
Facebook to shift permanently toward more remote work after coronavirus - Bahamut
https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-to-shift-permanently-toward-more-remote-work-after-coronavirus-11590081300
======
neonate
[https://archive.md/XBbjV](https://archive.md/XBbjV)

[https://www.theverge.com/facebook/2020/5/21/21265699/faceboo...](https://www.theverge.com/facebook/2020/5/21/21265699/facebook-
remote-work-shift-workforce-permanent-covid-19-mark-zuckerberg-interview)

~~~
TheBlerch
Thanks for posting the article link. Archive.md, which is a fantastic service,
started throwing a 403 Forbidden error and 1001 error from Cloudflare a few
days ago. Any idea what’s causing it? Cleared cookies and cache for it
already. However I’m able to get to your archived article.

~~~
kablow
Cloudflare dns doesn’t support it, if they’re your dns provider. Some browsers
are using them for dns over https which may be the culprit.

~~~
odensc
More specifically they don't support CloudFlare's DNS. The operator of
Archive.(today/is/md) has decided to specifically provide bad IPs when the
EDNS client subnet extension isn't provided, which CloudFlare's DNS doesn't
provide due to privacy concerns.

A lot more discussion on this topic:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828317](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828317)

------
dang
Related ongoing thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23264521](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23264521)

------
rargulati
I do feel like HN is having a rehash of a conversation we've had many times
this past month. I'll post my favorite comment [1] on the matter of remote
salary adjustment, which captures a key market effect we all seem to forget
(Bay Area specific):

\-----------------------------------------------------

"Cost of Living" adjustments are a red herring, what they really are is really
"competition density". There are plenty of tech companies paying great
salaries in the bay because they have to, otherwise they would just go work
for someone else. On the other hand, if you lived in Oklahoma you aren't going
to say no to $LOCAL_OFFER+10k just because bay area salaries are
$LOCAL_OFFER+90k.

As long as this disparity exists, I forsee bay area salaries and CoL still
being high. Until companies move headquarters out of the bay, the trend will
continue.

\-----------------------------------------------------

Similarly, in this thread, Consultant32452 states [2] that the real argument
is between those who can demand a high salary regardless of geography, and
those who can only demand a high salary _because_ of geography.

The mistake is many people in the latter group think they are in the former.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23162855](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23162855)
by hn user nemothekid [2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23265158](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23265158)
by hn user Consultant32452

~~~
polote
> I do feel like HN is having a rehash of a conversation we've had many times
> this past month.

It is not only on remote work, same with Google privacy issues, Zoom issues,
micro service/monolithic, Electron... Most of the big conversations on HN have
been going on for a long time and still do

~~~
allendoerfer
Most conversations of humankind are going on for a long time. Why are we?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Because we're human?

~~~
isakkeyten
Or are we dancer?

~~~
brachi
My sign is vital

~~~
bitforger
my hands are cold

~~~
zrkrlc
Go back to Reddit, jeez.

------
ironman1478
I might be in a minority here, but I really don't feel like full time WFH is
more productive. It could be indicative of my work place's culture only, but I
feel like there are many more meetings now & communication is much harder.
Also, it's nice seeing everybody at work, getting lunch, having a coffee break
with people, whiteboarding, etc. There is a huge social aspect that is lost
with WFH that zoom can't replace. Imo that reduction in socializing has
reduced my work performance because I've noticed I just sprint ahead for 4+
hours straight and burn out really hard at the end of the day.

~~~
whateveracct
As an employee, it doesn't matter if it's more productive. You greatly
increase your pay per hour of work given that you don't have to commute and
you definitely don't spend 8 hrs of work consumed by work like you are forced
to when in an office.

Productivity as an employee is about meeting a bar (that you partially define
along with your employer). Caring about maximizing productivity is the goal of
your employer. But you have some leverage in this job market so it's not like
they can squeeze you dry. Remote only helps the employee side of that
adversarial relationship.

~~~
bobmalone123
Why do you see the employer/employee relationship as adversarial? Perhaps you
are working in the wrong company. You need employers as much as they need
employees. It’s a myopic view.

~~~
Frost1x
An employee/employer relation is mutually beneficial but that doesn't stop
conflict. The employer is still going to try and optimize to get more out of
that relationship than it puts in. The employee should also do the same.

Just because you're working together in a circumstance that benefits the two
parties doesn't mean each party is not also working against each other to some
degree to better optimize their self-interests.

An employer may need an employee to create something and by creating and
selling that thing, an employer and employee may both get a cut and benefit.
None of that prevents the employer or employee from attempting to get a larger
cut or do less work (invest less time) to receive their cut. Extremes to
either side cause the relationship to collapse but there's definitely wiggle
room in the margins beyond a 50/50 split.

I've yet to meet a single employer that doesn't try to optimize on labor costs
in that relationship through some component or another, directly or
indirectly.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
This is a pretty fascinating perspective to me, one I had never considered. I
had always thought of the employee who is paid more than the value they
provide as being lazy and a leech. But that’s exactly what the corporation is
doing: trying to make a profit by paying for less value than they capture from
their employees.

~~~
gfxgirl
I don't see my employer as paying less than the value they get from me. I see
my employer as accepting a risk I'm unwilling to accept. If I go do things on
my own I have so many things I have to deal with. Assuming you start a
business then insurance, taxes, deductions, payroll (gotta pay yourself from
your company) plus I have to market my skills, network, find customers,
negotiate contracts, and always worry if I don't I'll go hungry or miss rent.
Or, I can just show up at some other company as an employee and in exchange
for getting less than the full amount they take care of all of that and all
the risk.

~~~
Frost1x
>I see my employer as accepting a risk I'm unwilling to accept.

