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Comment by legitster | Hacker News Reader

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.

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I wish I could upvote you twice. If my job was a 15 minute drive away or a 15 minute metro ride away, of course I would happily go to the office.

But what we get is a 1 hour commute each way, to have to find a place to sit in some sort of dynamic desk arrangement, in an open office setting that is noisy at the very least. And those meetings that are so much better in person? Good luck booking a meeting room. Where is the focus and increased productivity?

Come on man. How can you can you call them disconnected? One chap is funding a blimp company, another is building jet packs and flying cars. They know what people need.

"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."

Hat tip to you, Legitster. Louder for the expensive seats upfront.

Say what you will of the robber barons of old, but if you tour the cities of the midwest you will see testaments all over of how they at least tried to improve the livability during their time. They built affordable housing, libraries, bus depots, schools, etc out of their or their company's profits just so they could attract people to, like, Bloomington Illinois.

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