<story><title>Automattic is closing its San Francisco office as most employees work remotely</title><url>https://qz.com/1002655/the-company-behind-wordpress-is-closing-its-gorgeous-san-francisco-office-because-its-employees-never-show-up/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tuna-piano</author><text>If true, it seems like a silly way to reduce headcount.  The employees who feel like they need the job will move, but those  who know they can get a job elsewhere will not.  This adverse selection leads to some of your best employees leaving, with your worst staying.&lt;p&gt;Better to just pick and choose who you want to keep.</text></item><item><author>Androider</author><text>If you ask anyone inside IBM or Yahoo, going from remote to in-office was all about significantly reducing the headcount. The moves also coincided with reducing the number of sites, so many people would have to move far away or resign.&lt;p&gt;I think the benefits of working remotely are still poorly understood, and long-term the companies that are being built remote-first are going to have a significant engineering advantage over those that bolt remote working on after the fact.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dreamcompiler</author><text>&amp;gt; This adverse selection leads to some of your best employees leaving, with your worst staying.&lt;p&gt;Doesn&amp;#x27;t matter. Failing public companies like IBM and Yahoo don&amp;#x27;t care about better vs. worse employees; what they care about is reducing costs, and that tends to make better employees &lt;i&gt;more&lt;/i&gt; likely to be laid off, because they&amp;#x27;re more expensive. Wall Street doesn&amp;#x27;t give a damn how good your employees are; it just wants them to be cheap.</text></comment>
<story><title>Automattic is closing its San Francisco office as most employees work remotely</title><url>https://qz.com/1002655/the-company-behind-wordpress-is-closing-its-gorgeous-san-francisco-office-because-its-employees-never-show-up/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tuna-piano</author><text>If true, it seems like a silly way to reduce headcount.  The employees who feel like they need the job will move, but those  who know they can get a job elsewhere will not.  This adverse selection leads to some of your best employees leaving, with your worst staying.&lt;p&gt;Better to just pick and choose who you want to keep.</text></item><item><author>Androider</author><text>If you ask anyone inside IBM or Yahoo, going from remote to in-office was all about significantly reducing the headcount. The moves also coincided with reducing the number of sites, so many people would have to move far away or resign.&lt;p&gt;I think the benefits of working remotely are still poorly understood, and long-term the companies that are being built remote-first are going to have a significant engineering advantage over those that bolt remote working on after the fact.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mprovost</author><text>This is called the Dead Sea Effect:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;brucefwebster.com&amp;#x2F;2008&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;11&amp;#x2F;the-wetware-crisis-the-dead-sea-effect&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;brucefwebster.com&amp;#x2F;2008&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;11&amp;#x2F;the-wetware-crisis-the-d...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>