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IMHO the ideal situation would be for people to work in their own offices, with doors that closed, and short commutes. Easy to work distraction-free alone, easy to have group meetings and random chats.

But real estate costs have made this approach untenable, so something has to give.

> But real estate costs have made this approach untenable, so something has to give.

I need a citation here. Big tech was so large and profitable the last decade that thinking it’s real estate costs that led them to open office spaces and not a flawed ideology re: work and collaboration.

I assume the larger portion of what's "untenable" is "short commutes"; spending multiple hours of unpaid personal time in a car per day just driving to and from work so that you can have the place you sleep be affordable is a huge downside of a lot of in-person jobs that used to be taken as more of a default pre-pandemic, before so many places showed "yeah we could let you work from home but we just don't want to".

The downsides of an open floor plan can be at least partially countered by headphones, but there's much less that you can do on an individual level to make up for having that much of your personal time locked up in pure transit.

Remote work has changed a lot, but construction in the places where the big tech companies are headquarters is highly constrained. It’s not like they all could immediately triple the size of their campuses again. Tech companies did build large new campuses at enormous cost, but mostly development crowded out other development. Everyone is bidding for the same land and labor.

Reasonably, one company could give everyone an office but there’s no way everyone could do it at once.

I don't know how much commercial real estate costs, but in the region around Twitter's HQ it's about $5-$6k for a 1000 square foot apartment

Assuming it's the same price per square foot for commercial space, that's less than $1000 a month for a 100 square foot office for each employee. Considering these employees are making more than 20x that, if offices could improve their productivity, it seems like it'd be well worthwhile

But since the cost of building those offices will be reflected in this quarter's earnings and destroy some executive bonuses, while the benefits won't be reflected in earnings for at least a full quarter and possibly longer, building individual workspaces is impossible.

Another way of looking at it: the market price for office space is based on each employee having a 4’ x 2’ desk with the same space again for a chair.

You are talking about increasing the per capita headcount sixfold from 16 sq ft to 100. That’s going to have a significant effect on real estate cost.

Yeah, but Silicon Valley tech companies are already pulling in $2M per employee per year.. if spending 0.5% of that on better offices increases that revenue by 10%, you can probably bet that they'll want to do it

Presumably the higher ups legitimately believe that the open office plans are better for the company, which fits with how insistent most of them are to get butts back in seats now despite almost everyone hating the commute and the office life

Urban planning in large parts of the USA isn't very conducive of this approach, since housing space tends to be quite segregated from office space.

I also can only assume that it plays a role in office real-estate costs too, just like it does on housing costs.

> easy to have group meetings and random chats.

I don't understand this argument. How is online chat not easy? With slack, I can fire off a question to any coworker instantly. I don't have to physically relocate myself to wherever they are in the office to ask it. And they can answer when it is appropriate for them, rather then be disturbed by my incursion into their space. If it's something that requires a conversation, then we schedule time to have a video chat or instantly transition to realtime video if convenient for both of us.

And how are group meetings not easy online? Online we can see / hear each other in near real time, we can type on the same document an see each other's edits in near real time, we can draw...I mean...What are people doing during group meetings that are difficult without physical presence?

> I think I'm at my best when it's 2-3 days in the office and the rest working from home.

And all the evidence agrees. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-unintended-consequences...

The fact is, it was only "100% remote" being forced into existence by the pandemic that is allowing us to even have the debate. Outside of tech almost nowhere allowed remote before.

Musk represents the old guard who liked making people suffer these horrible commutes and office environments just to make senior mgmt feel important.

As a result, I think it's important to defend 100% remote as a pro-employee position, and then look to optional onsite as a way to mitigate potential issues such as isolation, young folks with roomates etc.

I agree that there are pros and cons to remote work, and that it should be possible to have a frank discussion about where the balance lies.

