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Ancestry CEO Howard Hochhauser says he learned to eat lunch among employees from Ace Greenberg, his boss at Bear Stearns in the late 1990s. Hochhauser views the shared meal as a visible sign that a leader is approachable—and as one way to hear how decisions and workplace policies affect staff.
What Hochhauser learned from Ace Greenberg
In a Fortune interview published October 11, 2026, Hochhauser said he watched Greenberg, who founded Bear Stearns, sit on the floor every day. The example stayed with him because, in Hochhauser’s view, it made the senior executive’s accessibility visible: employees could talk to him rather than encountering an untouchable figure in a glass office.
Hochhauser says he carried that lesson into his own role at Ancestry by eating in the office eating area with employees. The specific setting matters less than the signal: a leader is present in a shared space where conversation can happen without a formal meeting.
Why he says informal lunches matter
Hochhauser describes access to “unfiltered information” as a challenge for CEOs. As information moves up an organization, he says, it can be softened or filtered, leaving leaders less aware of how decisions and policies are landing with employees. Casual conversation over a meal, in his view, can make it easier to hear those reactions directly.
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The interview also describes Hochhauser reminding staff about in-person working expectations and hearing honest responses about how employees felt. That is an example of the kind of feedback he says he wants to receive; it does not establish that every employee speaks freely or that a lunch conversation captures the workforce’s overall views.
What the anecdote does—and does not—show
The account is a leadership practice explained by Hochhauser, not evidence that shared lunches produce better business results. The interview provides no statistical study measuring the effect of this practice. It supports a narrower takeaway: Hochhauser believes that being present in a casual shared setting can help him appear accessible and hear employee perspectives that might be harder to surface through formal channels.
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For readers considering the idea in another workplace, the key distinction is between creating an opportunity to speak and demonstrating that feedback changes anything. A casual meal may lower the formality of a conversation, but it is not a substitute for broader listening methods when leaders need representative feedback across teams.
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Source: Fortune’s interview with Howard Hochhauser, by Emma Burleigh, published October 11, 2026.
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