[nextos]

Lots of great startups have remote teams so this argument by Schmidt is pretty weak. Google is hybrid, not even remote. Also, I don't think that well motivated and engineers work or produce less while WFH. It could be the opposite. Less interruptions are key, as explained in Peopleware. But bad managers love controlling people in open plan offices.

Regardless, I found it surprising Schmidt didn't talk about other stuff that differentiates startups. Smaller teams, a lot less red tape, a lot more ownership, less politics... Google should really follow Steve Jobs 2011 advice to Page about focus. Breaking down into a conglomerate was a great idea to bring focus and agility, but it has not been fully executed and lots of the different resulting entities seem dysfunctional.

[gorgoiler]

Interestingly, re: red tape, Schmidt has been quoted from this same talk as saying if you get caught stealing IP then just “hire a whole bunch of lawyers to go clean the mess up, right?”

[quantified]

And that doesn't clean it up, it just moves the mess off of your plate to someone else's.

[kamaal]

>>I don't think that well motivated and engineers work or produce less while WFH.

Thats the whole problem isn't it. Years back I was involved in a project(not WFH), like everyone worked at office. But the manager/lead was sort of a totally disengaged person. He would sit in a conf room all day. And come up with some weird things about freedom to work the way people liked.

There was no ticketing system, the code repo had no real commit and PR rules, no stand ups, no bug tracking, no feature backlog, nobody measuring how the project was going, and if it was even making progress. Only real visible thing about progress was a odd demo every now and then. To make things worse, there were two senior engineers who seem to make their own power structures and bully people into doing whatever they wanted. The project folded quickly enough of course.

Sure if every one was motivated and organised enough, things could have been better. But most people are not. And if people aren't engaged enough they just do whatever they want, or even worse do nothing.

If you are keeping lights on in a project, and have lots of old employees things do work fine with remote work. I think building things quickly, especially big things quickly, does require close 1-1 collaboration, and engagement. I don't think its too much to ask. Sometimes thats just how things work.

[nextos]

I agree, but Google is not even remote WFH, they are hybrid. This is ideal.

You go to the office regularly to sync with people, but also make long uninterrupted bursts of focused work from your home.

[zooq_ai]

can you name successful remote-only startups? Yes, I know gitlab, others?

[spyke112]

Automattic: The company behind Wordpress. https://automattic.com/

37signals: The company behind Basecamp and Hey. With a founder being the Ruby on Rails creator. https://37signals.com/

[SkyPuncher]

I have worked for 2. Granted, they're unlikely to be massive, unicorn successes - but they are successes, none the less.

My opinion is largely the era of the unicorn is essentially gone. Except for extremely rare moonshots (like OpenAI), markets just don't simply have many multi-billions of value for a disruptive startup.

[MobiusHorizons]

I believe tailscale is remote only. Personally remote doesn’t work for me, I feel my motivation and mental health go into a tailspin after a while, but there is no denying some companies have made it work.

[jemmyw]

Aha! https://www.aha.io