The great workspace debate
To go remote, into an office, or both
I am tired of the “remote work vs. in the office” debate. Since 2020 Covid, Twitter and LinkedIn have been having nonstop debates about working remotely vs. going into an office (and there are debates about hybrid work as well). More recently there's been a backlash against remote work especially after Elon's emails stating that Tesla employees must go into the office.
The short answer to this debate is that it depends on your business and culture. There isn't one right answer here because it’s not binary. On the whole I'm in defense of remote work and have been a massive advocate for the last decade (though there are some caveats).
Hardware or software?
This is the real distinction in my mind. Are you building software or hardware or both?
Admittedly, I know less about hardware but it seems obvious that until we have robots perfectly replicating human motor functions, we will need to have humans coming together to build physical things like rockets, cars, and computers - if not the actual manufacturing, then for the testing of the design and engineering principles.
Software is a different story, and I'm not convinced that you have to have people going into offices to build a great company.
@TechEmails The distinction is software vs hardware. Companies like @gitlab (and many others) have proven great digital products can be created by remote teams. I don’t know if the same can be said for hardware and physical products. I think Elon is probably right in that regard.
In defense of remote work
We're seeing insanely successful companies who are completely remote from day one and changing the world - companies like Automattic (aka Wordpress) and GitLab (who recently went public). The model for success exists and is the rules are changing. There just hasn't been enough time nor data to show conclusively which model is better for building a software company.
The question to ask ourselves is, “will this trend continue?” Will we want to work with others in different countries as quickly as possible? It seems foolish to believe that remote work won’t continue to increase in everyone’s lives, especially as (i) software eats the world and (ii) knowledge workers continue to increase.
Software is global and creates new opportunities for humans to work with one another in different places thus creating economic value. A lot of us grew up on the internet and already have a deep sense of being a citizen of the world (at least when it comes to building things with others). I’d bet that most humans want business and trade and commerce and culture to expand.
Nationalism vs. globalism
At the deepest level, I think this debate boils down to nationalism and globalism. Will we start to localize our efforts as nation states and individual contributors and startups within them, or will we continue to do work across international borders on an internet that fundamentally has no boundaries?
Nationalism certainly has its moments but our global economic partnerships deepen with each passing day - our economies are so interdependent already and it's too late. Take for example the Russia/Ukraine conflict and how it has shown us that Russia is becoming increasingly nationalistic (even though millions of Russians don't want this). And this conflict has shown that Ukraine has sought to fight their invaders and embrace globalism with support from most countries.
Conflict aside, we need to stop debating about remote vs. in-person and start looking at the type of work and products being created. Here’s how I think about it if helpful: If physical goods, go in person. If digital, go remote. If both, then do both.
Feel free to push back on me if you disagree because I’d love to hear your perspective. Anyways, I may turn this post into a deeper dive to flesh out the ideas a bit more.
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