7 ms·

A practical issue- if you have a world-distributed workforce or an international news agency, what's the best geographical location for the headquarters?

• cupofpython 4y ago
  Are we channeling through internet cabling or magical straight lines?
  • WJW 4y ago
    Does this actually matter? Internet cabling vs magical straight lines would amount to less than 1 second difference, so emails/slack/discord/IRC/etc (basically anything except video chat) would barely notice.
  • mr_toad 4y ago
    > magical straight lines Sufficiently advanced technology http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2012/mar/19/neutrino-based-communication-is-a-first http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2012/mar/19/neutrin...
• beebeepka 4y ago
  The core
  • dylan604 4y ago
    The pressure to be successul must be intense there though
    • bregma 4y ago
      There is a large mantle of responsibility.
• thfuran 4y ago
  Wherever is most legally favorable from the perspective of liability and taxes, probably.
• spiralx 4y ago
  London has long benefitted from its position allowing its working day overlapping everywhere from the US West coast to Japan, even if barely at those extremes. Most of the world's population lies between UTC-5 and UTC+5 I believe.
  • decremental 4y ago
    Is that "most of the world's population" in the same sense as "Mohammed is the most common name?"
    • s1artibartfast 4y ago
      Well, is it?
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  • morepork 4y ago
    Given India is UTC+5.5 and China is UTC+8, plus many other large countries are outside that range (Indonesia, Japan, Bangladesh, Mexico, Phillipines) I think you need to stretch it a bit
    • morepork 4y ago
      Given OP's 10 hour range, UTC+0 to UTC+10 is almost certainly going to be the 10 hour range that includes the most people. It includes all of Asia, Europe and Africa, and excludes both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
      • TheCoelacanth 4y ago
        I think it has to be. UTC+8 is all of China and UTC+5.5 is all of India, and in between are high population countries like Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, so UTC+5.5 to UTC+8 has to be included. UTC+11 to UTC-8.5 is the Pacific Ocean and has maybe 10 million people total, while UTC+0 has >100 million in UK, Portugal and part of Western Africa so UTC+0 must be part of the range. That only leaves the choice between UTC-1/2 and UTC+9/10. UTC-1 and UTC-2 have under a million with only a few small islands while UTC+10 has most of Papua New Guinea with 6 million.
• lbotos 4y ago
  What are you optimizing for? Once you clarify that your answer will be clear. - Access to capital? - close to "action"? - Airport hub city?
  • cft 4y ago
    Overlapping business hours
• maccard 4y ago
  Seconding the UK. I live in Edinburgh (Scotland) and I can meet with people from west coast US as far as China with very minor adjustments to my working day. I have natural half day overlaps with east coast US, and most of my day overlaps with major outsourcing locations (except the phillipines, but can be managed with a 1 hour adjustment)
• jmmcd 4y ago
  Other people are saying the UK, but if you want the same time-zone plus EU laws/customs/currency, you can choose Ireland.