Without knowing the background to that anecdote, the impression I get is less that the tech folks at that company were coddled than that the marketing folks wer

Without knowing the background to that anecdote, the impression I get is less that the tech folks at that company were coddled than that the marketing folks were undervalued. If the marketing folks really are providing value for the company and doing a good job marketing the company, then there's no sense in forcing them to miss lunch. If the marketing folks require so much micromanagement that they can't be trusted to schedule their own lunch breaks they probably aren't contributing significant value to the company anyway, so they should be let go and replaced with a more responsible marketing department. It takes a lot of different skills to run a company. Even at a tech company, tech isn't the only skill that matters.