Can a Company You Hate Make a Cable Box You Love?

The pingpong table arrived on the 15th floor of Comcast’s corporate headquarters in downtown Philadelphia in about 2008. When the company invited local reporters for a viewing, none had trouble getting the significance. They also took note of the orange furniture and relaxed dress code, and quickly connected the dots. Internet culture liked pingpong. Comcast got a pingpong table. Comcast was embracing internet culture.

Eight years later, the software nerds and the mobile-app and data geeks have settled into more prosaic jobs on pingpong-free floors throughout the Comcast tower. On 35, Fraser Stirling is standing by his desk, palming a security camera. Its lens is set in a rectangular, anodized-aluminum enclosure that gives it a futuristic, almost Pixar-character profile. The camera will be available later this year to customers who pay Comcast for security-protection services. “It’s got a real nice feel,” he says, running his finger under the camera’s chin. “You’ll notice we designed it with a bit of personality, right?”