This tech company gifts employees real gold keycaps worth up to $45,000 each to reward hard work

Many companies equip their employees with work devices and leave them to get on with it. One company, however, makes sure its worker’ keyboards glitter, and hopes to retain their loyalty that way. Insta360 has reportedly been rewarding its staff with key caps worth hundreds of thousands of yuan.

During the last Programmer’s Day, which fell on October 24, Insta360’s top employees were gifted solid gold keycaps. Outstanding performers gifted with space bar covers - the heaviest pieces weighing 35 grams - suddenly found themselves 320,000 yuan ($45,000) richer.

Insta360 has apparently lavished 55 gold key caps on its staff so far, 21 of them last month.

More than just keycaps: Maintaining a glittering tradition

Insta360 has a history of marking milestones with gold. The Chinese company celebrated a decade of operation earlier this year by giving everybody on its payroll a “gold blind box.” Inside was a sticker fashioned from 0.36 grams of pure gold bearing a feel-good quote that reworked a popular saying: “All that glitters is not only gold, but also you.”

When Insta360 employees have personal events, they can expect gold from their company, too. For instance, the camera-maker fetes them with pure gold coins when they get married or have a baby.

“Stability” behind the shine

Is Insta360 trying to make its employees richer by helping them build a literal golden nest? The company founder, Liu Jingkang, has other ideas. Jingkang said the value of the gifts is in what they represent. Gold symbolizes stability, and it underscores that Insta360’s long-term success depends on its talented and dedicated workforce.

According to Jingkang, the golden key caps are supposed to remind his programmers that every keystroke they make “turns stone into gold.”

Safe to say, Insta360 workers struck gold when they accepted their job offer.