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Full disclosure: I am a remote worker. I love working remotely. I will (never say never but..) never work for a company that doesn't have a remote culture. So,

Full disclosure: I am a remote worker. I love working remotely. I will (never say never but..) never work for a company that doesn't have a remote culture. So, even with putting my bias aside, this seems like such a bad move. I am so much more productive as a remote worker than I was as a monkey sitting at a desk everyday. Not only is the quality of my work better but I'm much more efficient (I get more done in 4 hours remotely than I did in a full 8 hour day at an office). I know I'm not special, in fact I believe I'm in the majority. Remote cultures in my opinion are the best. Mostly because: - less meetings (hangouts is glitchy so we make the ones we do have count) - hardly any email at all (async chat ftw) - records records records. Remember that conversation you had about that one awesome improvement but you just can't remember what it was...oh wait it's in chat. - minimal distractions. The only things to distract you are your cat and the internet. If someone pings you online you can leave it an answer it later, a tap on the shoulder? Not so much. Even if you could mimic my points above at a physical office, remote working is far better for work/life balance because: - you can earn a high wage living in a cheaper location. This is a huge benefit of working remotely. - you can stay around your family (since you'll be home more often) - you don't have to commute (of course some use co-working spaces but it's the freedom to choose that matters) Why would Reddit force their remote workers to relocate to the most expensive city in the US? That seems like a huge disadvantage to their employees. A relocation package is nothing compared to being able to afford a house, or spend time with your family. This is just sad.

zak_mc_kracken 12y ago
Worse for the employee, better for the company. Companies draw the line between these conflicting goals at various places.
- ryanSrich 12y ago
  How is it better for the company? That's my whole point. I feel like people produce better work as remote employees.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - jordanb 12y ago
    Probably better for the investors who own SF property, that's why I assume VC are always so anxious for companies to relocate.
    - saumil07 12y ago
      "Investors who own SF property?" I would be hard-pressed to name a venture investor that also finds themselves in the real estate business to such an extent that they want their investments to relocate? Investors do not own SF property for their companies and even the traditional ones on Sand Hill Road are leasing (expensive) office space like the rest of us. It is possible that the investment and the board had influence on the decision but that could be for reasons independent of real estate ownership.
  - funkyy 12y ago
    It is better for company, because it can control workers. There is a reason companies give all those perks to employees - their (employees) loyalty grows. Employees get addicted to all the great stuff large corpo have to offer. Its like small startups getting office dog. People get emotionally connected to it so they wont leave the company... Cheap trick but it works. Free snack bar, transport and gym anyone?
    - drewg123 12y ago
      That doesn't always work. Working remotely is worth far more to me than free food, massages, free flu shots, laundry, etc. I worked remotely for a small company that was acquired by Google & I had to relocate with my family to the SF Bay area against my will, similar to the Reddit folks. I had 10x the loyalty to the small company that I will ever have to Google, mostly because of the forced relocation. I can't wait for the retention bonuses to run out & to move back home.
      - 12y ago
- gkoberger 12y ago
  It's a trade off. You gain raw code output but lose a lot of the culture and serendipitous communication that leads to awesome breakthroughs. So many great things have come from random talks or drunken brainstorming. As an employee, I always tried to work from home 2-3 days and then work from the office 2-3. Was a great happy medium.
  - prawn 12y ago
    This sounds like it could work well but unless there was desk sharing, companies would end up paying for floorspace lying idle half the time.
briandear 12y ago
I agree with you completely. In terms of forcing them to relocate to the most expensive city, it's simple. The Reddit execs are f'ing morons and should be forced to work in a fried chicken restaurant as punishment. They certainly don't deserve VC money. As far as the investors, if I had the inclination, I'd call them out for being fools as well, assuming they had something to do with this. I would NEVER move to San Francisco. Besides the cost of real-estate, you also have the ridiculously communist state and local government, high taxes among other things.
- x0x0 12y ago
  A communist state and local government? You're an idiot.
monksy 12y ago
> - hardly any email at all (async chat ftw) Thats not the case everywhere. In my previous remote only job there was a reply all deal and usually a lot of people were on the email.
meritt 12y ago
At my company, we've been struggling to "make it work" with remote workers for the past few years and it's been really problematic. We've had a lot difficulty getting remote employees to maintain consistent work schedules, provide frequent updates (trello), or simply communicating regularly (hipchat). I don't think it's a lack of tools at all: I think it's hiring the wrong people or having the wrong management (My fault either way. I'm mediocre at hiring and definitely not a good manager). I guess I just assume people will approach work with the same autonomy, motivation, and drive that I do myself. Unfortunately that has not been the case. Either way, we've decided to scrap the idea of remote workers and are opening an office + hiring local next month to see how that goes. We're in Portland though, not SF, so it's not a ridiculously expensive decision like Reddit is making.
- ryanSrich 12y ago
  You're absolutely right in regards to tools. Just as knowing photoshop doesn't make you a solid designer using Slack and Google hangouts doesn't make you a solid remote company. Remote working is 100% people and culture. If you are having a hard time finding responsible, communicative employees remotely I highly suspect you'll have the same issues hiring locally. Communication is not only important for remote teams.
- jnbiche 12y ago
  I'm sorry it didn't work. I wished you had Asked HN, I suspect a lot of us remote workers could have offered valuable input (if you did that, then I'm sorry for missing it). At the top of the list, I'd say you were measuring the wrong benchmarks. Consistent work schedules shouldn't be a goal with remote workers: attaining specific, measurable objectives should be. On the other hand, lack of communication is a problem, as long as you weren't wanting updates 3-4 times a day (once a day at most should be entirely sufficient -- wanting more frequent updates points to trust issues). I'm guessing you either hired people with no remote experience, or you hired lazy people (or both!). However, to be fair to your workers, I should also point out that sufficiently poor management and co-workers can frighten off even the best, most motivated remote workers (and I have no way to tell if your claims of not being a good manager are just false modesty). For anyone reading who's struggling with remote workers, your top hiring consideration -- right alongside their job expertise -- should be demonstrable experience as a successful remote worker. The more the better. Remote work takes a certain kind of person, and even highly talented people who are primarily motivated by external feedback will struggle at remote work.
e12e 12y ago
> hardly any email at all (async chat ftw) While I can see the use for chat (with centralized logging, be that IRC, XMPP or whatever) -- hardly any email sounds odd to me. Anything wrong with internal mailing lists? It's what people have been using for remote working since forever (eg: Linux kernel, Debian project etc etc). How is asynchronous chat any better than asynchronous email?
- frostmatthew 12y ago
  > How is asynchronous chat any better than asynchronous email? People tend to be less verbose in chat. Not using three paragraphs to communicate what only needs two lines saves time for both/all parties.
  - JoshTriplett 12y ago
    That's a corporate culture issue, and to some extent a tools issue as well. If email is a lot of trouble, then by the time you get around to using it, you write a lot. If a two-sentence email takes you more than a couple of seconds to prepare and send (not counting the time needed to actually think of the two sentences), there's something horribly wrong with your workflow. So, chat can potentially fix that by forcing people to use a different tool to which their preconceptions don't apply, but in the absence of those preconceptions, you can use email as a terse communication medium.
  - e12e 12y ago
    Sounds like poor language skills. If you've written three paragraphs, for something that needs two sentences, chances are you should spend another 5-10 minutes re-writing your email and say what you need to say, not just send a stream-of-conciousness document to burden your colleagues. Still odd that someone that manage to be concise and to the point in asynchronous chat, should be verbose in email?
    - S4M 12y ago
      I think people perceive email and chat differently. For example, I would find normal to ask someone "what's the status of X?" in an asynchronous chat, but it would seem borderline rude to write an email saying just that - I would wrap it up with some standard formulae ("Hi", "Please, could you update..." "cheers", etc.) Maybe it's just me but I feel that I can be much more direct in an asynchronous chat, closer to how I would be when talking directly with the other person.

