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If you were to start a company today that disallowed remote work you’d have to: 1.Rent or buy an office that is large enough to hold your expected work force b

If you were to start a company today that disallowed remote work you’d have to: 1.Rent or buy an office that is large enough to hold your expected work force based on your starting and expected future headcount over the course of the lease (or pay money to move when your first place is too small) 2.Pay on-going costs of operation and maintenance of said office space 3.Purchase equipment for the operation of your company (including additional perks like coffee or whatever if you’re generous) 4.Find employees within a reasonable distance of your location that have the skill set you need and will work for the wage you offer 5.Expect those employees to pay out of their own pocket the expense to get to and from work and any additional expenses they might have for childcare etc Productivity would have to be massively increased to justify all of these additional costs and constraints so you’d think by now this would shake out in the data (at least a dataset larger than 37 businesses that may not even have a stable business model yet). I just don’t get it. And this doesn’t even factor in the actual bullshit of working in an office or signing off exactly at 5 because your work day is done (at least in an ideal world). The only thing I miss about going to the office is being able to talk to co-workers “off the record” - which I can do with remote co-workers on any non-company controlled channels. This whole RTO thing is baffling.

asoneth 4y ago
> Productivity would have to be massively increased to justify all of these additional costs and constraints so you’d think by now this would shake out in the data I agree with you about the immense costs of an in-person office. But the fact that neither remote nor in-person businesses have demonstrated clear superiority in the market yet indicates to me that the benefits of being in-person are likely in the same ballpark as the costs. (My guess is that it'll end up depending on the type of business. For businesses with higher than average profit per employee it might make sense to pay the fixed per-person costs of being in-person to unlock the productivity multiplier -- for everyone else, not so much.)

asoneth 4y ago

> Productivity would have to be massively increased to justify all of these additional costs and constraints so you’d think by now this would shake out in the data I agree with you about the immense costs of an in-person office. But the fact that neither remote nor in-person businesses have demonstrated clear superiority in the market yet indicates to me that the benefits of being in-person are likely in the same ballpark as the costs. (My guess is that it'll end up depending on the type of business. For businesses with higher than average profit per employee it might make sense to pay the fixed per-person costs of being in-person to unlock the productivity multiplier -- for everyone else, not so much.)