51–60 of 399 posts
Sam Altman is the worst mistake of the tech industry. edit: Like, I'm only half snarky. He ran like one ok company and then got pretty much coronated into OpenAI. edit: edit: Like really. It was a company that let you share your phone location. Revolutionary unicorn to the moon on steroids for sure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loopt
> He further added that OpenAI’s some of the best talents are working remotely. He said, "some of our best people are remote, and we will continue to support it always, so please don't let hating SF stop you from applying to OpenAI! I don't like the open air fentanyl markets either.” The above line seems to contradict the part about '..worst mistake of the tech industry'
Does he happen to have substantial investments in real estate portfolios or something?
When MS came on the scene, my understanding is that their recruiting strategy was to get top talent and give everyone their own office, with a door. The thinking was that you're hiring people to focus on a problem, so give them a quiet place where they can work in peace. With that approach, MS proceeded to wallop the rest of the tech sector to the point that they were considered too successful. Fast forward to the final days of the pre-pandemic world, everyone forgot that lesson and was deeply entrenched in the cargo cult of open plan offices. Going back to that dynamic for mid-stage/mature business is a huge blunder.
Like this is the smart persons problem, being successful at one thing, does not make you an expert on any number of other things.
For example, being an AI luminary does not make your opinion on working conditions or or cars, or whatever else you happen to have an opinion on.
This robs junior people of valuable one on one mentorship and makes it extremely difficult to gain domain expertise and break into niche fields.
I could not disagree more. At least for the last decade in the places I've worked (major tech companies), everyone has been doing "remote work" anyway even though they were in the office. I mean, meetings were held online, discussion took place through chat, etc., between people literally sitting in cubes next to each other. Everything is just more efficient and less disruptive that way. Working from home changed no…
You clearly didn't read the article and came to react from the headline. He says the earlier the stage and the more unclear the more you need to spend time together. His general comment is about full 100% transition from in office to remote. I agree with this. You need SOME time in person, especially with an early stage startup.
> You need SOME time in person
I'll agree with this. But it can be on an as-needed basis, not a regularly scheduled thing. This is how I've done it in my own startups. I had office space for people who wanted to come into the office (many prefer that), but it was not mandatory. We'd have in-person meetings every so often as needed. On average, this was about once per month.
I could not disagree more. At least for the last decade in the places I've worked (major tech companies), everyone has been doing "remote work" anyway even though they were in the office. I mean, meetings were held online, discussion took place through chat, etc., between people literally sitting in cubes next to each other. Everything is just more efficient and less disruptive that way. Working from home changed no…
You clearly didn't read the article and came to react from the headline. He says the earlier the stage and the more unclear the more you need to spend time together. His general comment is about full 100% transition from in office to remote. I agree with this. You need SOME time in person, especially with an early stage startup.
There is some tragedy of the commons there though. It was quite convenient to have most everyone in the office on a given day if I decided at 11am it might be nice to switch gears. I also lived literally across the street for one job, and about an average 18 minute door to door commute on public transit for the other. Many others on the teams were in similar living situations so it was easy to call impromptu office days the day before or whatnot as-needed.
I've otherwise worked from home most of my career - but would travel into an office about once a month to see faces and have meetings. Or just go out and have dinners with folks after work. This worked pretty well.
Full remote is tough for me now. I would prefer to be in an office 2-3 days a week, but not forced to be. I do miss the energy of a well functioning team executing together in close proximity.
And to be fair - the worst job I ever had was a 50-90 minute each direction car commute from hell. Literally anything is better than that.
Are there any counter examples of remote-first new companies that built something exceptional while always being remote?