Which is also true. At the same time, risk is highly relative which is why
this situation is feasible at all. What's risky for you to do as an individual
is not of the same order of magnitude of relative risk when you consider
scaling of available resources.

Example, Alphabet, Amazon, or Company Y decide to invest $1 million in a new
SaaS 'X' effort with some monthly fee in an attempt to build a successful
product/service. These companies have arrays of pre-existing successful
products/services they've built (typically diversified) that generate stable
profits. Relative to that sort of expected profit, SaaS 'X' is a drop in the
bucket. If 'X' fails, it's the same absolute monetary loss ($1 million) but
the relative risk of losing $1 million isn't significant to any of these
businesses, it's small relative to their total resource pool of disposable
assets. Loss recovery will also take significantly less time.

On the other hand, if I as an individual go through the effort to form an LLC,
develop SaaS 'X' myself and fail, $1 million is nothing to scoff at. Even if
you're in the higher income scales of our industry and making $300-500k+/yr
for labor, you're looking at ~3-4 years or so of potential losses and values
that are probably near or a bit more than your total personal assets, at the
very least I'd say 10%. If you start an LLC and get a loan or have some
investor drop money on you, $1 million is still likely going to be a lot
relative to your loan. It's highly likely that if 'X' fails your business will
fail. There's high relative risk here (there are some mitigations strategies
from your personal assets but it's still significant). You're probably going
to face noticeable financial hardship or have to revert back to the labor
market due to business small failure rates.

Risk is mitigated through scale, snowballed growth, and diversification
(amongst other strategies) in our economic system through initial successes
that often occur either through true innovation/market creation/penetration
and/or sheer luck.

------
spacephysics
Similar to other people on Twitter and Shopify’s announcement thread, I think
this might be an excuse for corporations to reduce their commercial footprint
and save money by opening applicant pools to larger areas of the country with
cheaper CoL (and perhaps the world, different time zones are tough though).

What about work visas? Will this encourage more visas, or will citizens become
unsettled after more cost effective labor is remotely hired while they’re left
competing against far cheaper world economies. I can see arguments for both
expanding H1B program, and making it more difficult/selective.

Something about this doesn’t feel right, the pandemic isn’t nearly as bad as
was predicted. It’s been devastating, but nothing like 1918. That is to say,
perhaps these drastic actions of mass WFH will have implications we can’t
predict yet, especially at scale.

Will cities become less congested? How about home life, if WFH becomes
standard in 5 years time, and some positions that are easily remote are hard
to find physically, will home life become disrupted? (Currently domestic
violence, child abuse has soared, though this is most likely due to the stress
of the pandemic, and not the WFH itself. Through school, work, etc tends to
allow those at risk to form social networks, and reach out for help from their
abusers.)

There is something to say about spending time away from immediate family. Some
people need the break, others are synergetic and can spend all their time
together. Depends on the persons involved. But let’s not celebrate just yet,
there’s obvious economic incentives, and it isn’t clear this can be reliably
reversed. We’re rarely given the full list of motives, which may not be in our
best interest.

~~~
dillonmckay
I never realized how many people relied on work and school to reduce contact
with their family until this pandemic started.

I don’t know where we go from here, though.

~~~
remarkEon
I suppose I've seen the two extremes of this. People who are really annoyed
with their family, and others (mostly women) who probably won't go back to
work when this is over because they actually get to see their kids. Not sure
which cohort is larger but I do see some benefits with people, who want to I
guess, having an avenue for spending more time with their family.

That said I personally hate working from home. Never ever thought I'd say it
but I long for my office cubicle as my work has totally monopolized what's
usually my own personal space for side projects and zoning out.

~~~
alexilliamson
You're one of the lucky few with a cubicle. Do you think you would feel
differently if you worked in an open office?

~~~
remarkEon
I sort of have a "half" cubical, with a ~5' high wall divider to my right and
in front of me (and my back is to the wall). If I worked in a true open office
you're right I'd probably be more reluctant to return.

------
sb52191
I've read a few of these work from home related articles here on HN and I have
to say, I'm super surprised by how many people are both vehemently against the
idea of remote and generally pessimistic for what it would mean for society.

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but my main hobby outside of work is outdoors
related. I consistently spend my Friday nights driving 3+ hours to the
mountains. The idea of being able to up and move to a mountain town, save the
hours I'd be commuting to work AND commuting to the mountains, is so exciting
to me. And that's on top of just the happiness I'd get being able to look out
my window and see (what I consider) nature vs the cookie cutter buildings of
suburbia Silicon Valley. Where are the cyclists, the surfers, the
skiiers/snowboarders, dirt bikers, rock climbers, etc etc in these threads? I
really can't believe there are that few of us...

But on top of just hobbies, I'd be so excited to see what society could look
like in a much more remote world. I think a lot of people would spread out and
leave Silicon Valley (but not everyone obviously). I think you'd see more
small/medium sized towns pop up across the US that would develop their own
uniqueness and character. Traffic deaths would likely go down because people
would drive less. Maybe general physical fitness/health would go up because
people aren't sitting in their cars and have time to exercise? People working
minimum wage jobs would likely have better access to housing as demand spreads
and isn't as concentrated. We could see a maaassssive change in the lives of
the population, and I'm optimistic it would be for the better.

