Comment by AndrewKemendo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by AndrewKemendo | Hacker News Reader

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>Why isn't remote working catching on more?

Right now 100% of my startup team is remote. There are definite advantages, but as far as we are all concerned we think the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. Why?

Because the communications mediums available still do not give the resolution we need to communicate optimally. Even with Skype/join.me/freedcamp etc... the turn around time for decision making is orders of magnitude slower with remote teams than it is with co-located teams - especially when you are on different time zones and in different continents.

A perfect example is when we wanted to implement a design and UX change on our beta website. The change came at my request after visiting a customer and went to the CTO and the design lead. The CTO started working on the back-end about an hour after I sent the message, but it was almost a day later that the design lead got the message because he was 8 hours behind. We needed some of the design pieces before the front end could be finished and tied together with the back end. About a day later the design lead finished the design and committed the change. At which point it was midnight US time so another 8 hours till the commit could be integrated. We realized we needed a slight change so we had to repeat this process. The whole thing ended up being a couple days for something that would have taken maybe two hours total had we all been in house.

These lags add up very quickly and have pushed something that would take a day of turn around to nearly a week.

It sounds like your issue is entirely to do with the fact that your team is spread around too many time zones. What if everybody on your team lived somewhere within 3 time zones from each other? That happens to cover the entirety of the united states, canada and mexico, by the way.

I've worked on teams spread across the North American continent and we had no issues with making fast decisions. Most of the time it felt like we were in the same room, since we had a skype group video chat running for 7 hours a day (at which point it would kick us off for being on too long).

IMHO, the reason remote isn't done more often is it's a hassle. You need the right tools in place. You need people with the right mindset. There are tax issues around employing people in multiple states and/or countries. There are also shipping costs involved in sending equipment around the country and/or the world. The lack of control over said equipment and the data on it... the list goes on and on. Each one is surmountable on its own, but add them together and it become so much easier to insist everybody be in the same room. Especially if it's going to be a high stress environment, like a startup.

Still, it would be nice to work from a cabin in the woods.

>IMHO, the reason remote isn't done more often is it's a hassle. You need the right tools in place. You need people with the right mindset. There are tax issues around employing people in multiple states and/or countries. There are also shipping costs involved in sending equipment around the country and/or the world. The lack of control over said equipment and the data on it... the list goes on and on. Each one is surmountable on its own, but add them together and it become so much easier to insist everybody be in the same room. Especially if it's going to be a high stress environment, like a startup.

Bottom line: The founders/company owners/whatever MUST be invested in the company being a fully remote company. It doesn't work otherwise. If you're at somewhere where working remote is handled half-assed, I suggest departing for a place that takes it seriously. They are out there.

Disclaimer: I work for a 100% remote startup.

Though I agree that these are problems that exist with remote working, unless you are able to lose less time and build an equivalent or better team, you may still have come out ahead.

Exactly! Compare the Linux kernel project (globally distributed, world-class devs) to a team of undergrads working in the same room.

Maybe face to face has higher communications bandwidth, but it doesn't automatically win in every scenario.

except the kernel now has strong interfaces between subsystems I think, which aids collaboration by decreasing required communications and making changes more local. Small companies working on a single product lack these.

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