From the assistant editor

The author of today’s cover story, Wellington-based journalist Katie Kenny, was in San Francisco last month, researching how other news media organisations measure the impact of their work.

The trip took her, among other locations, to the Googleplex, famed among workplaces for its cafes offering free food and drink, laundries offering services at no cost, volleyball courts, swimming pools – a campus designed in such a way that you don’t ever really have to leave.

The blurred line between work and home, that drive for maximum productivity, infiltrates other aspects of life in Silicon Valley, Katie observed – right down to the comfy, utilitarian All Birds sneakers so many wear round the clock. There’s also, as Katie explores in her feature on the subject (page 8), an obsession with health, longevity, even cheating death.

The irony about this renewed obsession with immortality, observed among the rich and tech-savvy in the Bay Area and beyond, is that we’re already well aware of the epidemiological factors closely correlated with long life: a diet heavy on the veges and light on processed food, more exercise than you probably feel like, less alcohol than you probably feel like, plenty of sleep (but not too much), and foregoing the ciggies.

And yet, Katie tells me: ‘‘If you’re there and trying to eat healthily on a budget, you just can’t.’’

In San Fran, she survived largely on packets of nuts from 7-Elevens, and noted the excesses of poverty and wealth that meant some people lived in temperature-controlled apartments while others couldn’t afford to see a doctor.

The inequality doesn’t stop people from dreaming, however.

‘‘That’s something I love about the US, and Bay Area in particular,’’ Katie says. ‘‘People will look you in the eye and tell you they’re the next Mark Zuckerberg, and truly believe it.’’