However, that is sadly irrelevant to this news item, as Musk isn't banning remote work because of any logical consideration of its merits. He's banning remote work because he's an authoritarian micromanager who believes that workers are to be treated like cattle.

Mind citing that assertion?

https://jalopnik.com/elon-musk-praises-chinese-tesla-factory...

During a keynote speech on May 10, Elon Musk commended Tesla factory workers in China for working under conditions that break labor laws in many parts of the world — including those in China, as The Guardian pointed out. The high praise from Elon went out to workers who are being pushed to meet production goals in the middle of pandemic lockdowns, which have been ongoing at the Gigafactory in Shanghai since April. The Tesla CEO went on to compare Chinese workers with their American counterparts, who Musk says lack work ethic he considers impressive and vital for EV companies to succeed.

"There’s just a lot of super talented and hardworking people in China that strongly believe in manufacturing. And they won’t just be burning the midnight oil. They’ll be burning the 3am oil. So they won’t even leave the factory type of thing. Whereas in America, people are trying to avoid going to work at all."

Going by what Musk says, it sure sounds like what they say is true: nobody wants to work anymore. That is, except for workers in China, where conditions enabling Tesla to meet production goals during lockdowns have less to do with burning oil past midnight, and more to do with China’s extreme work culture. Meaning Musk isn’t really praising hardworking people so much as a disregard for labor rules.

During the lockdowns, workers at the Gigafactory reportedly worked 12-hour shifts, six days a week and slept on the floor. Again, that’s not only during recent lockdowns. This is actually common enough to be nicknamed “996.” That’s shorthand for work shifts going from 9am to 9pm, six days a week.

Jerry Pournelle once wrote that "unregulated capitalism will eventually end with human meat sold in market places, and slavery." Seems like Musk and his ultra-libertarian ilk are heading down that same path.

Wow, a great quote. It left out child labor as well but I guess you have to keep it concise.

I don't see how you can so confidently connect labor issues in a Gigafactory to his beliefs surrounding the efficacy of remote work. You still have not addressed this part of your claim:

> He's banning remote work because he's an authoritarian micromanager

You don't know why he's banning remote work, and you're guessing that its the most inflammatory reason you can come up with. You do not know.

We know he's banning remote work, and we know he's an authoritarian micromanager (because he brags about that). What is added to the conversation by quibbling over the precise causative relationship between those two facts?

Really, the idea that there isn't a connection is the less likely option. I think it's on you to prove that, not on others to disprove it. "When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33552970

from page 21 of https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23112929-elon-musk-t...

citing some evidence for all the people who are calling you out and accusing you of making up these claims against him:

> He calls himself a "nano-manager".

source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/electric-car-pioneer-elon-musk-...

> In conversations with 35 current and former Tesla employees, CEO Elon Musk is described as a polarizing figure who inspires but micromanages to an extreme.

source: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/19/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-extreme-...

> Elon Musk says remote workers are just pretending to work.

source: https://fortune.com/2022/07/20/elon-musk-remote-work-from-ho...

> Elon Musk says remote workers are just pretending to work.

Hehe, I wonder how does he think how 100% remote companies continue to work and excel.

And the fact that Twitter employees aren't all near an office. If you live in Minneapolis, you're not exactly going to be happy that you have to go into the office (closest one is 6+ hours away in Chicago). It's not even a choice to go into the office or not at that point - it's an ultimatum of move immediately for a job where everything is on fire or be fired!

I think the purely remote workers were already axed.

> I've noticed I don't think about what I'm building as much when working remote, I'm just building it.

I'm the complete opposite haha, I do much better deep thinking at home. This doesn't invalidate your point, nor am I trying to. More just saying, we all work differently, and all of our styles are equally valid. Hybrid WFH is great :D

If I could WFS (Work From Shower), man I'd really get some good stuff done! WFT (Work From Toilet) also a good candidate.

I'm beginning to think that collective distributed satellite offices is going to be big. Like WeWork but for companies to house their local staff and far less culty. Would help if they had standing desks, folding treadmills, three screens and everything else for a superb dev experience that is a bit of a pain to set up at home.

