Awarded to Outstanding Employees on Programmer's Day
The bonus for outstanding employees at the Chinese IT company Insta360 is making headlines. It has been reported that the company awards pure gold keyboard keycaps as bonuses. At the current price of gold, these are worth tens of millions of won.
On November 7 (local time), the Hong Kong media outlet South China Morning Post (SCMP) highlighted Insta360, a company specializing in 360-degree cameras, and its tradition of awarding gifts to outstanding employees for four consecutive years. Last month, on October 24, to mark China’s “Programmer’s Day,” Insta360 presented 21 pure gold keycaps to outstanding employees.
A keycap refers to the individual keys that cover the switches on a computer keyboard. Insta360 has been awarding gold keycaps as bonuses to commemorate Programmer’s Day for several years, and to date, a total of 55 keycaps have been distributed.
With the recent rise in gold prices, the value of each keycap has more than doubled compared to the first year. In particular, the spacebar keycap is said to be worth 320,000 yuan (approximately 65.5 million won).
According to the media, Insta360 has earned the nickname “gold factory” in the Chinese IT industry due to its tradition of awarding gold keycaps as bonuses. In July, to celebrate its 10th anniversary, the company gave all employees, including interns, a “gold blind box” containing a pure gold sticker weighing 0.36 grams. Upon opening the box, recipients found a message that read, “It’s not just gold that shines, you do too.”
In addition, employees who got married or had children were given a 1-gram pure gold coin. At the year-end party, the company even awarded a 50-gram pure gold bar.
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