Switzerland Today
Greetings from Zurich!
How many Swiss Abroad don’t own a television? It may surprise you to learn that the Director of Design at Google lives in a tech-free home in San Francisco.
Read on for a fascinating portrait of Claude Zellweger. But first, the news of the day.
In the news: Yenish claim ‘cultural genocide’, government rejects pension reforms and Twint booms.
- The Yenish and Sinti community wants Switzerland to recognise the historical forced placement of children as “cultural genocide”.
- The map of alpine biodiversity protection zones must be redrawn to account for plant migration in the face of climate change, says a report.
- The digital payment app Twint saw a 50%increase in number of payments last year.
- The government has urged voters to reject two initiatives in March that call for pension reforms.
The anti-nerd nerd
In today’s digital dominated world, it’s refreshing to hear of someone who rejects such trappings. But it’s unusual that this person would be Head of Design at internet giant Google.
“In 26 years in California, I’ve never had a television, and my children don’t play video games, or at least very rarely,” says Claude Zellweger in an interview with my colleague Marc-André Miserez.
Zellweger, who hails from Meggen on the shores of Lake Lucerne, insists that he is “the exact opposite of a nerd.”
During his work hours, Zellweger heads the team that designs augmented reality products and Google Pixel mobile phones in San Francisco.
But in his down time, the 50-year-old is happier surfing the icy ocean, running or cycling.
Zellweger’s main motivations in life are “art, design and music, but also people, nature and movement,” he tells us.
That’s what I call work-life balance.
In compliance with the JTI standards
More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative
