“We just really like the flavor variety,” says company that removed La Croix, kept only Tropical Punch.
Pictured: nothing. The laminated “Stay Hydrated, Stay Aligned” sign was, per legal, not to be reproduced.
SAN FRANCISCO—Employees at at least six Bay Area artificial intelligence startups report arriving at work this month to find their break room refrigerators fully stocked with Kool-Aid, and only Kool-Aid, in what companies are describing as “a routine beverage refresh” and what employees are describing as “extremely on the nose.”
“One day it was La Croix, kombucha on tap, the usual,” said a product manager at a mid-sized AI firm, who requested anonymity because he was still, as of press time, drinking the Kool-Aid. “Next day, gone. Just a fridge full of Kool-Aid packets, a giant plastic pitcher shaped like a smiling face, and a laminated sign that says ‘Stay Hydrated, Stay Aligned.’ Nobody in the room made eye contact for a full ten minutes.”
The switch comes amid what industry analysts describe as an unprecedented wave of internal confidence at AI companies, many of which have in recent months asked employees to sign increasingly aggressive mission statements, attend increasingly mandatory all-hands meetings about “believing in the vision,” and, in one documented case, chant a product roadmap.
“We looked at the data and realized our employees were spending too much mental energy deciding what to drink,” said a spokesperson for one affected company, standing in front of a fridge containing forty-one packets of Tropical Punch and, oddly, nothing else, not even water. “Kool-Aid removes the decision fatigue. You don’t have to think about it. You just drink it. That’s sort of the whole philosophy here, honestly, in a lot of ways, if you think about it.”
“You don’t have to think about it. You just drink it. That’s sort of the whole philosophy here, honestly, in a lot of ways, if you think about it.”
Asked whether the beverage choice was intended as commentary on the company’s own famously optimistic internal messaging — which this quarter alone has included an all-hands presentation titled “Why Doubt Is a Legacy Emotion” and a Slack channel called #full-send — the spokesperson paused for nine full seconds before saying, “No,” and then, after another pause, “Next question.”
Employees report the change has not gone unnoticed. “There’s a guy on my team who now says ‘mm, love the Kool-Aid’ completely unprompted, like, in the middle of unrelated meetings,” said one engineer. “He’ll be talking about a bug fix and then just go ‘anyway — love the Kool-Aid’ and keep going like he didn’t say anything. I don’t think he can hear himself anymore.”
Another employee described attempting to bring in his own coffee thermos, only to be gently informed by a facilities manager that “outside beverages create inconsistent morale signaling across teams” and offered, instead, a Kool-Aid Jammer with the company logo printed on the foil.
Not all companies have embraced the trend fully. One competitor, in an apparent attempt at differentiation, has stocked its break room exclusively with Capri Sun, which the company’s Head of People Operations describes as “the same thing, but for people who think critically,” a distinction several employees have privately called “a distinction.”
Industry veterans note this is not the first time AI companies have engaged in unsubtle beverage-based messaging. Last year, one firm briefly stocked its fridges only with Red Bull following a product delay, and another, during a particularly contentious fundraising round, replaced all office snacks with fortune cookies, each one printed with the same fortune: “Scale is all you need.”
“I’ve stopped asking questions,” said the product manager, who by the end of the interview had, without seeming to notice, finished a second cup of Kool-Aid and begun describing the company’s roadmap as “honestly, inevitable.” “I used to bring my own oat milk. Now I just… don’t think about it that much. It’s actually pretty freeing. Anyway — love the Kool-Aid.”
At press time, the company’s investor relations team had circulated an internal memo confirming that the Kool-Aid was, in fact, purely a cost-cutting measure related to the company’s “path to profitability,” a memo which several employees noted was itself printed on Kool-Aid–branded stationery that nobody could recall ordering.