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The boss of the US software developer OpenAI, Sam Altman, is convinced that new products and ideas are better created in an office than on a private desk in the home office. At a recent payment provider Stripe conference, Altman said: “I think one of the tech industry’s worst mistakes in a long time was the assumption that anyone could work remotely forever.”
Home office is as “experiment” introduced because of the corona pandemic and the associated lockdowns. According to Altman, however, working from home has made people less creative. He considers the experiment a failure. The technology is “not good enough that people can work remotely forever, especially for startups”.
Altman’s position is not new. In January he wrote on the Twitter platform that “Most tech companies that have rushed and permanently switched to remote work made a huge mistake” had. “The cracks are slowly becoming visible”, even if it works for some. At the same time, some of OpenAI’s best people were working remotely. Altman doesn’t want to change anything about that. Interested applicants shouldn’t let their hatred of San Francisco (where the company is based) stop them, Altman said.
Apple: Three days of presence required
Altman is not alone in his general assessment of working from home, especially in the tech industry. the magazine “fortune” according to Disney boss Bob Iger, Starbucks boss Howard Schultz and News Corp boss Robert Thomson would also be critical of the home office trend.
Other companies such as the transport service provider Lyft and Twitter have also ordered their employees back to the office after the lockdowns. Keith Rabois from the venture capital company Founders Fund even says he would not invest in companies that allow working from home.
At the iPhone manufacturer Apple, three days of attendance per week have been mandatory since 2021. Since not all employees comply with this, the group recently introduced a precisely controlled attendance policy. In order to monitor presence in the office, the employees’ digital time stamp cards are evaluated. Despite protests, Apple does not want to deviate from this policy. In the worst case, those who do not comply can be fired.
Source: Nachrichten