zak_mc_kracken 12y ago

Worse for the employee, better for the company. Companies draw the line between these conflicting goals at various places.

ryanSrich 12y ago
How is it better for the company? That's my whole point. I feel like people produce better work as remote employees.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- jordanb 12y ago
  Probably better for the investors who own SF property, that's why I assume VC are always so anxious for companies to relocate.
  - saumil07 12y ago
    "Investors who own SF property?" I would be hard-pressed to name a venture investor that also finds themselves in the real estate business to such an extent that they want their investments to relocate? Investors do not own SF property for their companies and even the traditional ones on Sand Hill Road are leasing (expensive) office space like the rest of us. It is possible that the investment and the board had influence on the decision but that could be for reasons independent of real estate ownership.
- funkyy 12y ago
  It is better for company, because it can control workers. There is a reason companies give all those perks to employees - their (employees) loyalty grows. Employees get addicted to all the great stuff large corpo have to offer. Its like small startups getting office dog. People get emotionally connected to it so they wont leave the company... Cheap trick but it works. Free snack bar, transport and gym anyone?
  - drewg123 12y ago
    That doesn't always work. Working remotely is worth far more to me than free food, massages, free flu shots, laundry, etc. I worked remotely for a small company that was acquired by Google & I had to relocate with my family to the SF Bay area against my will, similar to the Reddit folks. I had 10x the loyalty to the small company that I will ever have to Google, mostly because of the forced relocation. I can't wait for the retention bonuses to run out & to move back home.
    - 12y ago
gkoberger 12y ago
It's a trade off. You gain raw code output but lose a lot of the culture and serendipitous communication that leads to awesome breakthroughs. So many great things have come from random talks or drunken brainstorming. As an employee, I always tried to work from home 2-3 days and then work from the office 2-3. Was a great happy medium.
- prawn 12y ago
  This sounds like it could work well but unless there was desk sharing, companies would end up paying for floorspace lying idle half the time.

