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Brian Chesky: Ability to hire from anywhere is more valuable than in-office work

fortune.com

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Re: Brian Chesky: Ability to hire from anywhere is more valuable than in-office work

#91

Post by skeeter2020 »

benjaminwootton wrote: post #15
gonzo41 wrote: post #5

I'm surprised Airbnb has't cracked another rental market for the corporate world by renting out spare desks in existing offices for rando workers.

I wish someone would do this. A single permanent desk in a WeWork is surprisingly expensive.

Why do you think it would be cheaper for any organization to do this on the side, vs. a dedicated specialist like WeWork? The unit economics with fully loaded costs are not very good, and for a company with a little extra capacity it's a huge distraction. They couldn't run it like the residential side where hosts shift huge costs onto thir surrounding ecosystem, or just take big risks with no mitigation.

Re: Brian Chesky: Ability to hire from anywhere is more valuable than in-office work

#92

Post by charrondev »

jroseattle wrote: post #88

These remote-vs-office discussions where nobody discusses the actual work involved are fairly pointless. Disregarding the obvious scenarios of presence-required in order to work (i.e. manufacturing), the question applies: what is most productive for "information work"? In my personal experience, I've found collaboration conducted face-to-face far more effective than doing so in a distributed/online way. There is a hi…

> In other words, how do we (the employer) ensure our employees aren't moonlighting on our team and only giving the minimum level of effort with us?

The tools for properly determining this are no different remote vs in an office at least for IT work. Most dev teams work in sprints and each sprint comes with a commitment from each developer. It is very noticeable even in remote work if a developer is either:

- Not making a reasonably sized commitment.

- consistently failing to complete their work.

- frequently turning in terrible code (don’t worry the reviewers will let you know).

Whether on-site or remote you can end up with the same situation of a high skill employee putting in minimal effort but still being more valuable than multiple other developers.

Re: Brian Chesky: Ability to hire from anywhere is more valuable than in-office work

#93

Post by alanfranz »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #59
alanfranz wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define “suppress the wages”. If I live in a lower COL area, I get a significantly higher wage than expected in my area, my employer saves money, and I get full remote work that I like, I call that a “win-win”.

I think the previous poster meant hiring people from countries with lower cost of living.

My reasoning holds.

Re: Brian Chesky: Ability to hire from anywhere is more valuable than in-office work

#94

Post by avbanks »

ElFitz wrote: post #69
yarg wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time zones and expected levels of education are still significant factors. You generally don't want to be hiring people from regions with a substandard education system - and if they're in another time zone they can spend all night ruining your day before you even start work.

Then how about hiring people in Canada? Unless Canada somehow has worse education system than the US? Or, if it’s really only about education systems, Finland? Seriously, if it’s only about education, you can do better than the US.

I don't want to be rude but the United States has some of the best Universities in the world.

Re: Brian Chesky: Ability to hire from anywhere is more valuable than in-office work

#95

Post by earthling8118 »

sokoloff wrote: post #51
bippihippi1 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100 businesses are responsible for 70% of fossil fuel use. doing what you can is great, but it won't make a difference unless businesses change as well.

I can no more complain about Exxon-Mobil creating emissions relating to the fuel that I buy than I can the local farmer killing a cow to make the beef that I buy.

Yes, I can. I never wanted to buy the fuel in the first place. It's just that everything was designed in such a way that I must burn it to survive. I go out of my way not to whenever possible but my economic constraints don't allow freedom from it.

Even if I manage to find somewhere that I don't need it, a ridiculous amount will be used behind the scenes for everything else I need. Or there will be 100 others who can't get into that situation.

I'm not living a lavish life where I can just cut back much either. I'm living a barebones one and still cutting it close financially despite being a developer.

Re: Brian Chesky: Ability to hire from anywhere is more valuable than in-office work

#96

Post by earthling8118 »

basisword wrote: post #47
shakow wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But people will be heating their home in winter in any case, whether they're remote or on-site.

Huh? You heat your home when you're not home?

Yes. I don't like frozen pipes. Heating can't be shut off during winter.

Re: Brian Chesky: Ability to hire from anywhere is more valuable than in-office work

#97

Post by deet »

jroseattle wrote: post #88

These remote-vs-office discussions where nobody discusses the actual work involved are fairly pointless. Disregarding the obvious scenarios of presence-required in order to work (i.e. manufacturing), the question applies: what is most productive for "information work"? In my personal experience, I've found collaboration conducted face-to-face far more effective than doing so in a distributed/online way. There is a hi…

100% agree that these general statements comparing in-person to remote are not helpful.

Even within a single project of a single team, the remote vs in-office balance can change as the project evolves.

Early days of a project, where everyone is figuring out what to do, white boarding, imagining what is possible ... in-person is hard to beat. Later stages where it's implementation, iteration, and more deep work (like coding) ... remote is probably more productive.

Companies that aren't thinking about this in a more nuanced way and designing a more flexible culture are doing themselves a disservice

Re: Brian Chesky: Ability to hire from anywhere is more valuable than in-office work

#98

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

higeorge13 wrote: post #77
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not really. Austrian labor laws says if you work with an employment contract, then your employer must have a legal presence in Austria to pay Austrian employer taxes and conform to Austrian labor laws, and no company wants to do that. There are some middle-men companies to interface this but they take a deep cut and not everyone want to deal with that hassle. So your other option is a B-2-B contract but then you…

But majority of companies use deel, remote.com and so many mediators to hire remotely. B2b in other eu countries has way less taxes than being employee. Point is that there are many options and companies out there.

>But majority of companies use deel, remote.com and so many mediators to hire remotely.

They do take a seizable cut though. After taxes on top you're not left with much than just working for a local company that doesn't have 200 applicants for one position and a crazy interview process.

>B2b in other eu countries has way less taxes than being employee.

Yeah, emphasis on "other countries", but I don't live in one of those "other countries" so it doesn't help me.

Remote work isn't a wild west level playing filed for everyone like HN thinks. You're still tied to the tax rules of your country of residence. If those are brutal in your country then you're at a disadvantage compared to the candidates in low CoL, low tax countries. If you live in a country with low tax, low CoL where you can play fast and loose with the tax authorities, then you're in the perfect place to be a remote candidate.

Re: Brian Chesky: Ability to hire from anywhere is more valuable than in-office work

#99

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

sokoloff wrote: post #82
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if no headhunters in your area have jobs that offer remote work?

What does "in your area" really mean when looking for remote work? Are you referring to speciality or geographic area? For some specialities, if the specialty doesn't have remote work (say it's robotics or biotech or something else with a heavy lab component), you might be out of luck. If it's geographic, well, find headhunters in another geography.

>What does "in your area" really mean when looking for remote work?

Due to employment, tax and labor laws in my country, remote work still has to be done for a company that has a presence in my country. I can't have an employment contract with a company not based here, only B-2-B.

So remote basically limits me to local companies, which don't usually offer 100% remote work posibilities.

Re: Brian Chesky: Ability to hire from anywhere is more valuable than in-office work

#100

Post by maltalex »

jroseattle wrote: post #88

These remote-vs-office discussions where nobody discusses the actual work involved are fairly pointless. Disregarding the obvious scenarios of presence-required in order to work (i.e. manufacturing), the question applies: what is most productive for "information work"? In my personal experience, I've found collaboration conducted face-to-face far more effective than doing so in a distributed/online way. There is a hi…

> huge signal they don't know how to really measure productivity

It’s genuinely hard to measure productivity in some fields.

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