Why is company culture so important?

when we talk about company culture... what are the companies first pop out on your mind within two seconds?
Google?
Meebo?
I think these are the two I most got in touch with.
Sandy posted a blog entry on the Meebo kitchen.
Read it and see whether you understand a little bit more about what company culture really means!
My personal understanding of company culture is that it is not so much about what you tell people but rather what people actually practice and exercise the culture daily... ^^ More importantly, it is the values commonly shared that count!

the kitchen
sandy posted this on October 19, 2007

The first things to go in our kitchen are the bagels. I like to eat a light lunch and sometimes a toasted bagel with some lunch meat sounds pretty tasty. My cravings are rarely met because when the meebo team comes in in the morning, poof! the bagels are all eaten =p.

The meebo kitchen has become a pretty important place at the company: a gathering area, morning hang-out, nap room, and code review central. Since the company has become quite a bit larger than when we first moved in, the dynamics of where people relax has changed as well. Instead of one futon, we've got three. Instead of a few mugs, there are now many more hanging from the hooks on the wall. (Not to mention the morning race for those bagels!)

We've had to re-arrange desks a bit, shuffle people into places where they'll be most productive, and at the same time consider things like increased chatter, background noise, and general activity around a very open office. I wrote an entry a while back when we were moving from Palo Alto, and the office has evolved a lot.

I guess part of "growing up" in a company's life cycle is adapting the environment. Our office is a really fun place, but also a really productive place. Part of that is maintaining the balance between work and goofing off. The kitchen, for example, remains a really important factor in that balance; we can all buckle down and concentrate on the latest and greatest code review... while snacking on a handful of grapes, lounging on the couch, and kicking off our shoes.

cheers,
sandy

check out on how company culture is defined on Wikipedia.org.