Opinions like this drive me bonkers. The mass movement to remote work wasn't an "experiment" we all "opted into", it was a necessity driven by a global pandemic. Putting the narrative on equal plane as "choosing avocado toast" makes my blood boil. We went remote because we had to. We fled cities because we had to. It was our civic duty to "flatten the curve" and save lives. My hat for a bit of nuance and grace.
Here's the full quote. The article is pretty fluffy.
> “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 can be full remote forever, particularly on startups.”
I'm biased, but I don't really agree with him. To me, an experiment collects data methodically and comes to a conclusion based solely on the outcome. I suspect he's just stating his own biases as though they were facts—unless there's some rigorous study I've not seen.
My bias is not only that I work better outside of an office, but that I was involved in a fully-remote startup a few years ago that was the most creative and productive environment I've ever worked in, so I have trouble believing those qualities are related to whether a company is distributed or not, and tend to think failures to achieve them at a high level in a remote environment is usually due to other factors.
Yeah, sorry, but until there is good data on this that does a good job of differentiating along types, roles, and contexts, this just sounds like an opinion worth as much as the next one.
In an increasingly disconnected world, I couldn't agree more. Everything now is automated: car service, groceries, shopping. Activities that used to be social are no longer social: working in person, meeting in person, socializing in general.
We need to get back to building communities, making eye contact, seeing people, engaging in random conversations, getting to know your neighbors. And this includes working in person (albeit not necessarily every day).
@dmitrygr calls “anyone listening to Sam Altman experiment” one of the tech industry’s worst mistakes.
Fate loves irony!
The tech industry's mistake was all collectively setting up shop in a small handful of trendy, dense, expensive cities and not investing in housing, transit, or otherwise doing anything to improve the collective quality of life of those cities.
The repercussion of that mistake is remote work.
I don't think he's wrong on principle - remote work is less dynamic and impactful than physical teams. But it's the "...and it has to be in San Francisco" part that reminds me of how out-of-touch these guys are. Are in-person meetings better? Yes. Are they worth commuting 3 hours every day through a city that hates you? No.