"I'm worried my team might have second jobs" - so you admit you don't know what your team are doing and have no idea how long things should take. Isn't this the stuff managers are paid to know?
"Young workers learn by osmosis" - what, by learning body language so they can LARP as a developer instead of reading/writing code? No evidence presented for this claim.
"Supervisors discover hidden talent by watching them" - Not sure if "talent" here is a euphemism for hostile environment sexual harassment or not. You can't read or understand their code or evaluate their contributions in meetings? But I digress, it's another claim for which, apparently, evidence is not required.
"Managers order workers in to office / workers insist work from home is working fine" - Who has access to the relevant information here? Who should we listen to? The same people who just admitted they can't "spot talent" or even tell if their workers are moonlighting or not without eyes-on at all times?
Altman claim that you need to spend time in person with colleagues. What evidence is presented? Why of course: "I feel strongly". Good enough for journalists at Fortune! Intrepid journalist also adds "[Altman] knows a thing or two." Presumably this is meant literally. He must know at most two things.
Of course, Altman is a CEO, so all of these people he yearns to spend more time with are his inferiors. Their careers will suffer if they don't act as if their regard for him is at least as high as his regard for himself. Or does Sam also yearn for the day when shareholders breathe down his neck for every working hour? We'll never know. Journalist didn't think to ask that.
Another CEO adds: "You might be just as good working from home, but your 'career' does suffer." Thanks to who? The decision-making of afore-mentioned delicate geniuses?
Still, it's interesting to step inside the dream-yurt, take a bong hit, and learn about the deeply intimate and personal insecurities, hopes, dreams and feelings of our bosses and betters. Thanks for sharing, Sam, it takes courage to be this vulnerable.
Remote work doesn’t mean people never meet up. I think their version of remote work didn’t work.
Who the fuck is Sam Altman
Perhaps this is really just an indication that CEOs are, generally speaking, incredibly bad at remote work, and shouldn’t be allowed to do so. For the sake of company profits, which is one of the few things more important than a CEO.
WeWork as an idea could be updated. Refined.
Provide execs with a day care situation. Fancy meeting rooms, little snacks, speakerphones for conference calls. (The calls don’t have to involve real employees, so work can happen!) Maybe someone to offer massages, since it is just so stressful being in charge. Fancy chefs so nobody has to leave for lunch.
Once the day is over, executive assistants can pick up their charges.