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Alex Pentland wrote a book about a decade ago, Social Physics[1], where he empirically studied how ideas spread in firms. Comparing remote and office workers wa
by Barrin92 3y ago
Alex Pentland wrote a book about a decade ago, Social Physics[1], where he empirically studied how ideas spread in firms. Comparing remote and office workers was one part of it, and he found a strong advantage for in-office work. The reason is pretty straight forward, there is virtually no spontaneous social interaction ("watercooler conversations") in remote work, and teams who worked in person were significantly more dynamic, ideas are generated more often and spread more easily.
Other than routine labor like doing paperwork for the municipal office aside, in person companies are going to have an extreme edge, Musk is right on this point, it's also an explanation for the geographic concentration of say, the tech sector, people don't pay those horrendous SF rents for nothing.
[1]https://news.mit.edu/2014/social-physics-0304 https://news.mit.edu/2014/social-physics-0304
- rwmj 3y ago> there is virtually no spontaneous social interaction ("watercooler conversations") in remote work This part is wrong, or maybe it was more right in 2014, but it's definitely wrong now. Our fully remote team is on chat all day talking about all kinds of things, and we have regular video conferences.
- Barrin92 3y agoIt's very unlikely those are the same kind of interactions. Typical programmer example: You work on a problem and are struggling. Your colleague walks by, sees that, takes a glance at your monitor, knows the solution, helps you out right there. That's extremely unlikely to happen remotely. Video conferences and chat interactions are always deliberate, nobody really sees what you're doing or struggling with spontaneously. You always have to go and initiate an interaction.