42 ms·

Big tech makes a big bet: Offices are still the future

82 points by jedberg 5y ago

rejor121 5y ago
I personally wouldn’t mind going into the office once a week to see everyone, chat, throw ideas around, etc. maybe do some work together. But I’ve never found “office” work to be more productive than working from home.
- foolfoolz 5y ago
  day to day no, it’s more likely you can do more on an average day at home. some days it’s really helpful to see certain people to get past a problem. in the grand scheme a team that has an empathetic relationship is going to grow more. doesn’t mean they do more, but i think the peoples skills will grow faster. and most people develop this kind of relationship better in person it’s not black and white
danielmarkbruce 5y ago
They are trillion+ companies spending billions. It isn't a big bet. It's a small bet.
- neogodless 5y ago
  A trillion companies on a planet with a bit under 8 billion people. There really are too many MBAs given out these days! EDIT: Oops my comment doesn't make sense, they mean "trillion dollar companies", not "there are trillion+ companies." Given that, I don't think there are a lot of "trillion dollar companies" period. So lots of smaller companies making bets on offices.
  - benibela 5y ago
    There are 5 of those trillion dollar companies. Source: 8marketcap.com
  - danielmarkbruce 5y ago
    Did you read the article? Even if you didn't - "Big tech" generally refers to... the big tech companies... several of which are mentioned by name in the article..and have trillion+ valuations...
mgh2 5y ago
Different for hardware vs. software
- analog31 5y ago
  I did hardware from home during the lockdown, as part of an R&D group. It was actually quite pleasant. Granted this doesn't work for everybody, but my family had space. My colleagues and I used it as a chance to come up to speed on using things like quick turn machine shops etc., and to re-think how we do some of our prototyping. And we were already collaborating across multiple physical locations. McMaster-Carr and Mouser Electronics, thank you!
- HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
  Nope. I'm in a hardware-dependent job. I've been WFH at both this job and the previous one. I just run into the office occasionally if there's a board re-spin.
jaredsohn 5y ago
Initially read this as Big Tech is bringing back private offices instead of open plan offices.
- ngc248 5y ago
  better to have private offices since that will maintain the social distancing. with open plan offices, if someone gets something, the spread will be faster
- corobo 5y ago
  See that I’d be open to discussing with an employer. Office jobs all want to go back to the cheap open office sort of thing though Am a free range human now, can’t be crammed in with 20 other nerds coughing and burping and sneezing everywhere all day
tnel77 5y ago
Any given company has the right to make their employees work in an office, but they better be prepared for the consequences of that decision. They are either going to lose out on talent or they are going to lose out on the cost of said talent (higher salaries/better benefits to convince someone to unnecessarily sit in an office). It’s just a silly hill to die on for so many of these companies.
- torbTurret 5y ago
  Also the cost of wasting interviewing resources on people who, knowing the job is on-site, will interview solely for practice with zero intention of joining.
  - harshalizee 5y ago
    Would that not work the other way around too? People interviewing remote-only companies for practice when they have no intention to join. IMO, that's a lot easier too, since you can get a lot of practice time in without having to commute to places.
    - torbTurret 5y ago
      No interviews are onsite at the moment (at least in big tech), so at the moment no, but when things get better? definitely
  - mdoms 5y ago
    I strongly doubt this is a significant factor.
- jonas21 5y ago
  It works the other way around too, though. They will be able to more easily attract talent who wants to work in an office. And if you want to attract both groups, well... you still need office space, even if everyone doesn't come in every day.
  - 5y ago
pdimitar 5y ago
Meh. Of course they will double down on huge real estate deals they can't bail out of because they're likely long-term. But the companies will try to make it sound literally every other way except the truth. They have to save face after all, plus "admitting defeat" has real consequences on your stock price. So business as usual really. I'll be eating a lot of popcorn in the next few years. I can bet many people will leave their jobs if the company enforces return to office. The fallout will be long and interesting to watch.
- mirntyfirty 5y ago
  So far I’ve seen a few major companies change policy after an employee exodus.
  - pdimitar 5y ago
    Yes, and? The world is big; the huge corps can suffer by reduced hiring pool -- or reduced quality in their newer hiring pool -- and the world, surprisingly, will not end. The strong talent will move someplace else. You can dangle big pay checks and perks only for so long.
- bredren 5y ago
  Apple and dropbox are two companies that come to mind with major headquarters investments Relatively close to the onset of the pandemic. Any other Notables?
  - jedberg 5y ago
    Google was (is?) building some massive new campuses in the Bay Area. Nvidia completed a huge new campus in late 2020 and it just sits empty.
- adrianmonk 5y ago
  > double down on huge real estate deals they can't bail out of I wouldn't assume that's a big factor. If you own office space you don't need, you can lease it out. Or if you don't own but lease it, then you can often sublease it out. Depending on market conditions (whether remote working is a trend or a permanent change), the demand may not be that high, so it's unclear how much money you'll get. But whatever it is, it's more money than not leasing it out.
stuckinhell 5y ago
I hope not. I love working at home. I save money and time not having to commute, not having to buy lunch to be social, and best of all I get to spend more time with my growing kids (priceless).
- hit8run 5y ago
  Fully agreed. Now you can change your username <3 you’re out of it!
quxpar 5y ago
Signing a lease or building a new office is always a project by some highly paid non-technical person with 'executive' skills. I wonder why?
mschuetz 5y ago
I prefer working in an office, and I dislike working with people remotely. I'm just glad that things are going back to normal, and that there are also many people at my job who also prefer to show up in office even though they have the option to work from home.
- lifeplusplus 5y ago
garciasn 5y ago
Sam Jones, a co-founder of a nonfungible token start-up, Honey Haus, said his company had been renting a four-person space within WeWork for $1,850 a month since October. “I am just way less productive at home,” Mr. Jones said. “People are definitely, I think, realizing that physical space just has something special to it.” We have articles like this one with quotes like the one above that run counter to other research and discussion in this area like this article from The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/02/work-from-home-revolution/622880/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/02/work-from-... which offers up stats that ~33% of people want to be fully remote and another 20% want to be home more than 3 days a week. Why do people have to ruin this for the rest of us. No, I don't want to go back to the office (I don't have to; my team is now fully remote forever) and I see it as a huge perk and a MASSIVE boost to our productivity to be at home.
