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Apple CEO Impressed by Remote Work, Sees Permanent Changes
- nikivi 6y agoWould be nice if most software engineering roles at Apple weren't forced to work in US. For those without degrees it's rather hard to get a US Visa.
- bb123 6y agoThat would be nice, but these are ultimately US based and US lead companies. Moving work into other countries does create complications, especially with the West coast only having a workday overlap of a few hours (at best) with Europe. That really has a non-trivial impact on productivity and decision making latency.
- JeremyBanks 6y agoI know several Apple employees who have been fighting to be allowed to move from Cupertino to Vancouver, without success.
- data_spy 6y agoIf they really want that, they should just get a job in Vancouver with a different employer.
- data_spy 6y agoI love how personal responsibility always gets down-voted.
- JeremyBanks 6y agoThey probably will, but they're pursing the less-disruptive option first.
- kube-system 6y agoSounds like a problem for them specifically. Apple lists jobs in Vancouver.
- Afton 6y agoWhen I last had a 'man inside', the Vancouver office was only for a specific (set of?) teams. That may have changed in the last couple of years.
- 52-6F-62 6y agoIt would be a benefit to have dev teams in the Toronto/NYC time zone. We’ve worked with the Cupertino devs since the start of Apple News and there’s a bit of a disconnect there because of the time difference. Apple has had other teams here but few devs. (In Toronto anyway)
- arkitaip 6y agoI remember when everyone said remote work as the default was impossible but then it happened and now it's as if it was the same and rational option all the time...
- thebean11 6y agoNot sure we can make that claim yet, it's only been a few months. We still have that residual in office-culture, things might be different when the majority of the office has turned over since remote work became a thing.
- ghaff 6y agoMy assumption is that many remote workers will still live within driving radius of an office and will get together semi-regularly. And that those who do not will still fly for on site meetings of some sort on a regular basis.
- bradlys 6y agoKinda defeats the point of working remotely, imo. Sounds more like a WFH option twice a week type of workplace. Which isn’t really remote, IMO.
- ghaff 6y agoIt depends. I could live anywhere I want in the US now. As it happens, I do live fairly near a couple of our offices and could (normally) go in regularly--and used to go in more. But I'm perfectly happy where I live. But, yes, if you live in SV only because some large tech company pays you a bunch of money to live there and they want you to stay in a radius that lets you come in once or twice a week, you don't have the option of moving anywhere you want. (Though you may have the option of moving somewhere that's OK for a once-a-week drive but not daily.)
- bb123 6y agoAh well remote work where everyone is co-located is very different to remote work where the people are 8 timezones away. Synchronous communication will always be hard between teams so far apart.
- ghaff 6y agoIn my experience, real-time collaboration between US East Coast and Europe works pretty well. One of my roles involves a lot of calls with Central Europe and sometimes I (US East Coast) am on calls a bit earlier than I'd ideally like and Europe may end up going past 5 sometimes, but it's not really a problem. Add 3 more hours to the difference and it gets harder.
- bb123 6y agoYes 100%. East coast - UK/Europe collaboration is much easier than West coast. Frequent meetings between Europe and SV mean someone is staying late or coming in early on a regular basis. In the worst case the transatlantic bandwidth can be 2 emails a day.
- malandrew 6y agoI am on the West Coast and regularly do calls with India since we added teams there. 12.5 hours difference is absolutely awful and has me wanting to quit my job or at least move to a team that isn't so far apart. The number of times I've had to wake up early or cancel dinner plans is super disruptive and has crushed my work life balance since there is no clear time when the workday starts an ends.
- bradlys 6y agoI’ll never do calls with India again. For some reason, the India team we had to work with refused to have a meeting at any other time than 3am west coast. Absolutely insane. Eventually, I just skipped the meetings - told them it wasn’t worth my time and to write better emails.
- thrwn_frthr_awy 6y agoIf you mean "most" as in more than 50% then you are probably correct, but there are a ton of Apple engineering roles across the world. When I was at Apple I worked as an engineer in two different continents and both offices were always growing. For example, I know Singapore has been growing steadily the past few years (https://www.apple.com/jobs/sg/ https://www.apple.com/jobs/sg/). Where are you not seeing engineering positions?
- bstar77 6y agoMaybe that spaceship campus investment wasn't such a good idea.
- jdhn 6y agoIt's going to act as a prestige building.