Note: I'm not saying everyone should be fully remote, or that working remote
works for everyone, but the general lack of any real optimism about what life
COULD be like in these threads is surprising to me.

~~~
kthxbye123
I think it’s much more likely that, rather than empowering employees to live
rich and fulfilling lives outside of work, a massive shift to remote will
drive down wages everywhere to the level of the cheapest locations where
talent can be found - so instead of living on an SF salary in Coer d’Alene
you’ll be living on a Lagos or Jakarta salary - while obliterating the
distinction between “work life” and “home life” and massively sharpening the
knife of competition hanging over every engineer’s head

This may be different in firms where the workers actually have a say in the
management of the company, but god knows there aren’t too many of those

~~~
sb52191
"I think it’s much more likely that, rather than empowering employees to live
rich and fulfilling lives outside of work, a massive shift to remote will
drive down wages everywhere to the level of the cheapest locations where
talent can be found - so instead of living on an SF salary in Coer d’Alene
you’ll be living on a Lagos or Jakarta salary"

I disagree. If companies felt they could readily get the same level of talent
outside the US, why wouldn't they do that currently? Just set up their
business in a foreign country and recruit internationally? And if they're
still hiring domestically, why are you so sure they're going to dramatically
reduce salaries? They still have to attract talent. If an employee wants to
move from the bay area to Wyoming, and their employer says their pay will be
cut 50%, what's to stop them from applying to Twitter or another company
allowing full remote with (I'm assuming, I haven't checked) a much more
competitive salary?

"while obliterating the distinction between “work life” and “home life”"

I've seen far too many emails sent by people at 11:30 PM and followed up with
another email at 6 AM for me to believe this hasn't already happened. Not to
mention the self imposed aspect of it (neither of those emails NEEDED to be
sent at those times).

~~~
hadlock
Last couple of companies I worked at, they are already outsourcing "average"
work. We had a QA manager in the bay area, and then he had a team of six
people in SE asia doing QA/QA automation. On the engineering side we had a
team of 20 engineers in eastern Europe working for less than 30k/year usd
working on bug fixes and test coverage, UI fixes, modifying legacy code from
the original monolith that didn't change a whole lot etc

In the bay area we only had five engineers, mostly focuses on architecture,
R&D, new products etc, and even then they only came in two-three days a week
mostly for face to face meetings. The VP had a lake house in tahoe and would
work remote for 2 months every summer.

I can see a bunch of legacy code maintenance/qa work moving offshore further,
but there will always be a core group of five to ten engineers who meet at the
central office a couple times a month. Remote will increase but humans still
need face to face contact periodically.

~~~
bluekite2000
Yeah I know a bunch of QA companies in Vietnam. How did your company find
them? I am Vietnamese American myself and have spent a lot of time in the
region. It is an amazing place w/ a hungry yet educated youth population,
great food, beautiful beaches and quite fast internet. Surprised not many
American companies heading there to recruit.

~~~
hadlock
We initially hired the QA manager as our first QA hire, then he built the team
in his country. After a couple of years we paid for his visa and he lives in
the US now and has been with the company for over five years.

We went through Vietnam including Nha-trang on a tourist trip two years ago,
of which I think Nha-trang is sort of their tech capital, I was really
impressed with the level of development there and how modern it was, although
I didn't talk with anyone directly in the industry while I was there. It
definitely had an international modern vibe compared to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh
City.

~~~
bluekite2000
I would replace Nhatrang with Danang. Danang is the next big coastal tech hub
now.

------
sbuccini
"Facebook will reduce the pay of workers who move to less expensive areas."

Personally, this is a deal breaker for me. I don't want to get paid less for
doing the same amount of work. In a remote world, deciding where to live
should be a personal decision of how one spends their income. Facebook doesn't
pay employees less because they decided to drive an expensive car to work.

Facebook, along with all other tech companies, make crazy amounts of revenue
per employee. The pay reductions will be a rounding error on the company's
budget. Why not keep salaries the same and get the absolute best talent in
every market across the world?

~~~
zerr
Companies (e.g. Mozilla, Gitlab, now Facebook) often forget another side of
the coin - "less expensive areas" most of the time means _worse quality of
life_.

Also, all of those companies say "less expensive areas" while they really mean
"lower wage areas" \- which doesn't necessary align with the former
preposition.

~~~
disabled
> Companies (e.g. Mozilla, Gitlab, now Facebook) often forget another side of
> the coin - "less expensive areas" most of the time means worse quality of
> life.

Exactly. Also, if you live in the “middle of nowhere” or even outside a major
metro area on the east and west coasts of the US, the quality of healthcare
substantially declines. Considering that the third leading cause of death in
the US is preventable medical errors, living outside of these areas can
literally be a death sentence. It is only a matter of time before it is likely
to become the case for an individual, healthy or not.

As somebody with 2 rare neurological diseases affecting my peripheral nervous
system, plus type 1 diabetes, remote work helps tremendously. But, living in
the boonies would literally, in no exaggeration, kill me. So, I need a salary
that allows me to live in a major decent metro area, plus allows me to pay for
my healthcare. That is non-negotiable. Every day, working in the US is looking
less appealing. I can legally work in select places in other parts of the
world, and plan on leaving the US. There are other places in the world that
have universal healthcare, that do not have huge disparities in quality across
similar geographical areas.

You can find out more about healthcare quality worldwide and the US by
examining the data on [http://HealthData.org](http://HealthData.org)

~~~
pbourke
Moving from "daily commute distance" to "occasional long trip distance" would
still be huge. Moving 2-3hrs out from major east and west coast metros would
massively increase affordability.

~~~
disabled
You are missing the point: I still need a lot of care, and the quality of it
allows me not only to work, but to stay alive. I have at least 1 appointment
per week for my medical care, if not a minimum of 2. Sometimes I can have 4
appointments per week. It is not just a matter of having to commute, however
long that may be. In an emergency, where I am located matters, and living 2-3
hours outside a major metro area can easily hasten my death, with my medical
issues. Rare diseases tend to be systematic, with limited treatments. They are
also not easy to treat either. In my case in particular, I am technically more
susceptible to having other rare conditions too. My rare diseases are immune-
mediated.

