Haha I doubt drinking at the office since noon was boosting productivity (although I'm sure they would claim it was) - they were just riding on the insane deals they had while the newspapers were relevant for politics and advertisers.

Sort of how Google could have thousands of employees doing nothing and still be insanely profitable. Since they were employee owned after transitioning from communism (majority share at least) there was no pressure to optimize profits. The pathologies of that were interesting to say the least.