[goblin89]

Additional remote positions do not make a company remote-first any more than additional @media queries make a desktop website mobile-first.

To understand what real “remote first” might mean, let’s define the status quo: “in-person first”.

To me, in-person-first companies are those in which being a remote employee means hampered career potential, and mingling with the right people at the headquarters is sooner or later required to advance.

By that logic, remote-first companies either flip that on its head, or at least make personal presence not a factor while encouraging remote participation.

Becoming X-first implies a fundamental shift. Improving X does make you more X, though.

[jakecraige]

Brian calls this out and describes how Coinbase plans to do this in the “This will require a huge shift in how we do things. How will we get there?“ section.

> To address all of these, we will form a cross-functional team to oversee this transition. This group will identify the changes we must make to become a remote-first company (e.g., around people management, recruiting/talent, culture and connection, and documentation and async work…), host open design sessions with all of you to surface ideas, considerations, dependencies, and concerns, and partner with internal experts to redesign how all of this works for a remote-first Coinbase.

[goblin89]

This would work for a different definition of “remote-first”.

In the definition I believe makes sense there is just one defining trait, and the author manages to tiptoe around it.

It’s unclear whether the changes promised are cosmetic (to convince remote workers they aren’t disadvantaged) or fundamental (actually making remote staff equivalent or even prioritized first before on-location staff).