But, where I live absolutely matters. I also require a lot of healthcare
contact, where living 2-3 hours outside of a city just does not work.

------
zaptheimpaler
In this thread: SF engineers realize how well paid they are. Did not complain
about 2x salary bump when moving to SF. Will complain about 0.5x when moving
out of SF. Signs of realization that pay is only weakly correlated with skill
yet to be seen.

~~~
OrangeMango
> Signs of realization that pay is only weakly correlated with skill

This is of course the big problem. Facebook is admitting that developers
elsewhere in the world are just as good as developers in Silicon Valley. Or if
you want to put it another way: if Silicon Valley is special, it's NOT because
the developers.

~~~
zaptheimpaler
Personally, i think there was a time where we genuinely needed to solve hard
engineering problems - around 2010-2015 when a ton of companies figured out
concurrency, distributed systems, scaling, way better web tech, smartphones
etc.. in those times companies needed a LOT of good devs, so the network
effect Silicon Valley had was valuable. And the VCs saw huge empires to be
built and so much money on the table, so high salaries were easy to justify.

Now the market is crowded, scaling is a simple economic problem, the network
effect is turning on its head and there isn't any revolutionary software to
build on the horizon. Times have changed but the narrative hasn't caught up
yet.. its going to suck when it does honestly. Software is just so
commoditized and cookie cutter at this point i can't see it being a great
career for much longer.

~~~
Hermitian909
There are still a lot of hard problems to solve, they're just cross-
disciplinary.

Software is the infrastructure of the 21st century and if you step out of the
tech bubble to things like material science, biotech, etc. you'll see that
their infrastructure is _garbage_ despite there being really big returns
available.

Developers who can marry modern software to those domains should remain in
high demand for decades.

~~~
zaptheimpaler
Do you have any companies or spaces you would recommend where theres hard
problems but low signalling/barriers to entry? I'm autistic AF (no joke) and
learn new domains in a frenzy of 3 months of joy and digging but its not easy
to prove/signal that.

~~~
dkn775
The best one is state or local government. You’ll be able to make a lot of
change and get tons of experience with a low barrier to entry.

Anything related to public safety (including transportation) probably needs
the most tech talent.

------
dmode
Here's an interesting quote from the verge version of the article

"We ran these surveys and asked people what they want to do. Twenty percent of
our existing employees said that they were extremely or very interested in
working remotely full time. And another 20 percent on top of that said that
they were somewhat interested"

Another way to read this, is that 80% employees are not interested in remote.
Companies doing this at large will probably realize that remote work is not
popular as it made out to be.

[https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/21/21265780/facebook-
remote-...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/21/21265780/facebook-remote-work-
mark-zuckerberg-interview-wfh)

~~~
matuszeg
Wouldn't that be 60% are not interested. 100% - (20% very interested) - 20%
(somewhat interested). People who are somewhat interested do not count towards
being not interested.

~~~
dmode
I don't know how the survey was worded. But if they asked me, would have said
"somewhat interested", in that I want to work from home 1-2 days a week, but
no way all 5 days a week

~~~
jonathathan
> extremely or very interested in working remotely full time

It sounds like you are not at all interested in working remotely full time

~~~
filoleg
Correct, but it sounds like there was no option for "strongly interested in
working remote part-time".

What other option is this person supposed to pick then? Saying "not at all
interested" skews the results of the survey to mean that this person is not
interested in remote work whatsoever.

Imo in the absence of "strongly interested in working remote part-time"
answer, picking "somewhat interested in working remote full-time" is the most
rational choice.

------
troydavis
Open access article:
[https://www.theverge.com/facebook/2020/5/21/21265699/faceboo...](https://www.theverge.com/facebook/2020/5/21/21265699/facebook-
remote-work-shift-workforce-permanent-covid-19-mark-zuckerberg-interview)

> In a move that illustrates how swiftly the COVID-19 pandemic is reshaping
> the global economy, Facebook said today that it would begin allowing most of
> its employees to request a permanent change in their jobs to let them work
> remotely. The company will begin today by making most of its US job openings
> eligible for remote hires and begin taking applications for permanent remote
> work among its workforce later this year.

> “We’re going to be the most forward-leaning company on remote work at our
> scale,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in an interview with The Verge. “We need to
> do this in a way that’s thoughtful and responsible, so we’re going to do
> this in a measured way. But I think that it’s possible that over the next
> five to 10 years — maybe closer to 10 than five, but somewhere in that range
> — I think we could get to about half of the company working remotely
> permanently.”

------
joelbluminator
Is this the start of the end of Silicon Valley (and other major tech hubs?) I
know I'm being dramatic, but they can hire smart developers anywhere in the
world. You could say what works for them won't work for a young startup but
I'm not so sure honestly

~~~
lvice
> but they can hire smart developers anywhere in the world

Sure they can, but the Silicon Valley has an immense human capital in skills,
talent and knowledge that you can't find easily in the rest of the world. The
type of complexity, the scale of the systems and the engineering culture that
you can find in SF is not common around the world. My experience as a
developer in an European country is that it is really difficult to encounter
engineers with a real experience in developing truly complex systems and
companies with true engineering cultures. This is simply due to the fact that
the majority of the companies that need that high quality of engineering and
are willing/capable to pay for it are based in the Bay area, therefore
creating an ecosystem that is unique in the world. Of course there are a lot
of exceptions, but I don't think the "they can hire smart developers anywhere
in the world" is as easy at it may look.

~~~
higeorge13
These high-quality engineers and researchers have moved from all around the
world to be in SV, it's not like they love to live in SF, LA, NYC or even in
the US. They would easily work from their homes and close to their families in
their countries, even with half of their current compensation.

The effects of such decisions are going to be immense; people in the developed
countries still live in a bubble thinking they are not going to be affected,
but things will probably change dramatically the next couple of years.

