending machines are intentionally aligned with that specific culture.)
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