51–60 of 206 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you know how Automattic, Github, and say Basecamp do it?
Automattic "employees" outside of the US and Canada are contractors. (I used to work at Automattic)
(I work at Automattic)
Hey Matt, I'm so glad you felt it necessary to include that DHTML snowstorm. My laptop fan really needed the exercise and I have your ~500-line JavaScript workout to thank for it! Of course, I closed the tab pretty much immediately after noticing it so I didn't read the article. Can't wait for unnecessary js to go out of style.
enjoy the downvote
So much this. I have pretty much stopped clicking on the HN posts from HN companies looking for employees, because almost none of them offer remote work. Which is too bad, because there are quite a few HN companies that I would love to work for.
I highly suspect that it's a consequence of being a YC company. The president of YC has even publicly denounced allowing remote work. > As a side note, avoid remote employees in the early days. As a culture is still gelling, it’s important to have everyone in the same building. [1] 1. http://blog.samaltman.com/how-to-hire
Oh dear sorry to rain on your parade experience shows that the way to get the best performance is collocated teams of developers ideally coloacted with the end customer. I know this isn't what a lot of HN readers want to hear but I bet Paul and many other VC's would bear me out.
Sounds great, as long as you're only interested in selling to the Bay area I guess.
>Use WordPress and P2, use Slack, use G+ Hangouts, use Skype, use any of the amazing technology that allows us to collaborate as effectively online as previous generations of company did offline. I've been a 100% remote worker for 5+ years but I think we have to be honest here. All those teleconferencing/videoconferencing/virtualwhiteboards/etc are not as effective as everyone sharing the same physical workspace. Yes…
If everyone on the team has a 2 hour commute, that is a guarantee that there will be less time available to the individual and thus the team. Commutes are a big problem aside from the communication.
I have also found that companies that do remote or allow it, just communicate better, to all parties, even clients or stakeholders. They are more external focused companies without internal blinders, they take an external view of the company instead of internal. Lots of employees time is commuting and dealing with office politics which become a bigger part of your job than working at some places.
Personally I think companies that are remote or allow remote are much better at communication overall and have a saner external view of themselves coupled with the internal view, rather than just an internal view of what matters. I have seen this across many companies I have worked for or with. Some internal places I have worked that didn't allow remote made it very hard to get information because they expect people to barge into offices to ask.
Overall I feel remote companies have the benefit here and make for more robust teams if they do it right, not to mention the benefit of attracting great developers all over the country or world.
Today, virtual communication is how we communicate to most of our clients, customers and stakeholders. Companies that allow remote just do this better because they also communicate that way. Remote companies value external views of the company and communication much higher than non remote capable companies.
Two more benefits of remote capable: When you setup another office upon growth the new office will not have the virtual communication problem (office to office within the same company is typically virtual communication and non remote companies do this badly), also remote companies root out non-contributors more quickly as you can't just hide behind being there physically as work you must contribute and build.
VCs are so against remote that it seems like they almost have some tax hookups and own lots of real estate in SF as some of the logic makes no sense, ultimately labor costs would be cheaper and the companies would be more robust to changes.
>Use WordPress and P2, use Slack, use G+ Hangouts, use Skype, use any of the amazing technology that allows us to collaborate as effectively online as previous generations of company did offline. I've been a 100% remote worker for 5+ years but I think we have to be honest here. All those teleconferencing/videoconferencing/virtualwhiteboards/etc are not as effective as everyone sharing the same physical workspace. Yes…
And those companies aren't billion dollar companies either.
"All those teleconferencing/videoconferencing/virtualwhiteboards/etc are not as effective as everyone sharing the same physical workspace"
But they're more effective than those people not working together at all.
"Remote workers even with today's fanciest collaboration technology is not the answer to finding the best talent."
You have to define 'best'. If the definition of 'best' has to include "people who are willing to uproot their entire life to spend a portion of it in someone else's office", then yes, you're correct.
"I see no evidence that this has ever been successfully done. Small scale modest businesses, yes, but not big ones."
I see little evidence that co-located teams are all that much more successful at becoming billion dollar behemoths than virtual teams.
You get access to a wider breadth of experience of worker when you embrace remote. Just because management hasn't had enough experience with the model yet to be able to grow a billion dollar company doesn't mean a) it's bad or that b) it may not happen in the future.
The idea that remote work is a solution to immigration is also a meme on Twitter. I'm not sure I understand it. A San Francisco tech company can employ developers in Krakow to work remotely without dealing with visas. But those developers either need to be 1099 contractors, or loaned out from an outsourcing firm. Both options are poor. Outsourcing firms for obvious reasons (introducing a middleman that serves no purp…
This is one of my concerns - to be a second class employee. Company has to have remote modus operandi.
Remote workers present challenges. Which is worth more a company with 5 employed engineers or 5 oversea contractors? Managing developers across time zones can be a big problem. If the developer in the Ukraine has a question for a manger asleep in California, he has to wait. There is no casual connection between people - no going to a bar to talk things over, no stepping away from the computer to talk. All communicati…
This is a false dichotomy. You could have 5 on-site contractors or 5 overseas employed engineers.
(However, the rest of your post contains very valid points.)
If everyone is co-located, you have inconvenience and higher productivity. If everyone is remote, you have an inherent overhead, but enormous flexibility. If some people are co-located and others are remote, you naturally tend towards a divide where people who are co-located without thinking about it wind up networking with each other and excluding the remotes.
If you are a small startup, the productivity difference really can be the margin between success and failure. Hence the pressure to co-locate. But conversely the availability of better talent in theory can allow for a better workforce which might outweigh the productivity overhead of remote work. But when there are just founders, by definition you can't assume that there are better people available. And the need for close working at the initial stages gives strong pressure to co-locate.
Therefore there is a natural tendency for startups to co-locate. And once the seed of the company is co-located, switching to a remote model is going to involve crossing a difficult cultural barrier that not everyone will succeed in. Thus the continuing pressure to co-locate.