~~~
bespontovy
> They would easily work from their homes and close to their families in their
> countries

But what if they wouldn't? For people from some countries, getting to live in
the West is a major benefit on its own. (I have to say I'm a bit afraid that
the WFH shift will make immigration way more difficult than it is now.)

~~~
higeorge13
Moving to the west might be a dream for a lot of people but also requires
sacrifices. Removing the "immigrate to work" factor from the list of
sacrifices will make a lot of people to return to their roots and still work
remote to their dream jobs and companies with a great compensation which is
probably 2x the local one, unless they have already created a family there. I
can't say this will be definite for every country worldwide, i am more biased
from the crisis-hit European countries, e.g. Greece, Italy, Spain, which faced
tremendous talent migration to richer countries during the last 10 years and i
can say that most of them would easily return back home if they could work
remotely to top-notch US companies.

------
eezurr
Potential downsides include:

1\. Increased eye strain from staring at a screen all day. Look up "Computer
Vision"

2\. "Zoom" fatigue. Less participation in meetings because interruptions need
to be repeated to be heard.

3\. More hours sitting in the same chair in the same position.

4\. No pre/post meeting conversation to catch up/tie up loose ends. (This wont
work in a zoom meeting where you cant turn and lower your voice to the person
sitting next to you).

5\. Now no second place. The US is already losing it's third place
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place)
. Where are you going to make friends and find a romantic partner?

6\. Transfer of real estate cost to employees. Especially couples. Now you
might need two offices in your house.

7\. Machine learning employee monitoring programs. i.e. spyware on your own
computers. Is your APM up to par? Cant fake me you scrag.

8\. Video monitoring in your own home. Can your boss see (and hear?) you
working at your desk?

9\. Habit building: used to hit the gym before heading home? Now it's less
convenient to get there.

10\. You now have to feed yourself, at your own expense. You get to clean the
mess too.

11\. Live in a the city in a tiny bedroom or studio apartment? Do you have
roommates? Have fun working in that environment all day.

12\. Attention seeking children/pets at home while you're trying to work

13\. No more office perks.

14\. Have an annoying neighbor who wont turn the music down? Live next to a
hospital?

I could go on

------
Diederich
As an aside: the announcement started at 10:00 Pacific and Mark continued to
speak for an hour.

This story (and many others!) were created and posted well before any of the
details were mentioned.

I'm not saying that's bad, but it was strange getting e-mails from people with
links to fully formed news articles even while I was watching the announcement
live.

~~~
packetslave
It's very common for large companies to give stories to journalists early with
an embargo date/time.

#notspeakingforfacebook

------
LordFast
Managed mixed teams before. Best of luck to FB management on getting things
right.

I would prefer either one without mixing. One shoe in one shoe out is a great
way to make it extra hard to manage.

~~~
eloff
As a remote worker I've seen it done well and I've seen it done poorly. I
think you have to go remote first, with all meetings and communicating being
inclusive for the whole team. If you decide something face to face, send a
summary via slack or email.

Anyway details aside, it can be done, it's just it has to be a deliberate
effort from everyone in the office.

~~~
jonpurdy
Totally correct. The default modes of communication should be asynchronous, or
if a real-time meeting is required then everyone should be on video in
separate places, even if most are in the office. This prevents situations
where the remote workers are at a disadvantage because of a bad audio or video
setup. If the audio sucks for everyone, they'll find a way to fix it (plus
it's way easier to capture individual audio than a room full of people).

The benefits are also there for people who go to the office since there ends
up being less tribal knowledge and more written down or documented somewhere.

------
derivativethrow
These are the requirements for an existing employee to move to full-time
remote, according to the all-hands today:

1\. Level IC5 or higher (this is what most would call "senior").

2\. Can't have performance less than meets expectations in last two reviews.

3\. Permission from team and manager.

~~~
cma
Sounds like Scientology's requirements for making trips out of the compound.

------
knorker
Thank you Facebook for being a leader and forcing competitors to at least
consider the same, and other companies to cargo cult it.

More jokingly: I guess Facebook employees didn't get the hint when they got
the biggest open office plan in the world. Zuck must have been very confused
when they made the worst office in the world yet people still showed up. Now
he's pretty much telling them to stay away. I assumed he's tired of
interacting with "people" all the time, while building a social network.

------
alanlamm
I am surprised that of the pages and pages of comments that I have read (about
500+ comments), few discuss the potential implications of (a) having virtually
all of a business's communication (not just the emails and such, but now also
the meetings) potentially tracked and monitored, and (b) whether a remote
workforce would be even less well equipped to identify/call-out improper
corporate behaviour. Would the Google employees that called-out some of the
surveillance projects, or the Uber employees that called out harassment exist
remotely? And if they did, isn't it just so much easier to get rid of them?
"Susan will not be joining the call today. She no longer works here". A
scenario in which HQ gets to know everything while every individual is forced
into need-to-know seems dystopian to me.

~~~
wyattpeak
I don't know how much I think it would have an effect. Google employees didn't
know about the surveillance projects because they found out on-site, they knew
about them because Google chose to make them known. Plenty of companies keep
secrets from their employees, and those secrets largely remain safe despite
employees working on premises. And outside of Google, who had until recently a
very open culture of critiquing decisions, almost all calling-out happened
through non-company channels.

