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Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

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Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#21
post #5
post #3

If this is the future, salaries will come down, and people will move to smaller cities.

Isn’t that good? High concentration of capital in specific geo’s isn’t that great either.

None of it really matters tbh. Without proper taxation and building policy - it’s all moot. Small town with a bunch of millionaires is just as bad as a big city with them.

Policy is what will dictate whether or not this is good and that’s not within the hands of any company. That’s up to the federal, state, and local governments. (Of which are all fucked - of course)

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#22
post #17

Sounds nice in some ways. The stickler here is the focus on working in PST still. You’re not gonna get to travel to the EU and work async it sounds like. Which - while making sense - isn’t going to make a good portion of people who want this particularly happy. After all - remote but stuck in one time zone for working hours isn’t really a huge win. It’s dangling a carrot. In other news - sounds like comp is going dow…

Some people don't care about the local timezone, even without a need to stay up odd hours.

And for western Europe, you don't even need to work ridiculous hours. If my current core hours (9am - 3pm) were in PST and I worked in Paris, I could finish my workday at 11pm in Paris.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#23
post #3

If this is the future, salaries will come down, and people will move to smaller cities.

In the short term, with tons of well-funded or high-revenue companies struggling to hire, remote is a way to make your existing comp more attractive by opening it up to a new set of people and out-bidding their local employers.

In the long term salaries will likely equalize a bit, but maybe not that much. Even in today's tech hubs, the existing range of salaries is VERY wide. Not every dev in SF is making 300k+, and yet the FANG companies have been in an increasing comp arms race for several years.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#24
post #8

> You can move anywhere in the country you work in and your compensation won’t change. Starting in June, we’ll have single pay tiers by country for both salary and equity. If your pay was set using a lower location-based pay tier, you’ll receive an increase in June. I wonder how this will change things for companies like Figma, which allow full remote, but pay remote workers less.

Eventually - and it might take a recession - the downside of “work from anywhere” will be that companies can “hire from anywhere”. That means the Bay Area salary you previously enjoyed may be knocked down through greater wage competition.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#25
For companies like this that profess to care about their employees (and I believe them), what’s the justification for paying less in e.g. London than USA given London is just as expensive? Will progressive companies start adjusting pay according to cost of living rather than the local labor market?

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#26
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

salaries for people in smaller cities will increase

So will housing costs. The problems facing SF, Seattle, LA will spread to smaller towns. SF, Seattle, LA, will continue to be expensive because people spend $$$$$$ to live there for reasons other than tech jobs. Be careful what you wish for. I live in the Seattle metro, and would live nowhere else in the country, for what its worth. You already see this happening in rural communities outside of big cities. "Tech-bro"…

> In this case it sucks because never built out the public transportation capabilities that could facilitate this being as "pleasant" as it is in Europe.

Or the publicly subsidized healthcare and higher education!

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#27
post #8

> You can move anywhere in the country you work in and your compensation won’t change. Starting in June, we’ll have single pay tiers by country for both salary and equity. If your pay was set using a lower location-based pay tier, you’ll receive an increase in June. I wonder how this will change things for companies like Figma, which allow full remote, but pay remote workers less.

The reverse is also true. At the beginning Airbnb employees will be making SF level salaries. As Airbnb continues to hire and churn employees, average salaries will come down since they won't be paying SF salaries for new positions. They might pay better than other companies, but won't keep SF as baseline.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#28

Have laws caught up for this new way to work yet? Last ai checked there are non-insignificant legal and tax issues for small businesses to have employees in other states.

Judging by my employer, small businesses are able to have their payroll companies take care of all that hassle without much cost, so it’s not really a problem.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#29
post #14

I've been working like this for the past year and a half. I'll never go back to a "normal" office environment. Winners in this new paradigm: Owners of real estate in lifestyle towns like Boise, Boulder, etc. I also think borders between the US and Latin America (same/similar time zones) will become a lot more fluid. Why not work in Mexico City or Buenos Aires during the winters, for a fraction of the cost of living i…

Friends, family, kids, not having all your stuff, cultural and language barriers, etc… It’s pretty obvious why this doesn’t work for a large portion of people. I am glad for the child free and those who have little need for stuff - but it’s just not… realistic for the rest of us (who are the overwhelming majority of the population). It’s good for that niche 22-28 crowd.

[deleted]

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#30
post #17

Sounds nice in some ways. The stickler here is the focus on working in PST still. You’re not gonna get to travel to the EU and work async it sounds like. Which - while making sense - isn’t going to make a good portion of people who want this particularly happy. After all - remote but stuck in one time zone for working hours isn’t really a huge win. It’s dangling a carrot. In other news - sounds like comp is going dow…

I used to work for a company in the UK and live in the west coast. It’s mildly challenging but my experience was if you were competent to plan out your day’s work you’d be fine.

If you ran into a show-stopper, capture it and being it up in your morning standup. They were all still in the office for at least a couple of hours when we got in.

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