I mean that’s the worst of both worlds. You get to be a remote employee as in you don’t sit with your team but you still have to commute to an office

Teams should be reorganized so that they meet together.

So people get put on teams based on where they live rather than what they are good at or what the team needs?

No. You do both.

You can now no longer reorg or have people move jobs without physically moving to someplace else around the world.

Says you.

The point would be that the commute would be no more than 15 minutes to your office. Ideally walking distance

Ok but whats the point when you’re just on zoom anyway

Not all of us want to live within 15 walking minutes of _anywhere_.

That's your choice. I would love to be within 15 minutes walk of my office, but I can't realistically afford it, so the choice of a longer commute is made for me.

Fine, but please stop making it illegal for those of us who do want walkability

The US Gov pioneered this. It didn’t work very well.

That’s called an office dude. Tf you saying?!

> Were I working at Twitter I'd probably be looking for a new job after this announcement.

Highest impact is mid project. You know, to make it hurt.

Right, really punish the rest of the team who has to make up for your absence. That'll teach Elon.

They could certainly leave too.

It would secure their position tho and make elon appreciate them more.

If you aren’t mid project surely you already got canned

I know most studies show remote work improves productivity. I have the opposite experience even though I need to take one hour to commute one way. Our office is 80% empty on average. I think this has greatly hurt the interaction between people, increased friction and slowed down project progress. I am sure some people are more efficient at home, but there might be a silent majority, who enjoy doing less work remotely and never voice themselves (or even say the opposite).

In most places it seems to be the opposite from what I gather from my clients. Small majority of people prefer to go into the office. Especially those with kids. And they are vocal about it.

I don't have kids, so for me productivity is higher at home. However, we're running a hybrid setup at my place of work because it indeed seems to give you the best of both worlds.

Anything more than 0% office implies a huge sea change from 0%.

To go from zero to one on this, your company now needs to lease space, even if part-time. Your employees are now bound geographically.

At zero, things are dramatically simpler and easier. The only hard thing is - middle management has nowhere to hide with work from home. Performance has to be monitored accurately now, versus the straightforward bums-in-seats-looking-busy-for-eight-hours method.

The problem with hybrid is you're still bound geographically. My work insists on being hybrid (my job has no reason for me to be in the office) and it increases my cost of living by at least 50%, not to mention I'll never be able to be a home owner.

My take is probably a bit more hot and less to do with anything provable. I think the real reason for "return to work" is to justify high salaries. If everyone dispersed across the United States then people in the highest markets would get significant drops in pay. It's no secret that subsidizing extremely high housing costs has the benefit of earning those people more than the average worker doing the same work over the same period of time.

Productivity is just corporate speak for, "do what I say when I say it".

It's not like your income is scaled to the housing costs though. I just checked craigslist for Los angeles and Columbus, Ohio. 1 bedroom average in LA is $2000 and change, Columbus its $1000. For a year in the average 1 bedroom, you are only paying $12k more or so for the unit in LA. Other costs are about the same, the same MSRP for consumer goods, about the same grocery bill (certain food is honestly very cheap in LA due to its year round availability), about the same $10 pints of beers and $12 entrees at your typical late 20s and up drinking/eating establishment.

Most engineer salaries however are substantially higher on the west coast than in the midwest, much higher than a $12k pay bump that would have covered the difference in housing costs for average 1 bedrooms between these markets.

I don't think its so much that engineers on the west coast pay a lot more in cost of living and therefore have to get a higher salary to put food on the table the same as they do out east. I think its simply that engineers who happen to be on the west coast are tapped into an excellent network of job opportunities and tend to be highly trained, and for companies to get at this network for its talent themselves, they need to pay these inflated west coast rates to get into the door. This is just what the prices of this market have come to be, and they must have gotten to such a point through other factors than the paltry in comparison difference in cost of living.