And is it really so much easier to get rid of them? Presumably they'll have
the same legal protections they previously did, and having to be physically
removed from the building isn't exactly a major limitation on firing.

------
ChrisMarshallNY
Hmm...I wonder if I'll be hearing from them again. I've been recruited a few
times by FB, but the relationship ended when I told them that I won't be
commuting into the city to work in that massive bullpen.

Unlike a lot of folks, I don't have much against them. The people I've
interacted with have been a decent, diverse, crew, and I use the platform
fairly lightly.

The chances are better than even that I wouldn't be considered a "cultural
fit" with the company (I'm a bit "long in the tooth," and I've found that's a
"showstopper," these days).

Also, I specialize in writing native Apple software in Swift. I don't think
that's a stack they are really interested in.

Still not sure if I would take any jobs there, but it hasn't gotten past the
initial phase anyway, so it has not been a decision that I've had to struggle
with.

~~~
packetslave
> The chances are better than even that I wouldn't be considered a "cultural
> fit" with the company (I'm a bit "long in the tooth," and I've found that's
> a "showstopper," these days).

Anecdata: I'm 40+ and as far as I can tell, I fit in just fine.

> Also, I specialize in writing native Apple software in Swift. I don't think
> that's a stack they are really interested in.

A recent earnings release said that 90+% of FB ad revenue is from mobile.
Between Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsAp, IOS is definitely a company priority
(although I don't think we've publicly released stats on Android vs. IOS).

I don't actually know if/how-much Swift we're doing vs. ObjC (I'm on the
server side of things, not the client)

~~~
ChrisMarshallNY
The people I talked to described a massive ObjC monorepo (Instagram). Not sure
about the FB app, but you guys did invent React, so I suspect that platform-
dedicated solutions are not high on the guest list.

------
realbarack
I've added the news on Facebook's permanent WFH policy in this spreadsheet
where I've been tracking WFH announcements:
[https://airtable.com/shrC1mvKjwntaqocO/tbl73UY1jDmReLge7](https://airtable.com/shrC1mvKjwntaqocO/tbl73UY1jDmReLge7)

~~~
mFixman
This is really useful. Thanks for accumulating this data!

~~~
realbarack
No problem! I'm glad you found it useful.

------
saiya-jin
Brainstorming over a coffee/lunch/whatever, pair programming/debugging
(especially debugging!), and generally meetings in person can't be replaced
effectively by any video call. It just doesn't work, and never did. Maybe with
proper VR one day it will, but I will be retired by then.

Folks here who benefit from commute cut will keep celebrating WFH like new age
of something, but for many companies, especially multinational corps, that's
desperate temporary measure and it sucks for most folks in one way or another.

Managers don't want it, many employees don't want it. Don't keep your hopes up
just because few companies change their policies a bit to look more attractive
for new hires. Also as other state, expect some salary re-adjustments based on
that.

------
alexchantavy
As a city guy, I'm somewhat concerned about how this pattern of remote work
may permanently change life in the cities. I enjoy living in a densely
populated area and being around people walking to and from work and having
spontaneous interactions. If knowledge work becomes largely remote then I
think cities could lose a lot of this vibrancy as people may not have a lot of
reason to cluster in this way in the future.

Side note, Richard Florida's "Rise of the Creative Class" talks about a lot of
the effects and benefits of people clustering in cities (but in my opinion he
only does a so-so job talking about the causes), and I'd be curious to see
what other urban planners think about changes like this.

~~~
chillacy
On the bright side though, cities might become more diverse (instead of being
tech bubbles where only programmers can afford rent). It may also undo some of
the brain drain happening to cities in the middle of the country, which could
revitalize / modernize them.

------
veselin
One should keep in mind that all the "forever" claims by corporations are
forever only until some VP quits. The moment the productivity of remote
employees goes measurably worse than the one of local employees, there will be
immediate reason to reverse these plans.

Yes, some companies are 100% remote and they do well, but I think it is
because they hire from another less competitive (for compensation) pool. I.e.
they pay low end silicon valley salaries in cheap markets and manage to get
very high-end talent.

------
throwawaysea
I don't think Facebook should adjust pay of workers who move to less remote
areas based on the area. Why compensate differently for the same value
creation? If they do go this route, I hope they make it so that remote works
still come out ahead (on net savings) of the big office sites. The cynic in me
views this as a purposeful policy choice to PREVENT most people from taking on
the new remote work allowance. In other words, this may just be a free PR
splash to show they're onboard with the trend.

> Among the advantages of a dispersed workforce, Mr. Zuckerberg said, is that
> it will enable more demographic and ideological diversity if recruits aren’t
> required to work in tech strongholds like the San Francisco Bay Area.

This is of critical importance in tech, especially with companies that control
the digital public square such as Facebook or Twitter. Allowing employees to
live in different political climates, near family, in different lifestyles
(more rural), etc. is badly needed. Otherwise, the world's digital public
squares fall victim to the ideological monocultures of San Francisco and
Seattle.

~~~
audleman
Let's just say they keep pay the same. All the employees who stay will look at
those who moved to Pennsylvania and bought a 2br 2bath 2,000 square foot condo
for $300k and say "hey, that costs $1.5 million in SF. Why am I not being
compensated for the higher cost of living?"

~~~
kube-system
Just wait until they hear about the people building new 3br homes in PA for
$300k.