- throwawaygh 5y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if engineering remains flexible and sales/executive roles require more face time. I imagine an NFT startup is 100% sales/marketing and 0% engineering/science/innovation, so going fully in-office might make sense for them.
  - pxlpshr 5y ago
    The fact that you assign innovation purely to science/engineering is why many startups fail. You don't seem to recognize that innovation happens across all segments of the business. Plenty of ingenious products never reach critical mass because engineering founders dismiss all other aspects of business building. Facebook's toe-hold that helped them beat MySpace and Friendster wasn't an act of innovative engineering as much as it was their go-to-market plan starting in Universities. Engineering will remain flexible because of all the virtue signaling big tech is doing in order to retain their talent. It's almost comical that they are struggling to bring people back to the office after being the biggest promotor of work-remote while the rest of the service-economy had to show up every day to their Walmart jobs...
    - 5y ago
Paul_S 5y ago
How can I bet against them?
- Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
  Short the stock and/or buy Put options.
  - nappy-doo 5y ago
    I wouldn't take the opposite side of Google's bet. They're spending a couple of billion on the bet. GOOG, AAPL, FB, that's about a week's worth of earnings to them. And if they're wrong, they have a depreciable asset that they can spend the next 30 years writing down. NBD.
- maxilevi 5y ago
  Buy put options against FAANG stocks
  - asdff 5y ago
    Don't actually do this
- justinmchase 5y ago
  Buy real-estate outside of the city.
- stkdump 5y ago
  The title is wrong. They don't bet. It is deeper in the article. They are actually hedging their bets and can afford to loose that money.
kerblang 5y ago
See, when people sit elbow to elbow and can smell each other, they collaborate more. They use those headphones all day to keep their ears warmed up for the next Impromptu Collaboration Session. Really, the biggest problem is the fire dept keeps complaining about having too many in too small a space and we're all like, dude, do you even collab?
- kerblang 5y ago
  Now I can't stop myself: Bro, we put the bro in collabroation
  - willcipriano 5y ago
    We just call it broation here.
hit8run 5y ago
In my experience lonely people are happy to go back and those with a life outside of work (family, friends, hobbies) are happy about the time they save not commuting in order to have more time for the things they live for.
- Thlom 5y ago
  Not my experience. Some people just like to have people around, some don’t have space for an office at home, some need the socializing at the office and so one. People are different. I prefer working at the office even though I have a life outside of work and I have an office at home. Granted, my commute is only 15-30 minutes depending on traffic.
  - rleigh 5y ago
    I commute into the office 5 days a week even though it's a 60 minute commute each way. It's for my own mental health. The complete and legally enforced isolation during the lockdowns was too much. I can't work in permanent isolation. It really made me realise that I'm not actually antisocial, just very introverted. Don't get me wrong, I was super productive for several weeks. Less distractions and I got in hours of solid coding and loved it. But after several weeks my motivation just fell off a cliff, and I started going back one or two days a week. It very much depends on one's specific situation. I'm working with hardware and software, so I do need to be onsite for some time out of necessity. But one point which I haven't seen brought up in the rest of this discussion is that the nature of our discussions can differ greatly online vs in person. Also depends upon the company/team culture. There is value in face-to-face time. Meetings tend to be focussed upon specific topics, but informal chat about random stuff also leads to useful discussion about things which wouldn't be covered by meetings, and those can also be of high value. And there's also the camaraderie and team-building aspects as well.
- ianbutler 5y ago
  I have friends and hobbies, but I like separation of work and home, having work in my home has felt like a violation of a personal tenet of mine for the last few years. It may also have to do with the fact my commute is 30 minutes so I use that time to tune out and read on public transport. With that I've always enjoyed working in the office and find my commute to be a pleasant context switch.
paxys 5y ago
It isn't going to be big tech's choice for much longer. We are nearing a critical mass of developers who will just not consider a job that doesn't offer flexible work options. This is the new normal, whether they like it or not. Funny enough this reminds me of ~20 years ago when hot startups like Google started spending big money on fancy campus facilities and perks like free meals and massages. The establishment at that time scoffed at the idea, but soon those who couldn't adapt to this new office concept were weeded out.
- twblalock 5y ago
  Flexible work, e.g. a few days in the office and a few days at home each week, still requires offices.
  - Apocryphon 5y ago
    But probably not these huge lavish campuses full of perk facilities.
megaframe 5y ago
After fighting for years to work from home full time (and loving it now). I see one big problem I have no fix for, training new grad / junior engineers. Feel free to correct me if you have tools to do it, but I found training someone new like that over Video calls way too hard. It slows them down it slows me down, and their time to become productive goes up 4x. While I don't want to return to commuting I'm willing to compromise 1-3 days a week (at my discretion) to make training possible.
- francisofascii 5y ago
  Honestly I think it works better, in some ways. I can share my screen and demo what I am doing, and they can follow along on their machine or vice versa. You can also take control of their machine. Rather than huddled together staring at the same screen. If something doesn't work on their machine, I can try it locally on my machine without having to walk back to my office to try whatever commands they were trying. Don't get me wrong, in person training is valuable, but even if we are in the office, sometimes we still setup a video call for some tasks.
- justinmchase 5y ago
  We park in an open team chat for hours at a time. And by open I mean its unscheduled, open for any dev and people just pop in and out as they desire. Someone is always screen sharing and we work on problems together, a new person can absorb or drive things, get realtime feedback. You can popout and just focus as needed, its casual. Sort of like discord but its code instead of games.
  - vincentmarle 5y ago
    That’s a great idea, what tool do you use for that?
- GeoAtreides 5y ago
  Screenshare with audio only. Video occupies too much mental bandwidth (human brains prioritize face recognition to the detriment of all other processes)
- 5y ago
rootusrootus 5y ago
