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Speaking as someone who does a fair amount of remote working, yes, videoconferencing is awful. I’ve worked at several different companies of different sizes and

Speaking as someone who does a fair amount of remote working, yes, videoconferencing is awful. I’ve worked at several different companies of different sizes and it’s always awful. The video quality is bad, audio is terrible, getting a meeting started takes forever. These aren’t insurmountable problems, you just have to get used to a different way of working. It’s not remotely the same as working in the same office. Better in some ways, worse in others. Google is one of the few companies with the resources to try to drastically improve the technology and fix this problem, but they instead decided just to double down on consolidating their staff in big offices. Obviously works for them but it’s a shame. Edit to add: the above doesn’t necessarily preclude remote offices, but one of the problems is that it’s hard to get a good productive remote team started without a nucleus of strong local staff. It’s hard for a company like Google to open a big office in a new city without an established tech base, and videoconferencing tech doesn’t help much.

TulliusCicero 8y ago
> Google is one of the few companies with the resources to try to drastically improve the technology and fix this problem, but they instead decided just to double down on consolidating their staff in big offices. Obviously works for them but it’s a shame. I'm a googler, and this is completely wrong. Google absolutely wants to fix the remote work issue. Nearly every meeting room in the company is equipped with videoconferencing equipment, and "dialing in" is an accepted practice, with people occasionally dialing in from home being quite common. Hell, they sell their videoconferencing stuff to other companies even, so the monetary incentive is certainly there. But fully remote work also introduces organizational problems that current tech, at least, does not overcome.
- abalos 8y ago
  Agreed. There's something fundamentally different about contacting someone via a video conference versus the organic nature of a quick chat about something. This puts remote workers behind quite a ways. My old team was partially located in NYC and partially located in the Bay Area. There was a major difference in inter and intra location interactions and it affected the team in some negative ways.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    As a mostly remote worker, that's fair. Just yesterday, I happened to be in the office and bumped into someone and had a quick conversation about something that would otherwise have involved setting up meetings, etc.
- iainmerrick 8y ago
  Google absolutely wants to fix the remote work issue. But not to the extent of encouraging fully remote work, or even of opening offices in many locations (as they formerly did).
  - TulliusCicero 8y ago
    You're confusing "wants to fix" with "believes can be completely solved (in the short or medium term)".
    - iainmerrick 8y ago
      Yes, you may be right. I guess what I’m trying to say is that some companies and organizations (Basecamp, Mozilla) embrace remote working and some discourage it, and Google is currently in the latter camp. I know they use videoconferencing a lot and they even sell it, but they still co-locate teams and they still expect people to come into the office most days, right? It’s surprising to me that Google in particular is anti-remote given that all their products are so internet-focused. Yes, it’s probably unfair to expect more from them than from others.

TulliusCicero 8y ago

> Google is one of the few companies with the resources to try to drastically improve the technology and fix this problem, but they instead decided just to double down on consolidating their staff in big offices. Obviously works for them but it’s a shame. I'm a googler, and this is completely wrong. Google absolutely wants to fix the remote work issue. Nearly every meeting room in the company is equipped with videoconferencing equipment, and "dialing in" is an accepted practice, with people occasionally dialing in from home being quite common. Hell, they sell their videoconferencing stuff to other companies even, so the monetary incentive is certainly there. But fully remote work also introduces organizational problems that current tech, at least, does not overcome.

abalos 8y ago
Agreed. There's something fundamentally different about contacting someone via a video conference versus the organic nature of a quick chat about something. This puts remote workers behind quite a ways. My old team was partially located in NYC and partially located in the Bay Area. There was a major difference in inter and intra location interactions and it affected the team in some negative ways.
- ghaff 8y ago
  As a mostly remote worker, that's fair. Just yesterday, I happened to be in the office and bumped into someone and had a quick conversation about something that would otherwise have involved setting up meetings, etc.
iainmerrick 8y ago
Google absolutely wants to fix the remote work issue. But not to the extent of encouraging fully remote work, or even of opening offices in many locations (as they formerly did).
- TulliusCicero 8y ago
  You're confusing "wants to fix" with "believes can be completely solved (in the short or medium term)".
  - iainmerrick 8y ago
    Yes, you may be right. I guess what I’m trying to say is that some companies and organizations (Basecamp, Mozilla) embrace remote working and some discourage it, and Google is currently in the latter camp. I know they use videoconferencing a lot and they even sell it, but they still co-locate teams and they still expect people to come into the office most days, right? It’s surprising to me that Google in particular is anti-remote given that all their products are so internet-focused. Yes, it’s probably unfair to expect more from them than from others.