[onion2k]

I don't think it's a matter of wanting to "be hip", but a case of recruiting being a huge problem for most companies. Renting out the 'cool' co-working spaces of WeWork probably isn't their long term goal.

If BigCo has exhausted the talent in their city they have three options left: employ remote workers, pay people to relocate, or open satellite offices and pay a little more than then the local businesses to get people. WeWork is enabling the last option at scale. Renting managed office is a viable business model that's been happening for decades.

Whether there's enough of a market to make WeWork work is another question, but there might be. Anecdotally, a large insurer recently opened a new office in my city here in the UK because they've had 40 open positions in their London office for years. They've already filled half those positions. They wouldn't have done that without renting a large office on a business park.

[ForHackernews]

There's also option four: raise salaries. Historically, that's what companies have done when the labour market is tight.

Though obviously somebody must have crunched the numbers and decided these WeWork things are a cheaper bet.

[alexgmcm]

I agree - but it makes sense to try to spread work out in other cities rather than have all the jobs in London with soaring CoL and struggling infrastructure.

[winningcontinue]

I don't understand why BigCo would ever go with the last option after talent exhaustion. The former two make way more sense.

[onion2k]

A big company that's resisted remote working will find it hard to integrate remote people in to their teams. Remote is great, but unless everyone is in favor of it it can fail horribly - a manager who insists on having oversight of what people are doing at any given moment will kill any chance of remote workers being productive. Consequently if you have a big team at 'head office' who aren't used to or good at managing remote people then remote won't work.

Paying people to relocate from a small city to the most expensive place in the country is exceptionally difficult and expensive. Many developers here in the UK see London as a really bad place to live unless you're paid more than £100,000. Developer wages in London are often not £100,000.