I think it's too early to call them wrong. Wait a couple years after we're done with this pandemic, see how things play out. Some people do like to work in the office. Some are ambivalent. Some die-hard WFH. Thing is, if any kind of critical mass of workers head back into the office and start enjoying the career benefits to being onsite with management, it'll end up dragging the ambivalent back as well so they don't get left behind.
- scep12 5y ago
  I can't believe it took this much scrolling to find a reasonable take. I think personal preference is clouding people's judgement. Of course it will depend on your employer and how much the office was part of company culture prior to covid, but I think what you're predicting will largely bear out.
francisofascii 5y ago
Yesterday at our company, our management made an announcement to team leads, developers can work from home for the foreseeable future, despite the CEO hinting in his weekly emails about mandatory 2 days a week in the office. Apparently developers in exit interviews were indicating the "office uncertainty" was a factor in their departure.
johnny_canuck 5y ago
I'm curious how many people will make the jump to preferring remote when they realize that the office culture they had prior to covid will no longer exist in the future. My gut tells me that a lot of people are expecting for things to go back to the way they were when they won't. If half your team is OOO whenever you're at the office, is it as exciting as it was before? It wouldn't be for myself.
Apocryphon 5y ago
Wonder if any of these "physical-first" office-oriented companies might consider potential incentives to get people to go in: 1. Besides hybrid <5 day per week in-office cultures, what about expecting only half-day attendance? Would it be feasible to expect employees to only be in office during a certain set of core hours, where in-person meetings and collaboration takes place? Almost like Khan Academy but for work. 2. Getting rid of open office layouts and giving people their own offices. That will drastically improve the in-office experience for nearly the majority of workers. People have forgotten about the scourge of open offices but pre-pandemic, they were almost universally despised, at least on places like HN.
- humanwhosits 5y ago
  People want to move further away to lower housing costs. Commuting in for a half day seems demoralizing
  - Apocryphon 5y ago
    Sure, but that’s not universal. Certainly the best approach is to offer remote to those who prefer that. But for those who live close enough to the office, and are positive to agnostic about going in, maybe a half day is a good way to feel not trapped in the office, and to beat the traffic.
meddlin 5y ago
JCM9 5y ago
If a company is 100% remote that’s one thing, but in any hybrid scenario those that consistently appear in an office will unavoidably be at a significant advantage. Those informal coffee chats, grabbing lunch together and such are invaluable and it’s hard/impossible for someone on a screen somewhere to get the same benefits. There will be those that dig their heels in hard but unless the company is 100% remote forever such stubbornness is likely a career limiting move.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- null_shift 5y ago
  Is there research that proves that in-person teams are more successful than remote/hybrid ones? If not, I think remote/hybrid employees should be equal class citizens to on-site employees, and that should be reflected in a consistent composition of those roles thru all levels of leadership.
  - stkdump 5y ago
    I think the point GP is making is that hybrid Teams are worst off. And that was my experience also pre pandemic. Actually the people who always were remote felt a huge improvement, because suddenly all had the same 'distance' and needed to put in the same effort to stay connected.
ssklash 5y ago
The internet is a waste of an invention if we can use it to not commute, eliminate all the attendant ills of commuting, spend all day in an office, etc., but we don't use it that way because middle managers can't have butts in seats or whatever other lame excuses they come up with to maintain their grip on the lives of workers. We have remote surgery for chrissakes! Tech workers and many others can all get along just fine remotely, with in-office as on option for those who choose it.
msoad 5y ago
For me, this is nice because I can make those companies to pay for my flights to their offices for interviews so I can visit the city. I am absolutely not going back to the office. I'll come visit their office for a day long interview to see what's up though!
dougSF70 5y ago
Surely, part of the resistance isn't about productivity its about cost of living. If you had halved your living expenses would you be voting to double them again in order to go to the office? I doubt many people would do this.
- Dig1t 5y ago
  So true, I was paying $1300 per month living in the Bay with 5 roommates crammed into a 4 bedroom hacker house. Now I pay $500 per month living not in the bay and have an entire house to myself. It's amazing and I never want to go back, yet they keep talking about bringing us all back in and how they "can't wait to be together again".
  - me_me_mu_mu 5y ago
    Where are you paying $500 a month for an entire house? I'm assuming you're outside the USA?
    - Dig1t 5y ago
      I was able to save up enough money living in CA to pay off a house in a cheaper state. Now I just pay property tax, which is a little less than $500 per month.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - asdff 5y ago
      I know people paying this much for an entire house in rent out in the rust belt.
      - bicx 5y ago
        Rust belt… sounds lovely
sergiotapia 5y ago
Ship has sailed. Working from home has so many benefits it's ridiculous people were forced to go in five days a week. I do concede that going in once a week is terrific. Those days of face to face spawn the best conversations and brainstorming sessions -- but those days I get zero code work done. t. worked from home as a software dev since day 1 of my career for 14 years.
mvkel 5y ago
In person is the future, but that isn't mutually exclusive with offices. WeWork is not an office. Signing a 10-year lease on a commercial building is. Those are the days that are over.
itsdrewmiller 5y ago
"In the last three quarters of 2021, the tech industry leased 76 percent more office space than it did a year earlier, according to the real estate company CBRE." This is a very specific date range to compare! Wonder if anything interesting happened around the start of the second quarter of 2020?
refurb 5y ago
It's pretty inevitable that working in offices will return. Not for all employees and not full time, but it will return. For any role that has a heavy teamwork component, having some people in person and some remote sucks. Add on top that face-to-face has value - managers remember people they interact with, not email they receive. Over time we'll see that people who favor face-to-face interactions will be the ones getting promotions, raises and the interesting work. This was even true before Covid - we had people who were fully remote. They loved it, but they also got the grunt work. Shoot them an email and tell them to send it back by X date. They never got included in last minute calls
- errantmind 5y ago