- Shivetya 6y agoI have mentioned it before and pretty much its an issue many have seen before, some executives take far too much pride in their real estate to the point it can negatively impact their employees and the communities they are in. Apple's in particular really came off as one of the most audacious expressions of corporate ego in years. Everything about it seemed to be them screaming "we are so much better than you". From bragging about glass work to the damn chairs in the building. It was just so odd. The employee impact is real in that these same executives and managers are loathe to see their pride and joy empty. even my work place shocked a lot of people with a declaration that anyone looking to continue remote work post pandemic will need VP approval for three days a week; as in they don't even want to consider full remote and the previous two days with permission is being clawed back. the biggest boon for many in my work for WFH has been the severe reduction in meetings. what it tells me is that if their claims of everyone is doing so well remotely is that perhaps they feel threatened that they don't need to exercise on hand control for work to be done, as in they themselves might be more redundant than they want to admit to.
- Angostura 6y ago> From bragging about glass work to the damn chairs in the building. It was just so odd. It's a symbolic embodiment of their products' build quality, attention to detail, design-lead ethos and green credentials. It also provides a place for some people to work.
- jdhn 6y ago>even my work place shocked a lot of people with a declaration that anyone looking to continue remote work post pandemic will need VP approval for three days a week Soemthing tells me that if your competitors start offering 3 days a week remote work and people start taking them up on that offer, your company will change their stance mighty quick. >they themselves might be more redundant than they want to admit to. I really expect there to be a look across all businesses at mid level management. C-suite will save themselves, but people downstream won't be able to.
- claydavisss 6y agoAnd yet most Bay Area techies continue to discuss these trends as something that could happen but probably won't The train left the station years ago, Google seems to be the only company doubling-down on Commercial Real Estate in the Bay Area and they will surely also soon start to backpedal...what demand is there for their San Jose megacampus? This in addition to buying up old Cisco properties, Moffett Field, other new construction, and now the proposal of yet-another "company town" in Mountain View? Someone needs to have a talk with whoever there thinks Commercial Real Estate is a good hedge in 2020.
- strawberrypuree 6y agoGoogle plans far beyond 2020, and far beyond this pandemic. Further, these deals were closed long before this year. Work culture will change for sure, and the layout and form that commercial real estate takes will change too, but it’s far too early to say that the space they’re getting is not worth the investment.
- claydavisss 6y agoShort of their headcount rising to 500k, I don't see how they can ever fill the space. They are also going crazy in other cities - the new marquee skyscraper in Austin will be a Google building (yes I know they are not the only tenant)...right next to the other skyscraper with the Google logo on it. Likewise in other cities. I predict that the San Jose campus will be ditched. Given that HSR to San Jose may never happen or at best be delayed for years, there's no reason for Google to continue with the project (which was sold as a big "transit" focused campus). The land will be sold for a profit though.
- hathym 6y agoiCampus Hotel is the next apple product.
- jen20 6y agoThey beat you to it: https://austin.culturemap.com/news/city-life/05-20-20-apple-adds-surprising-element-to-1-billion-campus-in-northwest-austin/ https://austin.culturemap.com/news/city-life/05-20-20-apple-...
- mensetmanusman 6y agoJohny Ivy will go crazy trying to build little TouchID offices for everyone in the remote work force.
- anaganisk 6y agoDidn't he quit a while ago?
- wbl 6y agoIf you're the Treasurer of Cupertino, this cannot be a fun thing to hear about.
- raxxorrax 6y agoConsider the tourism all those empty offices could bring.
- imglorp 6y agoImagine the retrofit housing possibilities of the Apple UFO. It could be a self contained city.
- blululu 6y agoA cyberpunk Kowloon walled city in the ring sounds cool. But consider that Cupertino has fought tooth and nail to prevent an abandoned shopping mall from being converted into legit housing. Seems unlikely that they would go for it.
- Nbox9 6y agoI’m working on a pet theory that the pandemic will cause a brief period of reverse urbanization. These happen sometimes, such as UK during WW2. Long term cities are still a good bet as urbanization has been happening as long as we have recorded history.
- zarkov99 6y agoI have some small hope that the cross pollination out of major urban centers will help reduce some of the urban/rural/liberal/conservative polarization. Fingers crossed.
- chrisjarvis 6y agoI hope for this too, less in terms of politics but in terms of spreading the country's wealth more evenly from the coasts to the middle of the country. But same general idea.