~~~
GhettoChild
you can buy a nice new house in most of the country including many of the
largest cities in the country. Only that people always try to find reasons why
the cities that are cheap are not cool enough for them

------
SNosTrAnDbLe
For me, my commute reduced from 1 hour each way to zero and that 2 hours of my
life that I get back had a huge impact on my productivity. I am an engineer
and I feel that I collaborate and prioritize using asynchronous messaging so
much better. Even though I was really working only 40 hours, it felt like I
was working for 60 or even more when I was working from office

------
geodel
A large number of comments here looks like every employee at Facebook is
exceptionally skilled and critically important. I read somewhere only square
root of total employee strength are doing critical work in the company.

Now I do not have any proof of this but I am working at company which would
have may be 5K work force in IT organization. Here I am regularly surprised
that hardly 10-15 names out of 100s pop up every time on any important issue
for projects which I have some relation with.

Doing same analysis with facebook would mean there would be 250 or so
employees who can seriously negotiate salaries with them for being critical to
company. Of course some people would get lucky or unlucky despite being less
or more important. But I think this is delusional to think that most of ~50K
strong workforce in FB will be able to get their compensation demands like bay
area salary in middle america accepted by company.

------
polygot
There's a lot of people who are treating remote work as binary; it has to be
100% remote or 100% onsite. I think that some will benefit from it (those
whose commutes are long for example), and some may have children at home and
thus can't work as productively.

Could it be possible to work from home most of the days, but not all of them?

------
golergka
Cool. Cool cool cool.

I don't live in US and don't want to immigrate at the moment for a variety of
personal reasons. But I am competent and professional, and would be happy to
deliver just as much as a SF-based engineer for half the pay.

(When I said cool, I meant, it's really cool for me. It might not be as cool
for a US-based HN reader).

~~~
higeorge13
Exactly! Most HN readers don't realize the real amount of talent outside of US
waiting for this opportunity. There are thousands of people who would easily
work at any top-notch companies but were just not willing to leave their home
towns, their families, friends, local lifestyle etc. And now they can easily
work to such companies with /2 or /3 of the standard SF wage.

------
sjg007
They are saying the first wave of WFH will be in cities were they have offices
already. In many of those cities Google and Amazon also have offices. Austin
is probably going to become very competitive on salaries as well. And as many
have seen, home prices and COL have risen in these cities accordingly. So if
you do want to work from home for one of the big tech companies be sure to
live in a metro that has at least another big tech company in it.

This will be a boost for "tier 2" metros with tech companies that support this
pattern. Salaries will be going up in those metros. Also if you can WFH for
FB, you should be able to WFH for all the other major tech companies which
will compete for you using salary and stock etc...

------
propman
Competing with the entire world instead of just your city now.

------
trhway
This is basically another way of outsourcing. Looks good on paper as always.
Whether it will really be cost effective - YMMV as many companies found in the
past. While the salaries of rank and file ICs will go down, the salary of
organizationally key people able to manage the outsourced work -
PM/architect/manager - would go up. They would be flown in regularly for
important meetings, paid high cost temporary housing while in the town, etc.
We had that supposedly key architect on the team who was coming for 2 months
every 2 months from abroad and the company was paying for the flying and
everything while he was here.

------
conqrr
This mostly doesn't change much. Most people who come to high pay areas come
for the pay and opportunity and will continue to do so. Sounds more like PR.
It's yet to be seen if productivity is better or worse.

~~~
Diederich
> It's yet to be seen if productivity is better or worse

The rest of the source announcement covered that. It was noted that individual
productivity was the same or better, but there were concerns about
collaboration.

------
fourmyle
I find people who have never actually worked remotely before are all jazzed
going full time remote. People who have done it before, like myself, will tell
them it's not for everyone and has some downsides. Once people realize they
can't just go snowboarding in the middle of the day and need to actively find
human interaction to avoid depression and isolation while getting paid less
they will change their tune.

The ideal setup is 1-2 days per week WFH and flexible WFH while traveling for
the holidays so you don't have burn through vacation days IMO.

------
caogecym
This would increase the talent pool for tech companies that goes remote. e.g.
U.S. companies could hire more international developers without sponsoring
work visa for them.

------
torgian
I can’t help but feel like there is going to be a glut of privacy invasive
technologies coming down the pipeline real soon for managers to keep their
jobs.

------
ozzyoli
As a Brit; I'm a capitalist with a sprinkle of socialism.

I'm disappointing none of these tech companies are acknowledging the happiness
that comes from camaraderie and togetherness. (Note: I don't have a family
though)

I love the company of others; and the unpredictability of what my day has in
store when I venture out my front door.

Everybody working from home for me sounds like one step closer towards a
blander, lonelier, disengaged, dispassionate, oppressed workforce.

~~~
maigret
You can still find places to work with other peoples, or spontaneously meet
your colleagues in a much nicer (and possibly nearer) place. When the COVID
crisis will go, you'll find tons of options to meet people thorough the day
and enjoy a great social life. Working from home is a pandemic thing,
afterwards you could work from anywhere you want.

------
ulfw
"Facebook will reduce the pay of workers who move to less expensive areas."

That is ridiculous. A job is a job. Also what prevents anyone from keeping a
California phone number and a PO Box in Menlo Park or wherever? At what point
have you 'moved'?

Note: I don't advocate doing this. I neither work in CA nor at Facebook. I
just wonder if this doesn't open things up for being to game the system.

~~~
thirtyseven
"Hey ulfw, would you mind coming into the office tomorrow for X? Shouldn't be
an issue since you're local..."

~~~
ulfw
The idea is to not come into work as you're WFH permanently in this setup.

Listen I am not advocating doing this. I don't even live there nor do I work
at Facebook. I just feel like this is easily gameable.

