| > The best ideas . . . happen[] at the office. I believe this is empirically false. Einstein, Newton, Curie, and most of the greatest scientific minds in human history worked alone. The same is true for literature, whether it's Chaucer in lockdown during an epidemic, or Shelley in a summer retreat, or Solzhenitsyn writing away in a remote cabin in Vermont. Teams are great at work, but I don't think they're great at the deep thought that results in new ideas, especially when surrounded by chit chat and buzzing overhead lighting. > The best . . . collaboration happens at the office. This is more plausible, but I'm still not convinced. In-person collaboration tends to be lazy and involves all kinds of weird social dynamics getting in the way of collaboration. Telework requires a bit more thought on the front-end, leading to overall higher quality of collaboration. Performative intelligence-signalling [what happens at most in-person meetings] doesn't contribute to collaboration. Putting real thought into solving a group task, and communicating that clearly in writing to your team, does. "Doing great work generally requires fairly large chunks of time alone." -Paul Graham https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1603172209308082184 |