- AlexandrB 6y agoConsider that it took a pandemic to get many SV companies to consider this. Forget employees advocating for it or workplace research, some external event had to force their hand first.
- sharkweek 6y agoI am guessing many didn’t want to be an early mover on such a paradigm shift.
- ghaff 6y agoYeah, it's not even unreasonable that many companies were resistant to conduct a disruptive experiment on their own volition.
- _qulr 6y agoApple Park cost $5 billion and took over a decade to design a build. I'd call that a lot more disruptive than experimenting with WFH.
- ghaff 6y agoBuilding a new campus on the site of an existing tech company campus in the same city you're already located doesn't seem like a particularly risky experiment even if it cost a bunch of money.
- _qulr 6y agoWhat is risk, besides time and money?
- ghaff 6y agoDisrupting the business. Which at some level translates into time and money I guess but it seems different from "We handed over a bunch of money for something that it turns out we maybe didn't need." (Though Apple has tons of leased real estate in the Bay Area so I'm pretty sure they'll continue to find plenty of use for the campus.)
- pokstad 6y agoI’d imagine it will be easy for non-engineering roles to be moved to permanent remote. This also opens up the door to move these positions to low CoL areas and improve diversity hiring. However, I suspect engineering for the most part will remain primarily onsite. Apple has a big secretive factor that probably keeps many things onsite.
- aantix 6y agoHopefully this will push the internal influencers to actually care about remote tools. The latency on videoconferencing still needs to be reduced. A ping between SF and NYC is around 62ms? But with all of the half-interruptions, the interjections of "you go" - "oops, no wait, you go ahead", it feels like a good 300ms of latency. The conversations do not feel natural at all. John Carmack was speaking about this the other day in his Oculus talk.
- jfarina 6y agoI don't know. This sort of thing happens during in-person meetings too, to an extant. Then again, all of my calls are in the same geographic area.
- aantix 6y agoI think there's some subtleties that are taken for granted with a face-to-face conversation that simply become awkward when engaging in a remote conversion with latency. With face-to-face I can avoid a majority of the interruptions because I can notice a slight change of a facial expression, e.g. a mouth slightly opening, eyes lighting up, that alludes to them beginning to speak. But with a remote conversation, that noticing of expression suffers from the same latency issues as audio, so I'm reading the emotional cue way too late.
- learc83 6y agoIt gets easier. I’ve been working remotely for a decade, and eventual you learn to communicate differently to mostly avoid these issues.
- aantix 6y agoAgree. I’ve been working remotely for the past five years. It can definitely be done. But I’d prefer an in person conversation any day vs the CB Radio-like feel of today’s conferencing. I don’t want to throttle my thoughts. I want quick successions of comments going back and forth. Simply not the experience right now with videoconferencing.
- asciimov 6y agoWill that Apple CEO see to upgrading the front facing cameras in their devices? It would be nice to have something better than potato quality video.
- Reedx 6y agoProbably good news for startups that are not remote-based. They will have a competitive advantage.
- Aperocky 6y agoWhy is that? the whole idea is that remote isn't as bad as we thought it is.
- Reedx 6y agoNot as bad as we thought, but an in-person team is still more agile, faster and better at onboarding/integrating new people. So I think they'll have that kind of advantage in the coming years over incumbents that transitioned to remote permanently.
- ProjectBarks 6y agoRemote work is not a catchall. I live in a 400 sq/ft apartment. My ISP charges 250 a month for gigabyte speeds. I have nowhere to go and all outlets for me to work somewhere else are primarily closed. Furthermore, I have just started my career, all those networking opportunities which help you find your next job have been debilitated. I am sure there is a place for a hybrid option but celebrating remote as the future discourages me to enter the field.
- dijit 6y agoDepends on what you’re doing I guess. I would not be so defeatist if you’re working in technology. IRC/Slack/Discord communities are far better than even the best in-person networking event. There are even job channels on some chat communities. Though the age of the forum is dead.
- ProjectBarks 6y agoI have to disagree. IRC/Slack/Discord only add to potential distractions. I have to have my phone near me for two factor auth but plagued by notifications from these communities. Hackathons have been a huge point of my community engagement; however, online hackathons are only a shadow of their in-person counterparts. Not arguing there is not technological enhancement. Think about how many services have had to deploy fully online services that were holdouts from the internet age. My school's club has been able to invite interesting hosts from around the globe because we are already meeting digitally. Remote/online has its strong-suits I just hate how much absolutism there is in these discussions.