~~~
city41
I doubt most people will take the risk of gaming their employer.

~~~
kube-system
...Or the IRS, on your W4.

------
nostromo
Our cities are going to be so sad after all of these changes. Knowledge
workers are all going to be in the suburbs or working from home. Restaurants
and bars will be shuttered en masse. Parks and shopping plazas will be empty.
Trains and busses will be ignored in favor of cars.

This really does look like it could be the end of new urbanism and the revenge
of the suburbs.

~~~
nameless912
Counterpoint: as a late 20something software engineer, I'm taking the
opportunity to work remotely as motivation to move to a (cheaper) city and
live right in the heart of downtown. Now that I can choose where I work, I can
move to a city I love that's a bit cheaper than my current location, own a
house in an awesome neighborhood, and hopefully take much more advantage of
what the city has to offer. As of now, I've done very little exploring in my
current (very large) city because 1) I live on the outskirts to be able to
afford my rent, 2) I had to drive almost an hour each way to get to work, and
3) I was so "busy" due to my commute that I was exhausted in the evenings and
busy with keeping the house in order on the weekends.

Frankly, working remotely is giving me the opportunity to actually participate
in the city culture I wanted so badly, but on a scale that's much easier to
digest and enjoy.

------
oxfordmale
Working from home doesn't work with Facebook's appraisal system, where you
need to s __* up to your peers and managers all the time to get anywhere in
your career. Most Facebook employees will eventually be back in the office, as
it is difficult to build up such relations when remote working only.

------
mv4
many things will change. Traffic, real estate prices, salaries.

------
rcpt
I don't really like working from home but I hate the Bay Area.

Same price as NYC but it's a boring sprawling suburb no different from Florida
or Texas. Sure the mountains and weather are nice but I'm not paying rent to
the trees.

------
imheretolearn
In my opinion, WFH vs on-site is analogous to reading a physical book vs an
e-book. Some people will prefer one over the other. Considering the above
analogy holds, most companies will allow both, remote work and on-site.

------
urmish
Imagine all the cultural export that used to happen earlier from California.
All that will ideally either stop or tech companies will somehow find a way to
make it worse and bring cancel culture to remote workplaces.

------
aelleth
Zuckerberg live Q&A:
[https://www.facebook.com/zuck/videos/10111936118050541](https://www.facebook.com/zuck/videos/10111936118050541)

------
mfDjB
With all this remote work going on, does anyone know whether this will affect
whether companies are willing to relocate people to the USA? Would be a real
shame if that was to go.

------
xtat
Also, zucc publicly stated intentions to adjust salary for anyone that moves
out of the bay area. You can tell already it's gonna suck to work remotely at
facebook.

------
rajacombinator
My productivity and quality of life are both much higher WFH. And I’m even
more willing to work longer hours, for any gulag drivers who happen to be
reading.

------
focus2020
Companies are realising the amount they save with infrastructure Costs. Even
indian service companies TCS is going 75 percent workers fully remote.

------
dzonga
great move, from fb. given they've a global product. it democratizes
opportunity. plenty of people suffer from the misfortune of having been born
in the wrong country. I see the trend continuing. one thing, I see is
immigrant friendly countries gonna benefit from this more e.g Canada, Chile.
And places with high quality of life, low cost of living.

------
allsystemsgo
Amazing how many people are so against remote work here.

Hey, here’s a thought. Let people choose how and where they work best.

/thread.

------
gabagoo
Ironic that a company so eager to do this still does not have any legitimate
customer support staff.

------
diogenescynic
Where will all these Bay Area people move to if they leave? Sacramento, Tahoe,
Los Angeles, Denver?

------
bg24
Winner: Human talent, no matter where they live. Loser: Real Estate.

------
jonny383
Now all of our personal data can be accessed from home. Lovely.

------
sbuccini
"Facebook will reduce the pay of workers who move to less expensive areas."

Personally, this is a deal breaker for me. I don't want to get paid less for
doing the same amount of work. In a remote world, deciding where to live
should be a personal decision of how one spends their income. Facebook doesn't
pay employees less because they decided to drive an expensive car to work.

Facebook, along with all other tech companies, make crazy amounts of revenue
per employee. The pay reductions will be a rounding error on the company's
budget. Why not keep salaries the same and get the absolute best talent in
every market across the world?

~~~
lokar
All (most?) big companies already set pay based on local market conditions.
This is actually based on what pay levels are in the market, not cost of
living.

~~~
whalesalad
Doesn’t make it any easier to swallow. Your value as an employee is not
coupled to your physical location.

~~~
audleman
Cost of living is higher if you live in a major metropolitan area. That higher
SF salary gets you the same amount of goods and services as a lower salary in
Utah. This is a pretty basic concept.

If you want to get paid the big salary, move to the big city. Don't complain
about higher rent and cost of food. Or live frugally.

~~~
lghh
But there is value in living in those higher CoL areas (hence them being
higher CoL) that you sacrifice living in a lower CoL area. You sacrifice on
space to live in SF, but you get all the other benefits which is why people do
it. If I sacrifice the SF benefits, why do I then also have to sacrifice my
CoL/pay ratio without any additional gain?

------
izzydata
What if I live in San Fran, but just live in my car? That should save a lot of
money.

~~~
gregkerzhner
I know a lot of people that do this (in their vans). Its not actually as crazy
as it sounds - the van is comfortable and you can shower in a gym.

~~~
hackissimo123
I know a couple of people who live out of their vans. I believe them when they
say it's not actually that bad and they like it.

But at the end of the day, while I doubt they'd admit it, the main reason
either of them do it is because they can't afford anything else, even though
they have full-time jobs and work just as hard as the next guy.

Isn't this a sign of a broken housing market? What kind of world are we
creating where significant numbers of people are forced out of economic
necessity to live in vehicles?

------
xtat
kicking and screaming