  Another possibility is: over time we'll see remote-first companies outcompete the alternatives due to lower overhead and wider availability of talent, sinking entire companies that emphasize the importance of face-to-face interactions for promotions.
  - refurb 5y ago
    Like I said for the back office stuff, definitely. But customer facing and more dynamic roles you'll need people to interact in person. Just like in sales the big deals are closed over drinks.
GekkePrutser 5y ago
As long as the masks can come off, I'd like to go back to the office a couple days a week. But working with a mask all day is really hard for me, and our company still requires it, even at our desks :( But once they do I'll come back like I'm supposed to. I like going for lunch with the guys.
midrus 5y ago
Don't try to force everyone to your preference and your thinking. Do you enjoy working at an office? Join a company which is office first. Want to work from home? join a remote first company. Market and time will decide which ones are more successful. Probably both will be in different ways. I prefer remote, so I left my previous job and only applied to remote companies. Now I earn more than before and have 2 extra hours every day. I feel even more productive than before. And I feel a tiny small bit better with myself as I'm now contaminating less the environment. This multiplied by the total remote employees my company has, makes me feel still better about it.
- renewiltord 5y ago
  Quite the difference between the few top level comments. This one shows an internal locus of control (he simply chooses companies that match) and the other one shows an external locus of control (they’re ruining it for us). Neat!
hongloumeng 5y ago
Some people want to own houses they can afford and don't hate. Some people want to be present and flexible for their children. Deal with it.
- amrocha 5y ago
  Some people want to live in urban areas and don't have space for a dedicated office. Some people prefer having work as dedicated time away from their household. Some people working from home for a long time lose motivation and struggle with burnout. Try to have some empathy. I'm glad you like working remotely, but it's not for everyone.
brutal_chaos_ 5y ago
I think we should work in offices with the ability to work remotely when necessary and(/or) if we choose. I don't like needing to find the perfect spot to setup my desk where my company isn't looking into my home. I don't like having a company laptop that at any given time could be listening in on family conversations. I don't like the idea of my company seeing my child struggle through LGBTQQIA+ issues because I happen to have a work camera at home. I like and enjoy my privacy. I want offices to still be a thing.
- makeitdouble 5y ago
  An issue that comes with the "when necessary and(/or) if we choose" is bringing a regional dependency that only benefit a part of the workforce. For instance let's say the company is in Berlin, having an office there means employee will need to be at a commuting distance from Berlin wether they actually commute or choose not to. Recruiting someone in Amsterdam becomes a difficult decision, and employees in full-remote still have to pay Berlin area living costs just for the potential commute they could have to do. And that's assuming online discipline is exemplary and you don't have a "left out" effect between those on premise and the others online. Basically the choice would be between solving the privacy issues you raise, or solving the logistics/disparity issues raised by other solutions. I kinda feel like the privacy issues could be easier to solve than the others.
- Tomis02 5y ago
  > I like and enjoy my privacy. I want offices to still be a thing. Given that today most offices seem to have an open plan, your two sentences seem contradictory.
  - bicx 5y ago
    This person is talking about not wanting to share their home on camera. It’s not contradictory.
KronisLV 5y ago
Seems like some of the arguments that i made in my blog post "Remote working and the elephant in the room" are becoming relevant: https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/remote-working-and-the-elephant-in-the-room https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/remote-working-and-the-elep... There will probably be some companies that remain fully remote and some that attempt to get everyone back into offices ASAP, as well as some in the middle that will try to embrace hybrid modes of work. Each type will tend to attract employees who are compatible with them, though it's hard to say whether the percentages of people that want a particular mode of work and the percentages of companies that actually offer it will match up, especially if people who make these choices on policy within the companies are not aligned with those who want to work there and vice versa. It'll probably lead to many seeking out other employment opportunities and taking their domain knowledge and skills with them, which will be somewhat problematic in the months or years to come. I know for a fact that i don't enjoy commute or having to live in the city, so i might just look for some other place to work if/when the "return" to office policy comes into effort. Sadly, in my case i only have about 50k euros in savings so perhaps it's a bit premature to think of starting my own SaaS, since i earn a bit above 20k euros a year (after taxes) in Latvia now: https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/on-finances-and-savings https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/on-finances-and-savings To sum up my point: it's nice to have the choice rather than having just cultural norms be passed down (which is one of the silver linings of the pandemic, as bad as it is), but it will cause some strife in the future until everything settles.
magicroot75 5y ago
I was a big proponent of work from home two years ago, when it was a cushy option I had. I'd work from home when I'd want, then I'd come in when I felt like being social. It was great. On days I wasn't in the office, I wasn't in hours of video chats all day. I was at home, doing what needed to be done to drive the outcomes my employer wanted. Fast forward to 2022 when everyone is remote, and its nice, but not as nice. Now instead of working remotely, I'm meeting and working remotely. It's fine and I get paid for it. But it's not as fun. Also doesn't help that my annoying roommate also had to go into a remote job where he's in our living room everyday on video calls, talking loudly on the phone, and our shared space has become a dumping ground for all his work papers. I told him I didn't like it, but he needs to be constantly confronted and I gave up.
kthejoker2 5y ago
My big bet is that the 3 concrete benefits of physical proximity that are hard to replicate in virtual environments * body language, nonverbal communication, whispering / spatial audio, passing notes, and other "advanced" communication techniques not easily achieved in enterprise chat and conference software today * the ability to immediately multiplex / "break out" / traverse conversations and events / kibbutz / hang out at the water cooler * to physically share collaborative or immersive objects like large whiteboards, prototypes, machinery, exhibits, etc. Will all be solved digitally in the next 2 years and offices will seem even less appealing and companies will just redirect rent expenditures towards lunch vouchers, team outings, and awards ceremonies.

