codexjourneys

The trick here is, what if you would rather do something else, as in a different job or start your own company? People need the option to pursue their dreams, or it's a dystopia.

By this logic, we wouldn't have some of the breakthroughs made throughout history. Outsiders have made some pretty interesting leaps (later honed by experts). Expertise is great, but it can exist outside of formal education, and it isn't the only metric.

Totally agree, it can be a bit of an echo chamber. I had an infection post-dental-work. Bing Chat insisted I had swollen lymph nodes from a cold that would resolve on their own, then decided I had a salivary gland infection. After a follow-up with a real-world ENT, it was (probably accurately) diagnosed as a soft-tissue infection that had completely resolved on two rounds of antibiotics. The AI never raised that possibility, whereas the ENT and dentist examined me and reached that conclusion immediately.

I do think AI is great for discussing some health things (like "how should I interpret this report or test result?"), but it's too echo chamber-y and suggestion-prone for accurate diagnosis right now.

Why wouldn't it work with 2 or 3 unified days onsite and 2 or 3 days wfh, with a no-meetings, minimal-interruptions directive on wfh days? I think this structure, if well managed, would work even better than the old 5-days-in-office.

This will be counterbalanced by the fact that WFH is better for many employees from a work-life balance perspective, so higher-performing employees who have more choices will tend to gravitate toward companies that allow WFH.

I expect many companies will arrive at an equilibrium with at least 2 days WFH for focused work and 3 days in-office for collaboration. This seems to already be happening since the % of companies offering hybrid is up this year. The question is how many great employees laggard companies will lose before accepting that.

(Caveat: this does not apply to companies doing mostly ground-breaking work that have more mission-focused, highly qualified applicants than they can handle. Some companies may be surprised to find they are no longer in this bucket.)

I just thought the topic sounded interesting. It's back up now.