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Netflix boss: Remote working has negative effects
- api 6y ago... on the price of real estate in hot markets? Seriously though: as with everything else, your mileage may vary (YMMV). Some people and companies are doing great with it and making it permanent. Others are experiencing issues. It has to do with what you are doing and the personalities in your organization.
- whateveracct 6y ago"Purely negative" Maybe for you, bossman.
- echlebek 6y agoBullshit. Where is the peer-reviewed research?
- api 6y agoThis is business! Billions of dollars are at stake. This is far too important for things like "research" or "science." We make decisions based on the gut feelings of charismatic white men. Charisma is proof. If reality disagrees with charisma, reality is wrong. (Politics is even more this way...)
- tuesdayrain 6y agoWas bringing race into this really necessary?
- whateveracct 6y agoScrew the peer-reviewed research - I have money!
- BallinBige 6y agothe effects seem to grow with time...away
- adamnemecek 6y agoGitlab seems to disagree. A lot of this is probably just transitional pain.
- jonny_eh 6y agoTitle should reflect that this is the opinion of one guy, Reed Hastings.
- dvtrn 6y agoAbsent any other details as to how Mr. Hastings has come to his conclusions I'm left wondering if “Not being able to get together in person, particularly internationally, is a pure negative,” Mr Hastings told the Wall Street Journal. Doesn't ACTUALLY mean "managers not being able to micromanage by proxy of physical presence is a pure negative", because in lived experience this has been at the root of much resistance to WFH in my career: managerial loss of control and influence
- Naac 6y agoThe actual title of this article is: "Netflix boss: Remote working has negative effects"
- k__ 6y agoIt has a good effect on hiring, I'd guess.
- NathanWilliams 6y agoWhy does the title exclude “Netflix boss” that is on the original? Excluding it gives a false impression this is something more than a self interested opinion.
- saos 6y agoI have edited. My bad.
- Stubb 6y agoSorry Reid, but I'll never set foot in an office again. Working 100% remote saves me way too much time, not to mention money, and I've long since sorted out staying connected work colleagues (I've been working 100% remote for ~6 years). Not needing to factor in commuting when choosing where to live is a godsend.
- serf 6y ago>I've long since sorted out staying connected work colleagues (I've been working 100% remote for ~6 years). for those interested, care to mention a few of your solutions?
- Stubb 6y agoA big one as been making it a point to contact everyone on the team regularly, even if there's nothing urgent to discuss. This could be via email or video chat. If there's no programmatic reason to chat, I'll surely have come across some new tidbit of information or insight that's at least tangentially related to work and use that as an excuse. One of the dudes I'm working with is a far better C++ coder than me, so I'm regularly asking him questions, but I'm also mentoring some junior engineers, and I'll reach out to point out things to them. For colleagues that I'm not directly working with but want to stay in contact with, I'll email them at least every few months with any interesting problems that I solved as well as the approach that are might be of interest to them. On my team, we'll regularly do tech surveys for advancing areas of our project, and the results of them will also get sent out. I also know their interests, and if I come across something they might like, I won't hesitate to send it their way. It's really easy to buckle down and only address what's in front of your nose. But people get weird when that goes on too long. Better to take a break a couple times a week and check in with everyone else. I find that our morning scrum isn't enough.
- bartread 6y agoWhilst there are no doubt downsides to working remotely, and I certainly miss seeing the people I work with face to face, there is literally zero substance to this piece. I mean even Reed Hastings, the subject of the article, fails to enumerate the downsides he sees to remote working. Without hard - and frankly much wider ranging - evidence this is just one man's opinion and it's not a particularly interesting or insightful one either.
- notjesse 6y agoShouldn’t Netflix be in favor of remote work for business purposes? I would think there is a correlation between the amount of wfh across the world and Netflix viewership.
- filleokus 6y agoInteresting OT question: How much does Netflix care about user "engagement"? Surely there is data at Netflix HQ, but I guess there isn't a linear correlation between viewed minutes and canceled subscriptions. If you use Netflix "enough" for it to feel as a nice thing to have available and not cancel the subscription, I guess Netflix is happy? Even if marginal cost is very low, each streamed video have some small cost associated with it. Is it really worth it to try and increase my viewing, as long as it's high enough? (Conversely, will people really get Netflix subscriptions just because they are WFH, if they din't have them already?)
- angelbar 6y agoThe thing is: At more hours viewing Netflix shows, there is more chance get the feel of "have seen all" and then cancel the subscription.
- rognjen 6y agoHe didn't say that there are negative effects but that he sees no positives. Surely anyone who's carefully considered a position would be able to point out at least some positives.
- snitch182 6y agoWell, of course the experience of the netflix leader is starkly different from everybody elses. So his day is spend having to give a go for project or in general listening to ideas. Since he also depends on kategorizing people quickly he is hindered by videoconferencing. An videokonferencing all day certainly has its downsides. For other jobs, it says nothing. What a waste of my time.
- dang 6y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24401246 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24401246