Ancestry's CEO Eats Lunch in the Break Room. It's His Best Source of Intel

Ancestry CEO Howard Hochhauser takes his midday meal in the office eating area, not a corner suite — a habit he borrowed from billionaire Bear Stearns boss Ace Greenberg that he says gives him access to "unfiltered information."

Hochhauser worked at Wall Street investment bank Bear Stearns in the late 1990s, holding multiple positions in the equity research department and ultimately serving as a vice president and equity research analyst. There he watched Greenberg, the firm's long-time CEO, eat among his employees every day.

"Ace Greenberg, who founded the firm, sat on the floor every day, and it stuck with me. Like, gosh, that's really a visible statement. He's really accessible," Hochhauser told Fortune. "You could talk to him, he wasn't sitting in some glass office that's untouchable."

Why the CEO breaks bread with staff

The lunchroom gives Hochhauser a temperature check on how policies and decisions land with employees. He frames the problem bluntly.

"One of the things that I think I struggle with — I think other CEOs struggle with — is access to unfiltered information," he said. "People wrap you in this bubble… And so if you're breaking bread with people casually over lunch, you tend to get that [information]."

The practice proved its value when Hochhauser had to communicate Ancestry's in-person working expectations. About two days before he announced the policy, he informally ran the idea past a group of staffers. They immediately raised concerns about caregiving: dropping children off at school, making evening soccer games, helping their kids move into college.

"People appreciate it, leveling with them and telling them what expectations are," Hochhauser said. "And over lunch, people were honest and raised their concerns, but also appreciated the candor."

He took the feedback into account. When he communicated the in-office policy, he told Ancestry employees: "You're an adult. Use your judgment."

Which other CEOs eat with the rank and file?

Shared meals have become a working tool for executives navigating difficult transitions — and ABN Amro is the starkest case.

The $36 billion Dutch bank announced it would cut a fifth of its workforce over three years, letting go of around 5,200 staffers between 2024 and 2028. The bank had taken hits since the financial crisis, having previously been rescued from collapse, and its 2025 fourth-quarter net profit came in below market expectations. By the end of 2025, 1,500 employees had already been cut as of April, ABN Amro confirmed to Fortune.

CEO Marguerite Bérard's response: weekly sandwiches with eight to 10 colleagues to "hear their views on the bank" through the transition. She told the Financial Times earlier this year: "Building consensus and coalitions is often important in the Netherlands. It's something that the French don't always know how to do well."

Tim Cook took a similar approach while running the $4.9 trillion tech giant Apple. The CEO frequently sat down with random employees in the company cafeteria — a shift from his predecessor, the late Steve Jobs, who often dined with design executive Jonathan Ive.

Lunch as an engagement tool

At Duolingo, the $7 billion learning platform's leadership gathers daily in the office commissary, alongside all kinds of staffers. CTO and cofounder Severin Hacker, who lunches with cofounder and CEO Luis von Ahn, called the ritual "fundamental to our company culture." He argued it beats any engagement survey because employees open up: "That's when the real stuff comes out."

"Lunch is an opportunity for people who don't normally work together to actually talk. On any given day, Luis or I might be sitting next to a new hire fresh out of school. Or people from completely different teams," Hacker wrote in a LinkedIn post a year ago.

First Watch CEO Chris Tomasso applies the same logic at the breakfast and lunch chain, which brings in over $1 billion in annual revenue. Each month he writes congratulatory letters to cooks and dishwashers hitting career milestones.

"I tried to minimize the [CEO] title as best I can when I'm interacting with people," Tomasso told Fortune earlier this year. "I eat lunch in the break room with everybody, which always, for whatever reason, blows new employees away — that I just sit down next to them and bring my lunch and have lunch with them. I think it's a shame that there's that feeling."

For Hochhauser, the lunchroom is less a perk for staff than an information channel for the boss — a way to pierce the bubble that, as he puts it, people wrap CEOs in. As companies weigh return-to-office mandates and restructurings, the executives relying on casual meals over formal surveys may be the ones who hear about problems before they become headlines.