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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

#101
post #86
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about school? It’s nice for summer break but it’s really hard to take kids out of school or to switch schools mid year.

When the kids are younger, they don't really need to stick with a specific curriculum throughout the year. As they get older, I imagine the need to dictate your schedule around school increases. And if they're at a boarding school, that really frees up your planning.

Why bother having children if you're just going to shove them into boarding school?

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#102
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It always annoyed me that they couldn't even be honest and say it was save rent, they had to make it seem like open floor plan was a positive thing because it "increases collaboration" It's not enough you want to be cheap but you want to make it seem like you're doing it for our benefit.

Actually I think they were sufficiently self-deluded to believe that "increases collaboration" rap all along.

Hard to tell sometimes. Every now and again I meet some or that seems genuinely sincere while being corporate

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#103

> While you’ll be responsible for getting proper work authorization, we’re actively partnering with local governments to make it easier for more people to travel and work around the world. Today, 20+ countries offer remote work visas, and more are in the works. While working from different locations isn’t possible for everyone, I hope everyone can benefit from this flexibility when the time is right. I think currentl…

Caveat emptor indeed.

Most folks will end up working on tourist visas which is explicitly not allowed around most of the world.

I work at a remote first company and HR have given a nod and a wink to this, but with the requirement that you maintain a permanent address and pay taxes in a country where they have an office.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#105
post #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.

I've said as much on other threads. Employers are playing a longer game, and thinking about the salaries of the person who replaces you. So go ahead, move to Colombia but save up.

When there's zero friction and in fact a couple years successful track record involved in managing W2 staff in any country, the salary for new hires will reflect that.

No company will ignore this, because the potential savings are just monumental and there is no stigma attached.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#106
post #81

I know some people are very excited about that, and some think that is going to be a new norm. I have not worked for the corps for at least 4-5 years, but before that I always assumed there are only small amount of people who can really work for company remotely. I definitely saw people calling that they are going to work from home, but saw very little work to be done that day. Which probably means that people used t…

>You are at new place, you going to work like 4-6 hours instead of 8-9 hours. I remember some studies mentioning that the real productive time in a daily 8 hr shiFt was 4-6 hours. If that's so, then it's completely doable. Hopefully someone has a fresh link to one of those studies.

Oh, 4-6 hours is the Zoom meetings. Anything productive is in addition to that.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#107
post #81

I know some people are very excited about that, and some think that is going to be a new norm. I have not worked for the corps for at least 4-5 years, but before that I always assumed there are only small amount of people who can really work for company remotely. I definitely saw people calling that they are going to work from home, but saw very little work to be done that day. Which probably means that people used t…

>You are at new place, you going to work like 4-6 hours instead of 8-9 hours. I remember some studies mentioning that the real productive time in a daily 8 hr shiFt was 4-6 hours. If that's so, then it's completely doable. Hopefully someone has a fresh link to one of those studies.

I've done some work-cation. Like instead of 1week off I'll take 2 and work the second. If I'm in a different time zone, I've felt even more productive. Work with out distraction for a few hours show up for a meeting or answer slack when people start working. My mood might even be better because I'm doing something cool on vacation before or after work.

The only people doing 8 hours of "work" are the people scheduling back to back meetings all day

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#108
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…

"After all - remote but stuck in one time zone for working hours isn’t really a huge win. It’s dangling a carrot."

that's a pretty realistic approach in my opinion. My company has people in India and Europe and it sucks royally to set up meetings with them. Either they have to work at night or the US people have to. If I had to decide, I would mandate at least a 4 hour overlap in working times.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#109
post #81

I know some people are very excited about that, and some think that is going to be a new norm. I have not worked for the corps for at least 4-5 years, but before that I always assumed there are only small amount of people who can really work for company remotely. I definitely saw people calling that they are going to work from home, but saw very little work to be done that day. Which probably means that people used t…

>You are at new place, you going to work like 4-6 hours instead of 8-9 hours. I remember some studies mentioning that the real productive time in a daily 8 hr shiFt was 4-6 hours. If that's so, then it's completely doable. Hopefully someone has a fresh link to one of those studies.

I think even that is probably an over-estimation. I suspect most folks can work productively (as in, being intensely focused on an activity) only for 2-4 hours a day, and the rest of the time is just "fluff" (which may or may not be necessary for staying productive). From that perspective, regular 9-5 in an office really "steals" our time, because we can't use it on more productive things.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#110
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, every city has a work component and a leisure component. The work component of a given city was largely irreplaceable, while leisure can be substituted by many cities. If you worked in tech, SF was the pinnacle location to live for your career. If you were in Finance, it was NYC. There was no exception to this. You can live in any of dozens of cities and still get an enjoyable life/leisure. It's not equivalent a…

I have two points I think: there are more components than you are giving high COL areas credit for, and that even if high COL see some sort of exodus, this is not good for low cost of living areas. I have been working remote for startups since 2019 and for whatever reasons, you could attribute this to low interest rates I suppose in your favor, things have gotten INSANELY more expensive. NYC, Boston, DC, Seattle, SF,…

Certainly people will continue to enjoy living in specific cities and near to things. I don't dispute that. I dispute that real estate will rise in real terms nationally.

Now that the constraint of working in a specific location is gone, yes, people will migrate to areas for desirability of living, not because they're forced to for work. However, price is an aspect of desirability. It's very hard to imagine how the Bay Area could maintain residential real estate pricing if all big tech went full remote. People like SF, but not enough to pay such a spread over arguably equivalently nice places that are much cheaper.

So yes, HCOL -> LCOL drives LCOL to be more expensive.

Also the reason cities existed in the past was because people needed to gather together to work/exchange goods. With remote work/internet that goes away, aside from education/leisure.

You seem to be implying Amsterdam exists because people like it, and not because it was a job center. I can assure you there were very few people hundreds of years ago picking cities primarily for leisure. The need to densify/build vertically lessens when there's no concentration of a downtown for work.

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