Leaked Zoom all-hands: CEO says employees must return to offices because they can’t be as innovative or get to know each other on Zoom::Zoom CEO Eric Yuan discussed the benefits of in-person work in a leaked meeting.
Ice cream factory urges its employees not to eat ice cream.
Couldn’t have said it better myself! It’s like telling someone to work at an ice cream factory but not have any ice cream. Just doesn’t make sense.
Glad I’m not a stockholder, since the CEO basically says their only product, remote connectivity, stifles innovation and connection. What a world.
They’ve gained about 1.2 billion in market cap this week based on stock price. The super rich do not experience consequences.
Sure, that’s the sensationalist and reactionary headline, but I think the real lesson to learn from all this is that with remote work, like many things, moderation is key. The CEO is not implying “innovation” and “getting to know each other” is necessary for every meeting because it isn’t. So what he’s really saying is whenever those two aspects are necessary, Zoom won’t suffice.
I don’t think we should take any lessons from what CEOs say. If studies show that too much remote work indeed makes for worse results, I’m fine with it. If a CEO says it? Most likely a lie.
Seriously I don’t understand the mindset of people who treat everything a CEO says as gospel. How much is a CEO actually involved in the collaboration or innovation going on at the IC level? Somewhere between “barely” and “not at all” I’d guess. No doubt the CEO has personal reasons he wants people back in office, and just put some BS in the all hands meeting to make it sound good
I’m going to choose to believe the CEO is actively trying to tank the share price for some reason. This is approaching get fired or sued by shareholders level.
Golden parachute too nice to pass up.
They should try using Teams, should solve the problem.
Better upgrade them* networks dawg
Why tf do out of touch executives and managers always think that we want to make friends at work? I don’t really care to know any of my coworkers, I just want to my job in a professional manner, get paid well for it, and then either go home or close the laptop and leave my home office.
Also the only creativity that the office gives me is how to creatively get around the Internet restrictions they place on us, or how to creatively appear to be working when there’s nothing to do.
If I wanted to make friends I’d go to a bar or something else that adults do together in groups, like bowling leagues.
Depends on the type of work. Workshops and strategy sessions are definitely better in person than online for me.
Okay so what are you getting from either of those that you can’t get from attending the same on Teams/Zoom etc.?
Workshops also just feel like school and the presenters always talk too fast, quiet, or accented for my hearing and ADHD to make it worth me going to one, some dedicated study time always was the better route for me.
Meanwhile strategy sesh’s are just conversations with an end goal, nothing difficult about that at all.
One thing people who are against work from home have to realize is that not everybody functions the same, some people do better remotely, others need the office.
I just wish we could be treated like adults and work in the way we feel most comfortable and efficiently without being mistreated over it and without being astroturfed against it by entities like the Wall St. journal and Bloomberg, sorry rich people but I just don’t give a fuck about your corporate property values.
Okay so what are you getting from either of those that you can’t get from attending the same on Teams/Zoom etc.?
I don’t get the “Bill, we can’t hear you; you’re on mute” twenty times per hour. Or the guy who doesn’t realize he should be muted but isn’t, and the chat is flooded with his background noise. I don’t get to whisper snarky comments about the presenter to my coworker whom I’m sitting next to. I don’t get to spontaneously engage people hanging around the coffee stand between sessions.
There are tangible differences between remote and in-person. As much of an introvert as I am, and as much as I love working remotely, I recognize that I do better collaborative work when I’m in-person. YMMV, but mine doesn’t.
Does your company not do water cooler sessions for your team? Also you can message people during presentations online to gossip. I just did it yesterday to make fun of some idiotic desperation move our execs are getting ready to pull.
When people say “you can’t do X remotely” what they actually mean is they either put no effort into it or they can do it, but it doesn’t feel the same to them, which is a completely different statement.
I found that keeping up with people over video works better when you’re in the same time zone. When I was managing teams at +8 hours and -12.5 relative hours, communication and trust just weakened steadily over time and creative collaboration stalled. Spending a week there in person usually got things unstuck.
I know people on split engineering teams between LA and Seattle who prefer all virtual and it’s worked long term. LA to NY I think would be a heavier lift.
And, of course, this whole discussion is always dominated by software engineers; there are lots of jobs that involve actual manipulation of matter where in person collaboration is essential to communicate skills.
Oh definitely, timezones do throw a wrench in things a bit, but there are easy ways around that usually, splitting engineering teams like the way you described is a pretty good workaround.
I completely agree that jobs that just can’t be done remotely obviously shouldn’t be, but any job that can be should have the option available. I just feel like most of the work from home backlash comes from people who cannot do their jobs from home and managers/executives that just want someone to babysit, usually in order to justify their own professional existence. It just seems like a lot of “crabs in a bucket” behavior.
deleted by creator
Okay so what are you getting from either of those that you can’t get from attending the same on Teams/Zoom etc.?
