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When Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer decided to end full-time work-from-home arrangements at her company, a cultural firestorm ignited. But it was just the latest step in Mayer's effort to transform Yahoo's culture.

When the company was founded in the 1990s, it was one of the most exciting places to work in Silicon Valley. Those days are over; Yahoo has fallen woefully behind in the talent wars and now is trying to catch up.

When you walk through Google's Mountain View, Calif., campus during lunchtime, it can feel a little bit like you're taking a college tour on a pleasant day.

There are folks playing beach volleyball in a sand pit outside the cafeteria. There are soccer games across the street — even a pick-up Frisbee game.

And while the free food inside the cafeteria is a lot nicer than the fare at most universities, the tables might take you back. Actually, the tables' length and design look like those in high school cafeterias.

"Why? Because when you put them back-to-back, people walk down between the chairs, they bump into each other — it's actually called a 'Google bump' — and you go, 'Hey!' and you sit down and talk," says John Sullivan, a management professor at San Francisco State University and workplace consultant.

He says none of this is by accident; it's called "serendipitous interaction" and it's all by design.

Google has spent a lot of time studying what makes workplaces innovative and casual interactions are important. Sullivan lists three factors to make that set companies apart: learning by interaction, collaborations and fun. "Most people just don't get that," he says.

The volleyball and Frisbee — even the length of the lines inside the cafeteria — are designed to make sure Google employees talk to others they don't necessarily work with.

Sullivan says they even measure the length of the cafeteria line. "Why? Because if there is no line you won't talk to anyone, you won't interact," he says.

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