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Sam Altman says era of remote work is over

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Re: Sam Altman says era of remote work is over

#331

Post by toyg »

PeterisP wrote: post #322
toyg wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone is just a mercenary. That simply mirrors corporate culture. For all the chest-beating to the contrary, the overwhelming majority of companies are not "families" or "bands of friends" - they're groups of people there to make money. When the company has no loyalty or compassion towards employees, employees will do the same to the company.

People don't form loyalty or compassion towards the organization, but they inevitably do towards each other. If you put a bunch of people together on a task, then no matter how they got there - for money, for fame, or forced to do so - they generally do develop shared bonds and do things because of their teammates. Heck, in war when push comes to shove, soldiers aren't really motivated to die for their country but ra…

> that does not happen remotely, not unless people go out of their way to build similar bonds explicitly

Why should companies get to benefit from a process, when they do nothing to foster it? Just because they could exploit it before?

Re: Sam Altman says era of remote work is over

#332

Post by Clubber »

PeterisP wrote: post #322
toyg wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone is just a mercenary. That simply mirrors corporate culture. For all the chest-beating to the contrary, the overwhelming majority of companies are not "families" or "bands of friends" - they're groups of people there to make money. When the company has no loyalty or compassion towards employees, employees will do the same to the company.

People don't form loyalty or compassion towards the organization, but they inevitably do towards each other. If you put a bunch of people together on a task, then no matter how they got there - for money, for fame, or forced to do so - they generally do develop shared bonds and do things because of their teammates. Heck, in war when push comes to shove, soldiers aren't really motivated to die for their country but ra…

>being on at a job for some time is sufficient to form a shared local culture and camaraderie. But that does not happen remotely

You can certainly get these task shared bonds remotely, think of any guild/clan based video game.

Re: Sam Altman says era of remote work is over

#333

Post by elzbardico »

Well, it is kind of funny when a millionaire tech bro tell me that remote work doesn't work to build some silly food delivery applications, when those silly applications run on top of an open source stack that was always heavily built on remote and async settings.

Re: Sam Altman says era of remote work is over

#334

Post by seti0Cha »

PeterisP wrote: post #322
toyg wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone is just a mercenary. That simply mirrors corporate culture. For all the chest-beating to the contrary, the overwhelming majority of companies are not "families" or "bands of friends" - they're groups of people there to make money. When the company has no loyalty or compassion towards employees, employees will do the same to the company.

People don't form loyalty or compassion towards the organization, but they inevitably do towards each other. If you put a bunch of people together on a task, then no matter how they got there - for money, for fame, or forced to do so - they generally do develop shared bonds and do things because of their teammates. Heck, in war when push comes to shove, soldiers aren't really motivated to die for their country but ra…

I agree with your overall point, but I think you're framing it too strongly. It absolutely is possible to form a shared culture remotely. Many open source projects have demonstrated this as well as various forum and chat communities. However, it requires a different kind of socializing, one that not everyone is adept at or interested in.

Re: Sam Altman says era of remote work is over

#335

Post by Lio »

PeterisP wrote: post #322
toyg wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone is just a mercenary. That simply mirrors corporate culture. For all the chest-beating to the contrary, the overwhelming majority of companies are not "families" or "bands of friends" - they're groups of people there to make money. When the company has no loyalty or compassion towards employees, employees will do the same to the company.

People don't form loyalty or compassion towards the organization, but they inevitably do towards each other. If you put a bunch of people together on a task, then no matter how they got there - for money, for fame, or forced to do so - they generally do develop shared bonds and do things because of their teammates. Heck, in war when push comes to shove, soldiers aren't really motivated to die for their country but ra…

That's not been my experience. I've worked both in offices and full time from home for a long time.

You most definitely do share local culture and camaraderie with others working from home. I constantly spend my time on chats, calls, meetings and in pair programming sessions.

We definitely have private jokes, productivity tips and everything else that would go on in an office setting.

This whole argument just stinks of people in private offices wanting the plebs in a shared space so they can maintain status.

There's quantified evidence that shared office spaces suck for productivity. If Altman, Igor and the rest want to force people back into offices they should gather some hard counter-evidence. Right now it just sounds like excuses for micromanagement.

Re: Sam Altman says era of remote work is over

#337

Post by bigfishrunning »

marcinzm wrote: post #318
bediger4000 wrote: post #314

That seems like a dumb thing to say about an experience so many of us have. My productivity, health and state of mind were all better when I worked from home. Why is Altman lying to me?

>Why is Altman lying to me? Are you a corporate entity based on VC money? If not then he's not talking about you. edit: As all the layoffs even with record revenues show employees are merely a means to an end for employers.

When was this ever not the case? As much as HR loves to spread this lie, an office is not a "family".

Re: Sam Altman says era of remote work is over

#338

Post by AHOHA »

danielbln wrote: post #320

Keith Rabois, a general partner at venture capital firm Founders Fund, told The Logan Bartlett Show last week, adding that neither he nor his firm would invest in a venture based on it. Younger workers, he noted, “learn by osmosis” in a way that requires in-person interaction, and supervisors discover hidden talent by watching them. Uh huh right, discovering hidden talents, not micromanagement, no sir!

“I need to breath on your shoulders, sir, all day for hours to discover your hidden talent!!”

Sounds like a poor management style to me

Re: Sam Altman says era of remote work is over

#339

Post by Clubber »

senttoschool wrote: post #321
okeuro49 wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone is just a mercenary. Very little culture or care is created. As they should be. I like and am friends with my colleagues. But I am under no delusional that I would be let go immediately if the profit motive of my company didn't justify my being there.

That's not the point. The point is that companies with people who care and developed culture is expected to outperform companies where people just feel like they're mercenaries. There is no question that companies with motivated employees who care about the success of the company and those he/she works with are more likely to outcompete companies that don't have same time. Good companies mask the fact that yes, every…

The vast majority of companies' politics / culture is absolutely toxic. Everyone can see through it but pretends they can't because they are mercenaries. Office Space and Dilbert have resonated for decades for a reason.

Who wants to play office team building games with some random office supplies? Nobody.

Re: Sam Altman says era of remote work is over

#340

Post by ambicapter »

onion2k wrote: post #325

The full quote is a bit narrower than the title implies; > "I think definitely one of the tech industry's worst mistakes in a long time was that everybody could go full remote forever, and startups didn't need to be together in person and, you know, there was going to be no loss of creativity,” he told attendees. "I would say that the experiment on that is over, and the technology is not yet good enough that people c…

> He's suggesting that there are problems with remote work for creative teams, but rather than think of ways to solve those problems

I hate this mindset (and I enjoy remote work). It's not his job to solve remote work for everyone. He probably (definitely) has other topics he's more interested in.

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