While I'm sure there's some kernel of truth to the benefits of chit chatting about random stuff and coming up with better ideas through that, until I see some evidence that in-office work provides this to a substantial degree, I have a hard time believing it's as beneficial as it's made out to be. What it actually feels like is a hand wavy attempt for some old people in management to try to justify them holding onto their outdated ways.
For companies like Amazon there must be a huge element of the sunk cost fallacy coming into play. I'm sure they have spent hundreds of millions on office locations around the world. To suddenly decide that these are completely unnecessary would be a bold move, and there is unlikely to be a queue of people rushing to lease or buy unused office space in the immediate future.
If I understand your point, you are saying that Amazon has virtually made the data centre redundant, so the idea that offices are similarly redundant given the right tools shouldn't come as too much of a surprise to them?
I take that point but let me counter that there is presumably a sliding scale here between "traditional office space is redundant" and "when the dust settles everyone will be back at their cubicles". The majority of people, and the companies they work for, are probably somewhere in the middle. However, even if Amazon are 100% convinced their office space is now redundant, it is probably, from a game theory type point of view, not in their best interests to publicly declare that position. Because to do so would only weaken the value of their existing office spaces.
> While I'm sure there's some kernel of truth to the benefits of chit chatting about random stuff and coming up with better ideas through that, until I see some evidence that in-office work provides this to a substantial degree, I have a hard time believing it's as beneficial as it's made out to be. What it actually feels like is a hand wavy attempt for some old people in management to try to justify them holding onto their outdated ways.
Yup. I'm wondering how many people are taking advantage of the tools available to them. I've seen remote workers be online in a video chat room so you could "stop by and pitch an idea." This was well over a decade ago.
Those old school managers you mention are the ones I find most likely to stick with things like audio only teleconference, even when there are things like shared whiteboards/documents available, and then they'll talk to slides they didn't send out over email. Incredibly frustrating.
