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The problem with what CEOs like Page do here is that they are out of touch. It’s easy to say things like this when everyone is paid to listen to you and do what

The problem with what CEOs like Page do here is that they are out of touch. It’s easy to say things like this when everyone is paid to listen to you and do whatever you want. You can make these bold statements that sound insightful but at the end of the day there are many reasons why I would like to talk to some teammates, or another team, that don’t have an action or a decision attached to it. After being fully remote for over five years now, I will say something unpopular and that is face time is valuable. Humans are complicated and empathetic and value is lost if we only ever interact in a slack thread or over a faceless Zoom call where I just stare at your name on a black box for 30 minutes. Meetings without an agenda are a waste of time? I guess you just don’t value human contact at all, so that tells me more about you than it does about the quality of your meetings. Me? I can learn a lot about how a project is going simply by listening and watching someone talk about it and that context will be completely stripped from an email, chat or zoom tile. But CEOs are widely considered to be overrepresented with dark triad psychological traits. We shouldn’t be surprised when they just don’t get people and want to throw away things they can’t immediately extract value from.

godelski 2y ago
Yeah I don't disagree with you. I just think the example was not counter. Definitely agree that people are disillusioned by surrounding themselves with "yes men". Even if they think they don't. But that's a joke as old as time. Maybe even funnier that so many can't see that they're that person. And I do agree with you that face time matters. But a lot of things do. I'll come to the office, but it only makes sense if I have a door. If I'm in an open room then you don't need to schedule a meeting for me to be in one. Hell, I might even be an unwilling participant to the meeting of two people having a conversation behind my back or in front of me. There's a lot of cost saving measures and productivity enhancers that cost a lot of money and productivity.

godelski 2y ago

Yeah I don't disagree with you. I just think the example was not counter. Definitely agree that people are disillusioned by surrounding themselves with "yes men". Even if they think they don't. But that's a joke as old as time. Maybe even funnier that so many can't see that they're that person. And I do agree with you that face time matters. But a lot of things do. I'll come to the office, but it only makes sense if I have a door. If I'm in an open room then you don't need to schedule a meeting for me to be in one. Hell, I might even be an unwilling participant to the meeting of two people having a conversation behind my back or in front of me. There's a lot of cost saving measures and productivity enhancers that cost a lot of money and productivity.