It was determined the same way FAANG, Banks, and others have determined in-person is best: "haha, the economy is slowing, get back to the office you F*(&# losers".
Absolutely breathtaking level of cynicism from executive class that as soon as interest rates went up, hiring market cooled, and the power balance between workers & bosses swung back their way, suddenly in-office was "most productive".
100% vibes and "because we say so / we can get away with it".
I can’t speak for YC or FAANG management but as a regular software engineer I totally get where they’re coming from. I worked at a FAANG company through and after covid, the difference in teams productivity was noticeable. Not in the remote working favour.
I understand some people are more productive at home but I’m yet to see a _team_ that is more productive being remote. I lack the experience working in remote-first companies like gitlab though.
Depends on the project type and part of the lifecycle. Also depends on the team composition and office structure.
In my career I've generally been on teams spread across 3 continents and sit in open floorplan offices surrounded by other loud teams. So I commute into the office to be collocated with at-best 1/3 of my team, surrounded by unrelated noise.
In some ideal state where we were 100% in the same city, sat in a dedicated pod area without so much commotion & distraction, in-office might be great. I've never experienced this.
Even in that ideal state, it may likely turn out ideal team productivity happens at 3-4 days in-office, as there's time for coordination and then time for deep quiet work.
The top-down, C-suite level dictates are not based on what's most productive.
Oh, I've seen a team get completely obliterated by moving back to in person, even though everyone really did live in the same city and with reasonable commutes.
This was a startup, that had one big problem: a CEO that believed he was better than any and all of his workers at what the workers did. He also believed that collaboration was important, as through discussion, everyone would agree that he was right all along. You can imagine how unhealthy someone like that can be.
In a remote world, dealing with problem people is easier. The amount of acting one has to perform lowers. The lower visibility also allows people to self organize: Ignore coworker A as much as necessary, yet pair all day with coworker B, who is useful. Is someone very loud, or getting into other people's business? Being far from each other can help!
It didn't take 8 weeks in-office for all the coping that people were doing to become clear to everyone in the company. A CEO that was manageable via short interactions became an unavoidable thorn into the company's side, as remoteness covered their weaknesses. An open office didn't help matters. Everyone that wasn't a founder knew this was all untenable and quit.
So a team can definitely be far more productive being remote, as remoteness mandates far less gelling. Local conflict often has explosive results. People you dislike become far more tolerable. And really, every company ends up getting people like that, and sometimes chooses them over those that are team builders: I've seen my fair share of horrible managers that cost a company money in supposedly high performance, well known companies, and I have yet to see one getting a Pip out of it.
Sure. I have neither proper data nor a solution that would satisfy everyone. I left my comment only to show a dissenting voice in the HN engineering crowd. Someone reading HN might be under the impression WFH is universal choice of engineers. It’s not, some of us hate remote work.
I dunno, this thread seems to be a bunch of RTO hardos & CEO apologists. It does feel like some have begun to enjoy the taste of boots now that the job market has turned, but thats just my opinion.
I imagine the actual reason is the complete opposite of everything you said except for 'vibes'.
Just cause you can't imagine why anyone would care about being in person doesn't mean the only remaining reason is a greedy powertrip. You're just not being sufficiently imaginative.
Sure for a bootcamp or intensive project or whatever, in-person can have benefits.
For juniors and mentorship and whatever, sure helps there too.
But the lingering question is...
Why is it that everyone was super cool with hybrid & remote, even past COVID danger, but as soon as FAANG had massive layoffs we went from 2days to 3days to majority back in office at many tech companies?
And the east coast bank/fund/finance tech companies quickly dragged everyone else back to the office as soon as we all stopped quitting for FAANG jobs?
I can think of plenty of decent reasons that might be true? For instance perhaps over time a fully remote company, unless it employs mostly a certain type of very driven self motivated person, slows down and loses any semblance of a culture the longer it works remotely? That was certainly my experience.
Or perhaps all the managers, typically fairly extroverted people, get more depressed over time the longer their daily social interactions are just on video calls.
Or perhaps over time it's found that new hires do worse and worse without an office to bond with others in and a culture to absorb.
Etc. No shortage of plausible reasons.
Perhaps these companies were remote for a while because a lot of people were loud and annoying about it, and now a lot of them are quietly backpedaling to avoid offending the people who love it while reclaiming the benefits of an office?
Perhaps! I don't know. You'd have to ask them. One thing is for sure: there are a lot of plausible reasons besides 'evil'.
Zero Interest Rate Policy. Describes the US Federal Reserve interest rates for much of the last 20 years or so. Since interest rate to borrow is near zero, investing in very marginal businesses can be profitable.
On this thread - there's a VC guy I follow on twitter who otherwise sounds like a decent guy, but as the tech job market was collapsing ~9 months ago was literally posting "suits suits suits".
Aka - the old Wall St saying that when the economy turns and labor loses power, casual Fridays go out the window and everyone is back to wearing suits.
So I do think that the debate is all kayfabe. There is no data.
They really see remote/hybrid as just an accommodation like allowing jeans, paying for your lunch, or having yoga classes on site... and look forward to cutting it at any time of their choosing, when they can get away with it.
It’s easier to make blanket rules than do performance mgmt for managers.
If data shows some % of the company has been completely slacking off with WFH (or over employed etc) you could either hold mgmt accountable (but how? Fire all VPs for letting that happen? Fire all line managers?) or just make blanket policies…
That line of management of management is allowing incompetence to fester.
My spouse is at a shop that keeps ratcheting up the RTO days “because people aren’t abiding by the current RTO days”.
This of course is idiotic because the shirkers don’t get punished and everyone ends up worst off. In fact the people already complying are worst effected.
If you can’t count on managers to enforce rules then why have managers or rules?
I agree your question is relevant, but the problem is do directors want to acknowledge that the level below them is incompetent at performance mgmt at a small granularity? Because what does that say about them?
Absolutely breathtaking level of cynicism from executive class that as soon as interest rates went up, hiring market cooled, and the power balance between workers & bosses swung back their way, suddenly in-office was "most productive".
100% vibes and "because we say so / we can get away with it".