> Most engineer salaries however are substantially higher on the west coast than in the midwest,

In northern CA this holds true and even moreso in Seattle. In southern california (notably because you mention Los Angeles), this is not true. There are high paying jobs in SoCal, but they are much scarcer than the talent pool. While there are more opportunities in SoCal than other parts of the west coast, they are lower paying and worse conditions overall that are closer to midwest counterparts. This view is borne of 40 years of experience in SoCal (and everyone I worked with). Moving to Seattle, I instantly made 30% more AND rent was cheaper.

FWIW average rents in seattle are about $1600 a month for 1 bedrooms on craigslist right now, so you'd only be saving $7200 a year living in Columbus Ohio. I know salary data online is what it is, but from zippia.com at least average SWE salary is $75k in Columbus, and $115k in seattle, so even with the cost of living difference of $7k factored in, there is a huge bump in pay for this job market of engineers versus the market in Columbus, OH.

Southern California and Seattle are greater metropolitan areas, that coincide with job markets (the job markets are the comparison I drew). You don't rent IN Seattle proper. That's silly, when Renton gets you 2br or Kent gets you 3br. It's like saying "Los Angeles" when your rental options are cheapest in Downy or Anaheim.

I live in the midwest, in a house that's appraised around $350K. Every time I visit family on the West coast, I look at similar house prices, and they're all at least 3x or 4x. No way could I afford that; and I sure wouldn't get a huge salary bump for relocating.

At the end of the day median prices of mortgages follow median salaries seen in the area, and not everyone who buys a west coast house goes broke from it otherwise prices would decrease. Maybe your line of work isn't so lucrative on the west coast, but for many the bump in salary is more than enough to cover cost of living. Then factor in other benefits that might be locally specific, like noncompetes being illegal in california so you can leave a business to start your own immediately, or your property taxes being what they were assessed at when you bought the property despite market gains, or a stronger social safety net that comes from a state government that generates budgetary surpluses, and things might look even better over time.

How long is your commute?

Rest of the world has largely gone back to office to work now, even if it is part time.

I feel the U.S. is the last man standing.

For knowledge workers, WAH works well for self motivated, high performing individuals, in a high functioning work environment. You know, the HN people.

My take is, we'll lose competitive edge over time if we insist on WAH for the mass.

I’m definitely at the point where I’m getting less productive from home, but the question is when is that drop in productivity offset by the time wasted commuting? If my office was just down the street I’d be there every day.

This comment really strikes a chord with me. Some days, I’m way more productive, others not so much.

What I do love is eliminating the commute time. That is time I’ve been able to utilize in other ways that really contribute to my mental well being.

Walking the kids to school (instead of driving), walking the dog, exercise, catch up on chores or errands, etc.

That is probably my favorite aspect of working from home.

I do miss those serendipitous interactions with coworkers. And Zoom fatigue is real. (I’m just waiting for the day when Zoom alerts your manager that the Zoom window is not the active window on your machine)

> Zoom fatigue is real

Wouldn't you experience in-person meeting fatigue sooner than zoom fatigue? What is it about sitting in the comfort of your own home having a conversation that is worse than sitting in an office having a conversation?

> I am split on the remote work thing from a productivity / creativity perspective

Even if productivity was down at home vs at the office aren't we already way too productive anyways ?

Living in the office would also be more productive, and working 10 hours per day, banning weekends, &c.

At the end of the day you have to ask yourself if you're here to grind for 45 years to pay the lifestyle of eccentrics like Musk or to live life ? If it's ok to lose 10% of productivity while regaining hours of your life ?

I secretly agree with you. I think the ideal situation is to accommodate both sets of needs. Personally I prefer 100% remote but if someone wants hybrid then that's fine too.

I say secretly because usually I'm a strict remote advocate because I acknowledge that executives really would like everyone to be back in the office and I'd rather kill myself than do that.