82 points by jedberg 5y ago

I personally wouldn’t mind going into the office once a week to see everyone, chat, throw ideas around, etc. maybe do some work together. But I’ve never found “office” work to be more productive than working from home.

foolfoolz 5y ago
day to day no, it’s more likely you can do more on an average day at home. some days it’s really helpful to see certain people to get past a problem. in the grand scheme a team that has an empathetic relationship is going to grow more. doesn’t mean they do more, but i think the peoples skills will grow faster. and most people develop this kind of relationship better in person it’s not black and white

danielmarkbruce 5y ago

They are trillion+ companies spending billions. It isn't a big bet. It's a small bet.

neogodless 5y ago
A trillion companies on a planet with a bit under 8 billion people. There really are too many MBAs given out these days! EDIT: Oops my comment doesn't make sense, they mean "trillion dollar companies", not "there are trillion+ companies." Given that, I don't think there are a lot of "trillion dollar companies" period. So lots of smaller companies making bets on offices.
- benibela 5y ago
  There are 5 of those trillion dollar companies. Source: 8marketcap.com
- danielmarkbruce 5y ago
  Did you read the article? Even if you didn't - "Big tech" generally refers to... the big tech companies... several of which are mentioned by name in the article..and have trillion+ valuations...

mgh2 5y ago

Different for hardware vs. software

analog31 5y ago
I did hardware from home during the lockdown, as part of an R&D group. It was actually quite pleasant. Granted this doesn't work for everybody, but my family had space. My colleagues and I used it as a chance to come up to speed on using things like quick turn machine shops etc., and to re-think how we do some of our prototyping. And we were already collaborating across multiple physical locations. McMaster-Carr and Mouser Electronics, thank you!
HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
Nope. I'm in a hardware-dependent job. I've been WFH at both this job and the previous one. I just run into the office occasionally if there's a board re-spin.

jaredsohn 5y ago

Initially read this as Big Tech is bringing back private offices instead of open plan offices.

ngc248 5y ago
better to have private offices since that will maintain the social distancing. with open plan offices, if someone gets something, the spread will be faster
corobo 5y ago
See that I’d be open to discussing with an employer. Office jobs all want to go back to the cheap open office sort of thing though Am a free range human now, can’t be crammed in with 20 other nerds coughing and burping and sneezing everywhere all day

tnel77 5y ago

Any given company has the right to make their employees work in an office, but they better be prepared for the consequences of that decision. They are either going to lose out on talent or they are going to lose out on the cost of said talent (higher salaries/better benefits to convince someone to unnecessarily sit in an office). It’s just a silly hill to die on for so many of these companies.

torbTurret 5y ago
Also the cost of wasting interviewing resources on people who, knowing the job is on-site, will interview solely for practice with zero intention of joining.
- harshalizee 5y ago
  Would that not work the other way around too? People interviewing remote-only companies for practice when they have no intention to join. IMO, that's a lot easier too, since you can get a lot of practice time in without having to commute to places.
  - torbTurret 5y ago
    No interviews are onsite at the moment (at least in big tech), so at the moment no, but when things get better? definitely
- mdoms 5y ago
  I strongly doubt this is a significant factor.
jonas21 5y ago
It works the other way around too, though. They will be able to more easily attract talent who wants to work in an office. And if you want to attract both groups, well... you still need office space, even if everyone doesn't come in every day.
- 5y ago

pdimitar 5y ago

Meh. Of course they will double down on huge real estate deals they can't bail out of because they're likely long-term. But the companies will try to make it sound literally every other way except the truth. They have to save face after all, plus "admitting defeat" has real consequences on your stock price. So business as usual really. I'll be eating a lot of popcorn in the next few years. I can bet many people will leave their jobs if the company enforces return to office. The fallout will be long and interesting to watch.

mirntyfirty 5y ago
So far I’ve seen a few major companies change policy after an employee exodus.
- pdimitar 5y ago
  Yes, and? The world is big; the huge corps can suffer by reduced hiring pool -- or reduced quality in their newer hiring pool -- and the world, surprisingly, will not end. The strong talent will move someplace else. You can dangle big pay checks and perks only for so long.
bredren 5y ago
Apple and dropbox are two companies that come to mind with major headquarters investments Relatively close to the onset of the pandemic. Any other Notables?
- jedberg 5y ago
  Google was (is?) building some massive new campuses in the Bay Area. Nvidia completed a huge new campus in late 2020 and it just sits empty.
adrianmonk 5y ago
> double down on huge real estate deals they can't bail out of I wouldn't assume that's a big factor. If you own office space you don't need, you can lease it out. Or if you don't own but lease it, then you can often sublease it out. Depending on market conditions (whether remote working is a trend or a permanent change), the demand may not be that high, so it's unclear how much money you'll get. But whatever it is, it's more money than not leasing it out.

stuckinhell 5y ago

I hope not. I love working at home. I save money and time not having to commute, not having to buy lunch to be social, and best of all I get to spend more time with my growing kids (priceless).

hit8run 5y ago
Fully agreed. Now you can change your username <3 you’re out of it!

quxpar 5y ago

Signing a lease or building a new office is always a project by some highly paid non-technical person with 'executive' skills. I wonder why?

mschuetz 5y ago

I prefer working in an office, and I dislike working with people remotely. I'm just glad that things are going back to normal, and that there are also many people at my job who also prefer to show up in office even though they have the option to work from home.

