Zillow's CEO is warning that the future of work/wfh where those who come into the office are viewed as better employees

Feb 15, 2021 442 Comments

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TOP 442 Comments
  • Yes it will. You we’ll be left out of a lot of conversations and will not have visibility
    Feb 15, 2021 18
    • Tesla / Eng
      maksjapalo

      Go to company page Tesla Eng

      maksjapalo
      FB's got it right with the consumer vs producer split. In fact imo remote work forces producers to improve their language communication of tech things. And also in the long run, like a decade or two, managers are going to get disposed, atleast pure mgmt role which is just relaying info from one group to another without actually providing any hard, tangible produce. In the future, producers will produce about 70-80% of their time and then manage systems the rest of the time as managing systems will get easier with better tools that producers produce 🙂
      Feb 20, 2021
    • SpaceX
      qadwed

      Go to company page SpaceX

      PRE
      Google
      qadwed
      "Meaningful conversation is always the direct result of intentionality." 100% agree. If you have something important to tell me, do it. If you have something that is not important enough to communicate with me intentionally why do you think grabbing me walking down the hall is a good time?
      Feb 21, 2021
  • Cisco
    Trvth

    Go to company page Cisco

    Trvth
    Ask yourself this: what does Zillow benefit from high demand and low supply on housing? Remote working is bad for a company who depends on overpriced real estate markets.

    Truth: it won’t impact your career. Good companies would have processes in place to ensure productivity and measuring contributions. Reality is unless you physically sit next to everyone you work with then you work remote (aka via a computer)
    Feb 15, 2021 14
    • Verizon
      IfCi24

      Go to company page Verizon

      IfCi24
      Exactly what I was thinking..Zillow’s bottom line is in housing as such they’re just trying to protect their revenue. I would have to hear this from an impartial source
      Feb 20, 2021
    • Intel
      wnmx47

      Go to company page Intel

      wnmx47
      Isnt remote working good for zillow? People moving away from big cities and buying houses everywhere
      Feb 20, 2021
  • The more I read how the remote folks will be discriminated, the more it reminds me how it was considered to be a common sense to discriminate against women and other minorities. How it is easier to work with people "exactly like you" (i.e., the white males) and so on. Now we see that these ideas are toxic, inappropriate and significantly reduce the pool of talent the companies can hire from.
    The same thing will happen with remote workers. Very soon it'll be considered ridiculous to discriminate against fully remote workers.
    Feb 19, 2021 14
    • Amazon
      Bananamaus

      Go to company page Amazon

      Bananamaus
      ---"How it is easier to work with people "exactly like you" (i.e., the white males) and so on."---

      You work with white males? Wow, I'm like the only one in my org. You must not be in a technical role.
      Feb 20, 2021
    • I meant no reference to woke or virtue signaling. @yoyohs, @xhtehaaer, @zhoustra, got my point right: discrimination against remote workers is similar to other forms of discrimination in that colleagues/managers may assume remote workers do their work "worse", or "less", or are less interested in career advancement.
      Maybe "discrimination" is not the right word, "exclusion" is better, but I'm not sure it would convey my message.

      @Bananamaus, oh come on. I didn't add "Asian" because in the current world all companies are actively fighting discrimination.

      At Microsoft there are already talks on how to make sure the remote colleagues are included and can deliver at full capacity. Let's see how it goes. But it reminds me a lot of other things on diversity and inclusion. Discrimination/exclusion not necessarily based on gender, race, etc., it can also be religion, lifestyle (e.g., having kids or not) and many other things. Likely, in the near future it will include preference to work fully remotely.
      Feb 21, 2021
  • Wish
    AfUS83

    Go to company page Wish

    AfUS83
    This really isn’t controversial. Clearly you’d rather promote and work with someone who you can talk to in person and have lunch with to build trust.
    Feb 15, 2021 11
    • Capital One
      dneila

      Go to company page Capital One

      BIO
      ...
      dneila
      Tesla you seem to be communicating that trust, bonding, cohesiveness is not important. It could be my misteading and Imapologize in advance.

      Productivity and engineering accumen is essential and required. In addition to that, trust is also a relevant factor.

      One can certainly build trust in different ways but being authentic, getting to know the person, what they like, what they don't like, their passions and challenges, do help a lot to any team. Lunches allow one to focus on a 1-1 conversation covering these. Most companies have 1-1s but I find lunches to be more human, natural and fun.
      Feb 21, 2021
    • Tesla / Eng
      maksjapalo

      Go to company page Tesla Eng

      maksjapalo
      I'm saying lunch may or may not build that cohesiveness. But results and debating around solutions, even through a screen share call can be fun 🙂 Setting isn't important as much for me as long as intent is sincere
      Feb 21, 2021
  • Amazon
    be furious

    Go to company page Amazon

    be furious
    If you’re a SWE I think you’ll be fine WFH permanent. If your goal is to rise up into management or leadership then I do think it will hold you back to some degree (on average, obviously at certain companies you can manage remotely since they are all remote).
    Feb 15, 2021 8
    • Amazon
      Bananamaus

      Go to company page Amazon

      Bananamaus
      Perhaps, but if you want to climb the management ladder, if you have big tech experience, there is a world of opportunity in small and medium sized regional companies throughout the US. If someone were to bring their big tech talent back to their hometown, they could make a killing climbing to c-suite roles for companies that are respectable but not well known.
      Source: know a fair number of colleagues who did it, and get job offers from my old network in my hometown to do the same. Seriously questioning why I haven't done it yet.
      Feb 20, 2021
    • Amazon
      MzaK82

      Go to company page Amazon

      MzaK82
      Bananamus great idea. Always thought myself of doing something like this. Learn from BigTech and carry them into smaller(or slower) tech practices.
      Feb 21, 2021