briandear 12y ago

I agree with you completely. In terms of forcing them to relocate to the most expensive city, it's simple. The Reddit execs are f'ing morons and should be forced to work in a fried chicken restaurant as punishment. They certainly don't deserve VC money. As far as the investors, if I had the inclination, I'd call them out for being fools as well, assuming they had something to do with this. I would NEVER move to San Francisco. Besides the cost of real-estate, you also have the ridiculously communist state and local government, high taxes among other things.

x0x0 12y ago
A communist state and local government? You're an idiot.

monksy 12y ago

> - hardly any email at all (async chat ftw) Thats not the case everywhere. In my previous remote only job there was a reply all deal and usually a lot of people were on the email.

meritt 12y ago

At my company, we've been struggling to "make it work" with remote workers for the past few years and it's been really problematic. We've had a lot difficulty getting remote employees to maintain consistent work schedules, provide frequent updates (trello), or simply communicating regularly (hipchat). I don't think it's a lack of tools at all: I think it's hiring the wrong people or having the wrong management (My fault either way. I'm mediocre at hiring and definitely not a good manager). I guess I just assume people will approach work with the same autonomy, motivation, and drive that I do myself. Unfortunately that has not been the case. Either way, we've decided to scrap the idea of remote workers and are opening an office + hiring local next month to see how that goes. We're in Portland though, not SF, so it's not a ridiculously expensive decision like Reddit is making.

ryanSrich 12y ago
You're absolutely right in regards to tools. Just as knowing photoshop doesn't make you a solid designer using Slack and Google hangouts doesn't make you a solid remote company. Remote working is 100% people and culture. If you are having a hard time finding responsible, communicative employees remotely I highly suspect you'll have the same issues hiring locally. Communication is not only important for remote teams.
jnbiche 12y ago
I'm sorry it didn't work. I wished you had Asked HN, I suspect a lot of us remote workers could have offered valuable input (if you did that, then I'm sorry for missing it). At the top of the list, I'd say you were measuring the wrong benchmarks. Consistent work schedules shouldn't be a goal with remote workers: attaining specific, measurable objectives should be. On the other hand, lack of communication is a problem, as long as you weren't wanting updates 3-4 times a day (once a day at most should be entirely sufficient -- wanting more frequent updates points to trust issues). I'm guessing you either hired people with no remote experience, or you hired lazy people (or both!). However, to be fair to your workers, I should also point out that sufficiently poor management and co-workers can frighten off even the best, most motivated remote workers (and I have no way to tell if your claims of not being a good manager are just false modesty). For anyone reading who's struggling with remote workers, your top hiring consideration -- right alongside their job expertise -- should be demonstrable experience as a successful remote worker. The more the better. Remote work takes a certain kind of person, and even highly talented people who are primarily motivated by external feedback will struggle at remote work.

e12e 12y ago

> hardly any email at all (async chat ftw) While I can see the use for chat (with centralized logging, be that IRC, XMPP or whatever) -- hardly any email sounds odd to me. Anything wrong with internal mailing lists? It's what people have been using for remote working since forever (eg: Linux kernel, Debian project etc etc). How is asynchronous chat any better than asynchronous email?

frostmatthew 12y ago
> How is asynchronous chat any better than asynchronous email? People tend to be less verbose in chat. Not using three paragraphs to communicate what only needs two lines saves time for both/all parties.
- JoshTriplett 12y ago
  That's a corporate culture issue, and to some extent a tools issue as well. If email is a lot of trouble, then by the time you get around to using it, you write a lot. If a two-sentence email takes you more than a couple of seconds to prepare and send (not counting the time needed to actually think of the two sentences), there's something horribly wrong with your workflow. So, chat can potentially fix that by forcing people to use a different tool to which their preconceptions don't apply, but in the absence of those preconceptions, you can use email as a terse communication medium.
- e12e 12y ago
  Sounds like poor language skills. If you've written three paragraphs, for something that needs two sentences, chances are you should spend another 5-10 minutes re-writing your email and say what you need to say, not just send a stream-of-conciousness document to burden your colleagues. Still odd that someone that manage to be concise and to the point in asynchronous chat, should be verbose in email?
  - S4M 12y ago
    I think people perceive email and chat differently. For example, I would find normal to ask someone "what's the status of X?" in an asynchronous chat, but it would seem borderline rude to write an email saying just that - I would wrap it up with some standard formulae ("Hi", "Please, could you update..." "cheers", etc.) Maybe it's just me but I feel that I can be much more direct in an asynchronous chat, closer to how I would be when talking directly with the other person.