lifeplusplus 5y ago

garciasn 5y ago

Sam Jones, a co-founder of a nonfungible token start-up, Honey Haus, said his company had been renting a four-person space within WeWork for $1,850 a month since October. “I am just way less productive at home,” Mr. Jones said. “People are definitely, I think, realizing that physical space just has something special to it.” We have articles like this one with quotes like the one above that run counter to other research and discussion in this area like this article from The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/02/work-from-home-revolution/622880/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/02/work-from-... which offers up stats that ~33% of people want to be fully remote and another 20% want to be home more than 3 days a week. Why do people have to ruin this for the rest of us. No, I don't want to go back to the office (I don't have to; my team is now fully remote forever) and I see it as a huge perk and a MASSIVE boost to our productivity to be at home.

throwawaygh 5y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if engineering remains flexible and sales/executive roles require more face time. I imagine an NFT startup is 100% sales/marketing and 0% engineering/science/innovation, so going fully in-office might make sense for them.
- pxlpshr 5y ago
  The fact that you assign innovation purely to science/engineering is why many startups fail. You don't seem to recognize that innovation happens across all segments of the business. Plenty of ingenious products never reach critical mass because engineering founders dismiss all other aspects of business building. Facebook's toe-hold that helped them beat MySpace and Friendster wasn't an act of innovative engineering as much as it was their go-to-market plan starting in Universities. Engineering will remain flexible because of all the virtue signaling big tech is doing in order to retain their talent. It's almost comical that they are struggling to bring people back to the office after being the biggest promotor of work-remote while the rest of the service-economy had to show up every day to their Walmart jobs...
  - 5y ago

Paul_S 5y ago

How can I bet against them?

Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
Short the stock and/or buy Put options.
- nappy-doo 5y ago
  I wouldn't take the opposite side of Google's bet. They're spending a couple of billion on the bet. GOOG, AAPL, FB, that's about a week's worth of earnings to them. And if they're wrong, they have a depreciable asset that they can spend the next 30 years writing down. NBD.
maxilevi 5y ago
Buy put options against FAANG stocks
- asdff 5y ago
  Don't actually do this
justinmchase 5y ago
Buy real-estate outside of the city.
stkdump 5y ago
The title is wrong. They don't bet. It is deeper in the article. They are actually hedging their bets and can afford to loose that money.

kerblang 5y ago

See, when people sit elbow to elbow and can smell each other, they collaborate more. They use those headphones all day to keep their ears warmed up for the next Impromptu Collaboration Session. Really, the biggest problem is the fire dept keeps complaining about having too many in too small a space and we're all like, dude, do you even collab?

kerblang 5y ago
Now I can't stop myself: Bro, we put the bro in collabroation
- willcipriano 5y ago
  We just call it broation here.

hit8run 5y ago

In my experience lonely people are happy to go back and those with a life outside of work (family, friends, hobbies) are happy about the time they save not commuting in order to have more time for the things they live for.

Thlom 5y ago
Not my experience. Some people just like to have people around, some don’t have space for an office at home, some need the socializing at the office and so one. People are different. I prefer working at the office even though I have a life outside of work and I have an office at home. Granted, my commute is only 15-30 minutes depending on traffic.
- rleigh 5y ago
  I commute into the office 5 days a week even though it's a 60 minute commute each way. It's for my own mental health. The complete and legally enforced isolation during the lockdowns was too much. I can't work in permanent isolation. It really made me realise that I'm not actually antisocial, just very introverted. Don't get me wrong, I was super productive for several weeks. Less distractions and I got in hours of solid coding and loved it. But after several weeks my motivation just fell off a cliff, and I started going back one or two days a week. It very much depends on one's specific situation. I'm working with hardware and software, so I do need to be onsite for some time out of necessity. But one point which I haven't seen brought up in the rest of this discussion is that the nature of our discussions can differ greatly online vs in person. Also depends upon the company/team culture. There is value in face-to-face time. Meetings tend to be focussed upon specific topics, but informal chat about random stuff also leads to useful discussion about things which wouldn't be covered by meetings, and those can also be of high value. And there's also the camaraderie and team-building aspects as well.
ianbutler 5y ago
I have friends and hobbies, but I like separation of work and home, having work in my home has felt like a violation of a personal tenet of mine for the last few years. It may also have to do with the fact my commute is 30 minutes so I use that time to tune out and read on public transport. With that I've always enjoyed working in the office and find my commute to be a pleasant context switch.

paxys 5y ago

It isn't going to be big tech's choice for much longer. We are nearing a critical mass of developers who will just not consider a job that doesn't offer flexible work options. This is the new normal, whether they like it or not. Funny enough this reminds me of ~20 years ago when hot startups like Google started spending big money on fancy campus facilities and perks like free meals and massages. The establishment at that time scoffed at the idea, but soon those who couldn't adapt to this new office concept were weeded out.

twblalock 5y ago
Flexible work, e.g. a few days in the office and a few days at home each week, still requires offices.
- Apocryphon 5y ago
  But probably not these huge lavish campuses full of perk facilities.

megaframe 5y ago

After fighting for years to work from home full time (and loving it now). I see one big problem I have no fix for, training new grad / junior engineers. Feel free to correct me if you have tools to do it, but I found training someone new like that over Video calls way too hard. It slows them down it slows me down, and their time to become productive goes up 4x. While I don't want to return to commuting I'm willing to compromise 1-3 days a week (at my discretion) to make training possible.

francisofascii 5y ago
Honestly I think it works better, in some ways. I can share my screen and demo what I am doing, and they can follow along on their machine or vice versa. You can also take control of their machine. Rather than huddled together staring at the same screen. If something doesn't work on their machine, I can try it locally on my machine without having to walk back to my office to try whatever commands they were trying. Don't get me wrong, in person training is valuable, but even if we are in the office, sometimes we still setup a video call for some tasks.
justinmchase 5y ago
We park in an open team chat for hours at a time. And by open I mean its unscheduled, open for any dev and people just pop in and out as they desire. Someone is always screen sharing and we work on problems together, a new person can absorb or drive things, get realtime feedback. You can popout and just focus as needed, its casual. Sort of like discord but its code instead of games.
- vincentmarle 5y ago
  That’s a great idea, what tool do you use for that?
GeoAtreides 5y ago
Screenshare with audio only. Video occupies too much mental bandwidth (human brains prioritize face recognition to the detriment of all other processes)
5y ago

rootusrootus 5y ago

I think it's too early to call them wrong. Wait a couple years after we're done with this pandemic, see how things play out. Some people do like to work in the office. Some are ambivalent. Some die-hard WFH. Thing is, if any kind of critical mass of workers head back into the office and start enjoying the career benefits to being onsite with management, it'll end up dragging the ambivalent back as well so they don't get left behind.