Firstly real human interaction. There is a lot of team building that can occur just from having lunch together. Second, just physically being able to put sticky notes or drawing lines and watching someone else do so without having to have someone try to point out where exactly they put something to you in a virtual whiteboard is way more efficient.
Workshops also just feel like school and the presenters always talk too fast, quiet, or accented for my hearing and ADHD to make it worth me going to one, some dedicated study time always was the better route for me.
Firstly if you just have a presenter talking to you, then that doesn’t sound like a collaborative workshop. Workshops might have someone who guides the discussion but never just presenters otherwise that’s not really a workshop and more just a presentation that can be done online.
Meanwhile strategy sesh’s are just conversations with an end goal, nothing difficult about that at all.
I am not sure what kind of strategy sessions you are having but when you are setting things like commercial STRAP for divisions of 20K or more employees, you need more than just a conversation. You need to draw out roadmaps, have working sessions, even the human interactions through lunches and dinners plays a big part.
One thing people who are against work from home have to realize is that not everybody functions the same, some people do better remotely, others need the office.
It’s not black or white. I am a remote worker who travels regularly. Would I ever give up being remote. No. More than half my job can be done from home and I am not wasting my time travelling to the office. But that doesn’t mean I don’t acknowledge when something is just better in person. Not everything is perfect remote and not everything needs to be done in the office. You can have a mix of both and choose based on the requirements of the task.
Additionally, the type of people who are in positions to set organizational strategy are usually the types of personalities that do function between in person because they are typically extroverted personalities. It’s not like I am suggesting you bring a developer to an on site session. I am talking about leaders.
deleted by creator
Some person in WorkReform was defending mandatory RTO because an office environment was supposedly more secure. I called bullshit on their claims. Apparently a “cybersecurity expert” lol
I don’t care if companies want to waste resources on buying commercial properties. But don’t force people to go back to the stupid office. It worked for the past 3 years. Profits are higher than ever. People got to spend more time with their families since hours were no longer wasted commuting and sitting in traffic.
Also seems like many companies use this culture bullshit as a reason to force RTO. Motherfucker. I produce output. You generate capital. You pay me. That’s our fucking relationship. Fuck your “cUlTuRe”.
Did you have a counter argument for calling bullshit? Because he probably had a point, there is definitely a niche for that level of security. It just generally involves state secrets.
Certain classifications of documents require access only from physically secure locations, called SCIFs, where all access is monitored and logged. Things like phones and cameras aren’t allowed to prevent any data leakage.
That’s not too say you can’t be secure remotely, but really only against outsiders. Good luck stopping an employee from taking a picture with their personal phone of classified blueprints off their monitor at home. Good luck even knowing they did it before the data is gone.
When you factor in social engineering being the most successful type of “hacking”, an office setting is undeniably more secure. However, most offices don’t need that level of security, because data breaches aren’t a matter of national security, so remote is an acceptable risk.
Well that was an impressive way to destroy your entire business model
Ya, this guy is toast. He just told the world he thinks his product sucks - the sane know he’s wrong at least.
From a security perspective, the product has sucked for many years now, but it never halted their popularity. If he can survive Apple needing to intervent to remove a web server they installed on people’s machines, he’ll survive this.
Removed by mod
I mean, the guy that heads Teams literally said meetings and subsequent overuse of Teams due to ease of making and doing meetings, is a productivity killer.
I agree. The problem is meetings.
And the idiots who schedule many of them…
Sounds like to many meetings. Can’t do work at a meeting.
He’s not wrong, remote meetings do suck for getting to know your coworkers, but that’s not a great reason for rtw
I legit use my remote meetings to get to know my team. If there’s not too much work to talk about
Dang, I just applied to a couple positions there. I’ll go ahead and retract those :D
Oh cool, guess I can cancel my Zoom subscription then.
2010 is the year we started going full “remote work” and we sold our office building in 2012. Since then we have somehow managed to thrive and innovate like crazy. I am pretty sure these guys know that what they are saying is bullshit, at least as it relates to tech. Creatives, maybe, but in tech it is far easier to screenshare and discuss than it is to lean over some dude’s shoulder to look at their screen…in dark mode…with nano fonts.
It’s purely about control. WFH is cheaper and more efficient.
WFH being taken from folks is just about real estate. Yet another reason why capitalism is gonna kill us all. You know how you get a bunch of cars off of the road? WFH.
There are three other options:
- Good Public Transit
- Somewhat working Public Transit + escooter
- Ebikes
Those things are fine, but don’t negate the problem of pointlessly being required to travel to a pointless office.
I don’t negate, but this also solves how to travel to relatives.
You’re not wrong but all those things require costly infrastructure changes whereas many jobs can be wfh right now with no upfront cost required.
Both would be cool though
Third option does not require new infrastructure even if you don’t have PT. Just make city-wide limit in 30 km/h, then maybe ban cars.
Capitalism is gonna save us.