- dijit 6y agoObviously I disagree, but since you got to say your bit- I’d like to rebut. I run an IRC network, I’ve hired people from my IRC network, you choose your own level of involvement. (And your own level of notification. I know the default in slack and discord is aggressive and designed to push more engagement but it is configurable) As it stands there are many people who are absolutely not “distracted” by it, most do not get notifications at all, but usually if you did get a notification it would be because someone said your name explicitly. Most people tend to read up when they feel like it and respond when they feel like it. I also don’t like absolutism but the OP sounds absolutely defeated and for no reason other than they seem unaware that these communities exist and in my experience have given me better experiences than in person “networking” meetings. Unless I’m already friends, meeting people at conferences is often not as valuable as meeting them on IRC.
- richardking 6y agoInteresting how cherry picking quotes can push whatever narrative you want. In a different article, it said “while there are advantages to the temporary system, a physical presence at the office is irreplaceable, Cook said.” https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/09/22/apple-ceo-tim-cook-says-big-companies-deserve-scrutiny https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/09/22/apple-ceo-tim-coo...
- cainxinth 6y agoHe just finished building a $5b headquarters. I’m sure that affected his opinion.
- antr 6y agoThat $5bn will get amortised either way, used or not used by employees. What I can assure you is that with ~$200bn in the bank account, this a drop in the bucket, and has not affected any remote work decision.
- cainxinth 6y agoMoney aside, that building is a marketing vehicle. It's meant to show Apple in the posh, advanced, and sustainable light it wants to be seen (whether that image is true or not is another question, but such is marketing). It was also built to draw in new talent, but in a pandemic it's probably not the attractor they hoped it would be. I doubt Cook is losing sleep over it, but the pandemic definitely messed with his long term plans (like most everyone else, of course).
- rootusrootus 6y agoI can see where the CEO would be momentarily impressed. Think of the savings on that office space. Offloading that onto the employee is great for the company. Sure, some employees might also benefit greatly from the elimination of their commute, but a lot of people also have no real space at home for any kind of proper work environment. Our living spaces would need to evolve if remote work is to become really common. Someone here on HN nailed it last week, IMO, when they suggested that we only see a real benefit to remote work right now because it amounts to quiet time to get things done that we already knew needed to be done. The real test is how we are doing in a year. If my experience at a mid-size corporation is any indicator, it could get kinda ugly. We're surviving, but I don't feel at all like we are excelling. We spend half or more of every day in one Zoom call or another, trying desperately to make up for the lack of face-to-face time we just naturally had at the office. Some of our employees are clearly suffering mentally (especially the folks who live alone), and management hasn't really figured out how to manage in this brave new world. I'm hoping for a hybrid solution to emerge. I want to go back to the office. Maybe two days a week. And when I'm remote, no f*cking Zoom meetings. Death by a million meetings is torture.
- curiousllama 6y agoThis hits the nail on the head, IMO. Remote work increases the cost of communication. That's _wonderful_ for getting defined tasks complete, but _terrible_ for collaborative/unstructured problem-solving. I'm also seeing juniors really struggle - when your biggest challenge is getting traction, communication barriers are just so hard to overcome.
- ineedasername 6y agoI think there might be permanent changes, but I also still see a useful role for in-person meetings even for primarily remote employees. I'll 1) give an example of why I think this useful and 2) the the type of meeting I think would make sense for this purpose: 1) My group has been all remote since March. In June, we got a new boss, and we've been meeting remotely, phone conversations, etc. It worked out find. But then in August my boss needed to drop something off at my home. She came to my house, mask on, and gave me the technical documents I needed, and then we stood outside for about half an hour just talking, about family, kids, work, whatever. This meeting transformed my sense of our working relationship. A person who had been a face on a screen suddenly felt much more real, much more like a living breathing person. Of course I knew they were "real" before, but that brief in-person meeting really made a difference. 2) Normal meetings are not the appropriate format for something like. I think they should be more social, less structured in nature. Perhaps something like a once-monthly extended lunch-meeting that would just be a free flowing discussion of active projects, no agenda, just lunch & discussion. If things veer off of work topics, so be it. If the remote workers are really scattered, it could be done once every 6 months or so. I recognize that there are personalities that don't need/want/benefit much from this sort of interaction. In those circumstances, their physical presence at meetings like this might not do anything for them, but it's a two-way interaction, and that could still be beneficial for the people they meet, if not for them.
