Technology Helps Barnes & Noble Survive ... and Thrive

Barnes & Noble wanted to remain true to its core value of as a company — the love of reading — but present it in a new way for its customers. The first step in its transformation was to develop its own e-reader, the NOOK. To accomplish this it needed engineers, something the company of 40,000 employees lacked. New York City-based Barnes & Noble opened its first West Coast office in the Silicon Valley (Palo Alto, to be exact) and started recruiting engineers. Lynch's recruiting pitch: You have the chance to change the future of reading, and do it by competing against the likes of Apple, Amazon.com and Google. Recruiting engineers isn't for the faint of heart and weak of checkbook, Lynch jokingly recalled. Barnes & Noble had an ace up its sleeve, however. It honed in on engineers that had a love of reading and education.