4 ms·

Not sure why this is news to anyone. Apple just built the most expensive on-site campus in history prior to the pandemic. It's a 40 year old company led by 50+

Not sure why this is news to anyone. Apple just built the most expensive on-site campus in history prior to the pandemic. It's a 40 year old company led by 50+ year old executives who have built their entire social and family lives around their offices. Obviously they're going to force everybody back to the way it was. This means nothing for the big shift to remote however. The economic incentives for both companies and employees are just too strong for it not to happen. It was never going to be led by gray haired execs at legacy companies like Apple. When you're currently the most profitable company in the history of earth, you can ignore otherwise rational incentives. But the key word in that sentence was "currently." Instead of talking about what the winners of the past are doing, we should be thinking about what the winners of the future will do. It's important to remember, no company has stayed at the top of the S&P500 for very long.

smoldesu 5y ago
People like to point and laugh because Apple's obligation to shareholders constantly stands in the way of their social messaging. In one hand, they never miss an opportunity to stay current and kowtow to the current trend d'jour, and on the other they make incredibly asinine business decisions that completely undermine their rhetoric.
411111111111111 5y ago
> It's important to remember, no company has stayed at the top of the S&P500 for very long. this has been true historically, but nothing makes it inherently so if you think in the context of a human's lifespan. 100 years ago, the world wasn't a continuously connected marked. If a company got "too large" for comfort, a government could intervene and force a split. This is no longer a viable action, as companies cater to literally the whole world at the same time, so splitting them in one jurisdiction would just end up making that particular market less attractive to companies... effectively harming the government economically. There is only so much you can deduct from our history considering that the base premises is so different nowadays, especially if you constrain it to the time we've got to experience this world. Microsoft and Apple at least have been around since before the 90th, so they're already 30yrs in... thats almost a full professional life of the average employee before they retire.
- steve_g 5y ago
  Sorry to be pedantic. The proper word is "deduce". I'm sure I made some sort of grammatical error in this comment.
musicale 5y ago
> Apple just built the most expensive on-site campus in history prior to the pandemic. It's a 40 year old company led by 50+ year old executives who have built their entire social and family lives around their offices. Obviously they're going to force everybody back to the way it was. Apple is also notoriously paranoid/secretive even within the company. Apple Park is beautiful, but it's also an awful, productivity- and privacy-killing open plan office space. Give me the old-school Infinite Loop with actual walled offices, even if they're closet-sized.
musicale 5y ago
> no company has stayed at the top of the S&P500 for very long Microsoft, Google, ExxonMobil etc. seem to have done OK.
- Aditya_Garg 5y ago
  Very long in this context means 100+ years
newbie2020 5y ago
Hardware engineering, especially the type Apple does, is extremely hard to do when everyone is remote at their own homes. You can have multiple offices that work on different components, but at each of those locations there needs to be a physical office where the engineers can go to. You can make the argument that software engineering won’t suffer as much with everyone being remote, but Apple probably doesn’t want to segment their engineers and give some more perks than others. Also, for people like myself who can only afford a tiny, messy shared 1 bedroom apartment, having an office to go to is a blessing. Even with the 40 minute commute each way, I’m still more productive in the office than I am at home.

smoldesu 5y ago

People like to point and laugh because Apple's obligation to shareholders constantly stands in the way of their social messaging. In one hand, they never miss an opportunity to stay current and kowtow to the current trend d'jour, and on the other they make incredibly asinine business decisions that completely undermine their rhetoric.

411111111111111 5y ago

> It's important to remember, no company has stayed at the top of the S&P500 for very long. this has been true historically, but nothing makes it inherently so if you think in the context of a human's lifespan. 100 years ago, the world wasn't a continuously connected marked. If a company got "too large" for comfort, a government could intervene and force a split. This is no longer a viable action, as companies cater to literally the whole world at the same time, so splitting them in one jurisdiction would just end up making that particular market less attractive to companies... effectively harming the government economically. There is only so much you can deduct from our history considering that the base premises is so different nowadays, especially if you constrain it to the time we've got to experience this world. Microsoft and Apple at least have been around since before the 90th, so they're already 30yrs in... thats almost a full professional life of the average employee before they retire.

steve_g 5y ago
Sorry to be pedantic. The proper word is "deduce". I'm sure I made some sort of grammatical error in this comment.

musicale 5y ago

> Apple just built the most expensive on-site campus in history prior to the pandemic. It's a 40 year old company led by 50+ year old executives who have built their entire social and family lives around their offices. Obviously they're going to force everybody back to the way it was. Apple is also notoriously paranoid/secretive even within the company. Apple Park is beautiful, but it's also an awful, productivity- and privacy-killing open plan office space. Give me the old-school Infinite Loop with actual walled offices, even if they're closet-sized.

musicale 5y ago

> no company has stayed at the top of the S&P500 for very long Microsoft, Google, ExxonMobil etc. seem to have done OK.

Aditya_Garg 5y ago
Very long in this context means 100+ years

newbie2020 5y ago

Hardware engineering, especially the type Apple does, is extremely hard to do when everyone is remote at their own homes. You can have multiple offices that work on different components, but at each of those locations there needs to be a physical office where the engineers can go to. You can make the argument that software engineering won’t suffer as much with everyone being remote, but Apple probably doesn’t want to segment their engineers and give some more perks than others. Also, for people like myself who can only afford a tiny, messy shared 1 bedroom apartment, having an office to go to is a blessing. Even with the 40 minute commute each way, I’m still more productive in the office than I am at home.