- mjamesaustin 6y agoMy company is fully remote and has been since before the pandemic. Our weekly team meetings alternate between actual meetings and hangouts, where we have no agenda and just catch up. We also do a fun group event every Friday (usually gaming since we're a board game manufacturer). As companies transition to remote work on a more permanent basis, the most successful ones will develop strategies like these to foster a healthy culture in a remote environment.
- mark_l_watson 6y agoI hope that this is not too far off topic: for companies like Apple, having mostly at-home work allows much more social distancing for people who need to be in the office for important meetings, dealing with physical equipment, etc. A hybrid approach that is fluid makes sense.
- bondolo 6y agoLast fall I investigated working at Apple because of their supposed new openness to remote work in Eddy Cue's organization. After talking to a couple principal engineers it was revealed that since I was currently bay area based I would be expected to be in the office 3-5 days a week, so no they weren't remote. I wrote it off because I am not interested in spending 20-30 hours a week commuting for any job. A few months later, post the start of COVID, I heard that they were now really remote. I re-engaged and again inquired. It turned out that the job was only remote until COVID was over, again, after COVID they would want in-person presence in the office 3-5 days a week. This despite the team being globally distributed. Again I declined to pursue. Then I started to see tweets advertising remote positions in the same group. I was asked on twitter by a former co-worker who works in the same overall organization if I was interested and I explained that I had already investigated and the lack of ability to work remote was a non-starter. He encouraged me to investigate again with his reference. The result was the same as before, London or Cupertino. Being truly remote or WFH in the bay area would only work until COVID was over. 1-2 weeks a quarter in the office was insufficient. I declined to pursue. Even the former co-worker was surprised that they weren't more flexible. I am not sure what the problem is at Apple. They have had issues with remote work for a long time. I recall one incident where they fired a firmware engineer working on the CHRP Macs because he had to move to Montana (spousal or family reasons) and in the process really screwed themselves. A significant part of the CHRP project delays were because they blew a hole in their own firmware team. There had been a couple of people I knew working remote at the time Steve returned to Apple. All of them were let go if they didn't return to Cupertino. This had been a problem even before Steve's return though. Some of it is their silo "super sekrit" culture. It doesn't seem to have changed over the years. In the end, Apple is entitled to have whatever culture they want. I have been a remote WFH since 1997. Unless I can walk to the office in 10-15 minutes I am never going to commute for anyone. That pretty much rules out ever working for Apple.
- bradlys 6y ago> Last fall I investigated working at Apple because of their supposed new openness to remote work in Eddy Cue's organization. After talking to a couple principal engineers it was revealed that since I was currently bay area based I would be expected to be in the office 3-5 days a week, so no they weren't remote. I wrote it off because I am not interested in spending 20-30 hours a week commuting for any job. Why do you need to specify where you live besides time zone or maybe State (for tax purposes)? If you're upfront with only wanting a remote only job - I don't get why they would even bother with interacting with you. I don't expect many companies in SV to allow permanent remote after COVID is over. Too many higher ups require the image of asses in seats to justify their position.
- dalbasal 6y agoI read PG's "what the bubble got right" when it came out. It made an impression. Some parts were wrong, and some were right in retrospect. Regardless, what struck me was was the "right, but early" pattern. Around the time Paul was writing that essay, large scale "IT outsourcing" and "work from anywhere" were starting to become the standard prediction. Neither quite progressed as promised. Outsourcing reached a point and then receded into niches. Remote work seemed to hit a wall and be rolled back circa 2013. Marissa Mayer had her much-commented decisions. etc. Now, in 2020, where are we? Ultimately, the dynamic effects of massive work-from home will be big. A remote organisation is fundamentally different. It's not just how you work. It's who works, and what work they do. Both may ultimately change a lot if this really does snowball. Globalizing labour, if that's where we're headed is a watershed.
- racl101 6y agoPeople should desire a hybrid solution. Working from home is great but there's so many benefits to going to a workplace and sharing resources instead of every worker needing to recreate their own home office. Somethings just don't make sense.
- cblconfederate 6y agoTech CEOs discovering Remote work is like the CEO of VW saying "ha, this is better than a horse".