Remote Work

Cities will always be Cities

Since humans started settling in permanent locations, large cities have always been centers of trade and economic opportunity. It’s very rare that innovation happens in a basement in the middle of nowhere; it’s always in a garage in Silicon Valley or at a University (another magnet to great minds). This post is going to capture some of my thoughts about how COVID has affected the workplace, and how I think that things will go back to normal eventually. Keep in mind that these are only my opinions, and only my opinions on a very specific industry. I’m strictly thinking about how this will affect tech.

Surrounding Yourself with Smart People

Economists have studied the effects of living in more populated cities enough to know that the best way to increase the wage of a high skill worker is to move to a city. There is, of course, a lot of inertia preventing people from making these moves.

• Kids
• Extended Family
• Current Job (the stress of leaving one job for another)
• Home ownership (and the stress of moving all ones belongings)

There have been social experiments to remove some of this inertia. Some programs will offer help finding jobs (although LinkedIn basically fixed that), some will offer a moving stipend, but the most successful programs had to offer both money and an advisor who could help people before and after the move. I read about all these studies in Good Economics for Hard Times.

The reason I’m mentioning this is because I still see the benefit of large cities. People there are influenced and motivated by others to succeed. Even with COVID and the internet, all the benefits of cross pollinatating talent between companies and free flowing ideas are still there. I don’t see a scenario where this changes permanently. When COVID is over, and people resume in person communication, I believe that cities will be exactly what they were before.

The internet keeps us connected, but also changes a lot of the context in which we have conversations. While I was at work, I noticed that every conversation, meeting, and videochat was always a strict transaction of information. People in the org would only talk to another if they needed something. We weren’t having the same free conversations that we used at lunch. I used to sit with stronger engineers at lunch specifically to learn about things I would never imagine asking about. I can’t ask questions to people if I don’t know what to ask for.

Being in person allows engineers to create stronger relationships with each other. They become more connected, less likely to leave for another job, and more committed to the mission. I don’t believe that these kinds of relationships can be built completely over a Zoom call.

People have short memories

Once this is all over, and people are let out, they’ll resume the same things they used to. I don’t think that anyone is going to let this pandemic permanently alter a huge part of their lives. I think that people will still wear masks next flu season, but that’s it. I see people returning to big cities, and the world going back to normal.

Junior vs Senior

I don’t believe that junior engineers can be successful working from home. I have exactly 0 friends that say that were as productive at home as they were in the office. There are just too many distractions at home to be equally successful. There is such a thing as place dependent memory. Psychologists have studied the effects of memory when a subject moves physical locations. It’s kind of like state dependent memory, where you remember something more if you study it in a given state, and are put in the same state. I believe the same thing happens for productivity. If I designate the office as “the place to work and be productive,” then that’s the place where I’ll work and be productive. When I’m at home, these lines are very blurred.

For more senior engineers, since they are more effective with their time, I don’t think this matters as much. They can spend less time mentoring younger engineers and focus on their individual tasks. There’s no avoiding meetings, but even those only account for so much of a given day.