scep12 5y ago
I can't believe it took this much scrolling to find a reasonable take. I think personal preference is clouding people's judgement. Of course it will depend on your employer and how much the office was part of company culture prior to covid, but I think what you're predicting will largely bear out.

francisofascii 5y ago

Yesterday at our company, our management made an announcement to team leads, developers can work from home for the foreseeable future, despite the CEO hinting in his weekly emails about mandatory 2 days a week in the office. Apparently developers in exit interviews were indicating the "office uncertainty" was a factor in their departure.

johnny_canuck 5y ago

I'm curious how many people will make the jump to preferring remote when they realize that the office culture they had prior to covid will no longer exist in the future. My gut tells me that a lot of people are expecting for things to go back to the way they were when they won't. If half your team is OOO whenever you're at the office, is it as exciting as it was before? It wouldn't be for myself.

Apocryphon 5y ago

Wonder if any of these "physical-first" office-oriented companies might consider potential incentives to get people to go in: 1. Besides hybrid <5 day per week in-office cultures, what about expecting only half-day attendance? Would it be feasible to expect employees to only be in office during a certain set of core hours, where in-person meetings and collaboration takes place? Almost like Khan Academy but for work. 2. Getting rid of open office layouts and giving people their own offices. That will drastically improve the in-office experience for nearly the majority of workers. People have forgotten about the scourge of open offices but pre-pandemic, they were almost universally despised, at least on places like HN.

humanwhosits 5y ago
People want to move further away to lower housing costs. Commuting in for a half day seems demoralizing
- Apocryphon 5y ago
  Sure, but that’s not universal. Certainly the best approach is to offer remote to those who prefer that. But for those who live close enough to the office, and are positive to agnostic about going in, maybe a half day is a good way to feel not trapped in the office, and to beat the traffic.

meddlin 5y ago

JCM9 5y ago

If a company is 100% remote that’s one thing, but in any hybrid scenario those that consistently appear in an office will unavoidably be at a significant advantage. Those informal coffee chats, grabbing lunch together and such are invaluable and it’s hard/impossible for someone on a screen somewhere to get the same benefits. There will be those that dig their heels in hard but unless the company is 100% remote forever such stubbornness is likely a career limiting move.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
null_shift 5y ago
Is there research that proves that in-person teams are more successful than remote/hybrid ones? If not, I think remote/hybrid employees should be equal class citizens to on-site employees, and that should be reflected in a consistent composition of those roles thru all levels of leadership.
- stkdump 5y ago
  I think the point GP is making is that hybrid Teams are worst off. And that was my experience also pre pandemic. Actually the people who always were remote felt a huge improvement, because suddenly all had the same 'distance' and needed to put in the same effort to stay connected.

ssklash 5y ago

The internet is a waste of an invention if we can use it to not commute, eliminate all the attendant ills of commuting, spend all day in an office, etc., but we don't use it that way because middle managers can't have butts in seats or whatever other lame excuses they come up with to maintain their grip on the lives of workers. We have remote surgery for chrissakes! Tech workers and many others can all get along just fine remotely, with in-office as on option for those who choose it.

msoad 5y ago

For me, this is nice because I can make those companies to pay for my flights to their offices for interviews so I can visit the city. I am absolutely not going back to the office. I'll come visit their office for a day long interview to see what's up though!

dougSF70 5y ago

Surely, part of the resistance isn't about productivity its about cost of living. If you had halved your living expenses would you be voting to double them again in order to go to the office? I doubt many people would do this.

Dig1t 5y ago
So true, I was paying $1300 per month living in the Bay with 5 roommates crammed into a 4 bedroom hacker house. Now I pay $500 per month living not in the bay and have an entire house to myself. It's amazing and I never want to go back, yet they keep talking about bringing us all back in and how they "can't wait to be together again".
- me_me_mu_mu 5y ago
  Where are you paying $500 a month for an entire house? I'm assuming you're outside the USA?
  - Dig1t 5y ago
    I was able to save up enough money living in CA to pay off a house in a cheaper state. Now I just pay property tax, which is a little less than $500 per month.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - asdff 5y ago
    I know people paying this much for an entire house in rent out in the rust belt.
    - bicx 5y ago
      Rust belt… sounds lovely

sergiotapia 5y ago

Ship has sailed. Working from home has so many benefits it's ridiculous people were forced to go in five days a week. I do concede that going in once a week is terrific. Those days of face to face spawn the best conversations and brainstorming sessions -- but those days I get zero code work done. t. worked from home as a software dev since day 1 of my career for 14 years.

mvkel 5y ago

In person is the future, but that isn't mutually exclusive with offices. WeWork is not an office. Signing a 10-year lease on a commercial building is. Those are the days that are over.

itsdrewmiller 5y ago

"In the last three quarters of 2021, the tech industry leased 76 percent more office space than it did a year earlier, according to the real estate company CBRE." This is a very specific date range to compare! Wonder if anything interesting happened around the start of the second quarter of 2020?

refurb 5y ago

It's pretty inevitable that working in offices will return. Not for all employees and not full time, but it will return. For any role that has a heavy teamwork component, having some people in person and some remote sucks. Add on top that face-to-face has value - managers remember people they interact with, not email they receive. Over time we'll see that people who favor face-to-face interactions will be the ones getting promotions, raises and the interesting work. This was even true before Covid - we had people who were fully remote. They loved it, but they also got the grunt work. Shoot them an email and tell them to send it back by X date. They never got included in last minute calls

errantmind 5y ago
Another possibility is: over time we'll see remote-first companies outcompete the alternatives due to lower overhead and wider availability of talent, sinking entire companies that emphasize the importance of face-to-face interactions for promotions.
- refurb 5y ago
  Like I said for the back office stuff, definitely. But customer facing and more dynamic roles you'll need people to interact in person. Just like in sales the big deals are closed over drinks.

GekkePrutser 5y ago

As long as the masks can come off, I'd like to go back to the office a couple days a week. But working with a mask all day is really hard for me, and our company still requires it, even at our desks :( But once they do I'll come back like I'm supposed to. I like going for lunch with the guys.

midrus 5y ago

Don't try to force everyone to your preference and your thinking. Do you enjoy working at an office? Join a company which is office first. Want to work from home? join a remote first company. Market and time will decide which ones are more successful. Probably both will be in different ways. I prefer remote, so I left my previous job and only applied to remote companies. Now I earn more than before and have 2 extra hours every day. I feel even more productive than before. And I feel a tiny small bit better with myself as I'm now contaminating less the environment. This multiplied by the total remote employees my company has, makes me feel still better about it.

renewiltord 5y ago
Quite the difference between the few top level comments. This one shows an internal locus of control (he simply chooses companies that match) and the other one shows an external locus of control (they’re ruining it for us). Neat!

hongloumeng 5y ago

Some people want to own houses they can afford and don't hate. Some people want to be present and flexible for their children. Deal with it.

amrocha 5y ago
Some people want to live in urban areas and don't have space for a dedicated office. Some people prefer having work as dedicated time away from their household. Some people working from home for a long time lose motivation and struggle with burnout. Try to have some empathy. I'm glad you like working remotely, but it's not for everyone.

brutal_chaos_ 5y ago

I think we should work in offices with the ability to work remotely when necessary and(/or) if we choose. I don't like needing to find the perfect spot to setup my desk where my company isn't looking into my home. I don't like having a company laptop that at any given time could be listening in on family conversations. I don't like the idea of my company seeing my child struggle through LGBTQQIA+ issues because I happen to have a work camera at home. I like and enjoy my privacy. I want offices to still be a thing.

makeitdouble 5y ago
An issue that comes with the "when necessary and(/or) if we choose" is bringing a regional dependency that only benefit a part of the workforce. For instance let's say the company is in Berlin, having an office there means employee will need to be at a commuting distance from Berlin wether they actually commute or choose not to. Recruiting someone in Amsterdam becomes a difficult decision, and employees in full-remote still have to pay Berlin area living costs just for the potential commute they could have to do. And that's assuming online discipline is exemplary and you don't have a "left out" effect between those on premise and the others online. Basically the choice would be between solving the privacy issues you raise, or solving the logistics/disparity issues raised by other solutions. I kinda feel like the privacy issues could be easier to solve than the others.
Tomis02 5y ago
> I like and enjoy my privacy. I want offices to still be a thing. Given that today most offices seem to have an open plan, your two sentences seem contradictory.
- bicx 5y ago
  This person is talking about not wanting to share their home on camera. It’s not contradictory.

KronisLV 5y ago

Seems like some of the arguments that i made in my blog post "Remote working and the elephant in the room" are becoming relevant: https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/remote-working-and-the-elephant-in-the-room https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/remote-working-and-the-elep... There will probably be some companies that remain fully remote and some that attempt to get everyone back into offices ASAP, as well as some in the middle that will try to embrace hybrid modes of work. Each type will tend to attract employees who are compatible with them, though it's hard to say whether the percentages of people that want a particular mode of work and the percentages of companies that actually offer it will match up, especially if people who make these choices on policy within the companies are not aligned with those who want to work there and vice versa. It'll probably lead to many seeking out other employment opportunities and taking their domain knowledge and skills with them, which will be somewhat problematic in the months or years to come. I know for a fact that i don't enjoy commute or having to live in the city, so i might just look for some other place to work if/when the "return" to office policy comes into effort. Sadly, in my case i only have about 50k euros in savings so perhaps it's a bit premature to think of starting my own SaaS, since i earn a bit above 20k euros a year (after taxes) in Latvia now: https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/on-finances-and-savings https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/on-finances-and-savings To sum up my point: it's nice to have the choice rather than having just cultural norms be passed down (which is one of the silver linings of the pandemic, as bad as it is), but it will cause some strife in the future until everything settles.

magicroot75 5y ago

I was a big proponent of work from home two years ago, when it was a cushy option I had. I'd work from home when I'd want, then I'd come in when I felt like being social. It was great. On days I wasn't in the office, I wasn't in hours of video chats all day. I was at home, doing what needed to be done to drive the outcomes my employer wanted. Fast forward to 2022 when everyone is remote, and its nice, but not as nice. Now instead of working remotely, I'm meeting and working remotely. It's fine and I get paid for it. But it's not as fun. Also doesn't help that my annoying roommate also had to go into a remote job where he's in our living room everyday on video calls, talking loudly on the phone, and our shared space has become a dumping ground for all his work papers. I told him I didn't like it, but he needs to be constantly confronted and I gave up.

kthejoker2 5y ago

My big bet is that the 3 concrete benefits of physical proximity that are hard to replicate in virtual environments * body language, nonverbal communication, whispering / spatial audio, passing notes, and other "advanced" communication techniques not easily achieved in enterprise chat and conference software today * the ability to immediately multiplex / "break out" / traverse conversations and events / kibbutz / hang out at the water cooler * to physically share collaborative or immersive objects like large whiteboards, prototypes, machinery, exhibits, etc. Will all be solved digitally in the next 2 years and offices will seem even less appealing and companies will just redirect rent expenditures towards lunch vouchers, team outings, and awards ceremonies.