Some WeWork Board Members Seek to Remove Adam Neumann as CEO - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/some-wework-board-members-seek-to-remove-adam-neumann-as-ceo-11569171188?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> This has all happened before. The proto-WeWork was called HQGlobal and the firm behind it was Frontline Capital. The whole thing unraveled in the 2000 bust as the tenants all went out of business and canceled their leases at the same time. WeWork is not going to be pretty when the economy turns. Bill Ackman backed Frontline Capital and it pretty much sunk his first hedge fund, Gotham Capital.

<comment><USER3> It can work, but they need more anchors. Stripe, Gitlab, ... companies that are remote but have workers prefer to cowork. Economic downturn might actually help them if they can gobble long term low leases. More unemployed also means more consumer base outside big corporate America. Their biggest threat is small mom and pop coworking spaces like Gravitate in DSM. Geoff wouldn't sell for less than a massive premium, and nobody is going for WeWorks bad service if they tried to compete.

<comment><USER4> Why on earth would stripe pay a middle man like WeWork to manage their office and lease?! Stripe is looking at buying an entire building. I'm pretty sure they can handle a 15 yr lease just fine. And don't need WeWork staff to decide what their office kitchens need.

<comment><USER5> Because demand might be elastic and you can keep costs closer to utilization and outsource stuff you don't want to do like manage an office

Same reason companies pay Google and Amazon for cloud servers

<comment><USER6> But plenty of "non-WeWork" office space offerings have already been like that for decades. They'll provide janitors, receptionists, etc unless you opt for spaces without it to run your own.

<comment><USER7> _But plenty of "non-WeWork" office space offerings have already been like that for decades._

Cynically, those companies have the downside of needing to make a profit. WeWork strikes me as the sort of company that would happily take a massive loss, just to get to brag that Stripe and Facebook use their services.

<comment><USER8> That's 100% been the case - I am familiar with the industry and they have been more than willing to not make any margin in order to get the clients they want (big names, or poach from the competition)

That strategy works great, so long as you have unlimited funding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Mr. Neumann still has allies among the directors and the ability to fire the > entire board thanks to shares he controls that carry extra votes.

It defies imagination that a fund would put 10B into a company whose CEO is accountable to no one. I think we may also see new leadership in SoftBank, or at least their next fund.

<comment><USER10> You can thank loose monetary policy that has created an unbalance between capital seeking returns and the number of investment opportunities. Executives have leveraged this into abusive multi-class share structures that sacrifice shareholder's ability to reign in company behavior. The result is a few tech executives wielding unaccountable authority over incredibly powerful economic resources.

<comment><USER11> > _You can thank loose monetary policy_

I'm not so sure. WeWork is the product of three capital sources.

One, Mortimer Zuckerman, who was "not just their landlords AND seed investor," but also "happened to own Fast Company and NY Post which were instrumental in propping up WeWork in the press before anybody knew who they were" [1].

Two, MBS, who backed the Vision Fund to the tune of $45 billion [2].

Three, Masa Son.

Mr. Zuckerman's investment was too small to be affected by monetary policy. And I doubt the Saudis invested in the Vision Fund because their bonds weren't yielding enough. The only monetary actor is Son, though that is more based on Japan than dollar dynamics.

WeWork's competition, on the other hand, is juiced by monetary policy in the form of construction loan and mortgage rates. But that doesn't create WeWork, just lots of commercial real estate.

[1] [https://email@example.com/is-we-work-a- fraud-5b78...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com/is-we-work-a- fraud-5b78987d3e61)

[2] [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-pif-investment- fact...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-pif-investment- factbox/factbox-saudi-sovereign-funds-strategy-in-focus-idUSKCN1TT0ON)

<comment><USER12> Aren't there also tax strategies/techniques that offer benefits from these investments when they fail as well? That both making and losing money in the VC/FinEng context each have their tax advantages (in the US)?

My impression is that upon this foundation and US interest rate/monetary policies create a perverse incentive where the investor doesn't really have to care too much how the company turns out. Like sure, a success pays off much more, but bankruptcy isn't bad either. Did I dream all this? :)

<comment><USER11> > _Aren 't there also tax strategies/techniques that offer benefits from these > investments when they fail as well?_

The Vision Fund will have a $10bn capital loss to write off against future capital gains taxes. But those losses are worth a hell of a lot less than $10bn in cash.

WeWork has no federal guarantees and basically no assets. Its downside scenario is grim for shareholders. The only one walking away with cash might be Adam, though I expect he'll burn a good amount of it defending against litigious shareholders and possibly prosecutors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> WeWork is a useful product. Office real estate is broken for startups. Landlords make us take 5-10 year leases when startup planning horizons are almost never longer than 18 months. WeWork earning 30-40% margins by allowing us to take shorter terms that better fit our needs. Should be a good business.

<comment><USER14> There is clearly a market for WeWork... and many competitors. WeWork is and will be a great company, no matter what.

WeWork main competitor is Regus, founded in 1989. Regus is now present worldwide with revenues of 2.535 billion GBP (2018). Their market cap is a mere 3.68 billion!

There are also tons of smaller companies in that sector which are not international (mostly 1/2 countries) with much lower valuations.

So, the business model is fine, the market fine, the room to expansion here (especially with growth of remote work). Just the previous valuation wasn't.

<comment><USER15> Have you ever been in a Regus office? They're horrible spaces. They don't _get it_. WeWork is a lot nicer. That's why they're worth a lot more.

<comment><USER16> Yeah. Regus offices are dreadfully bland. Also, they nickel and dime you for every little thing (you want an hour of wifi for that meeting room you booked? it's going to cost you...). Regus is also very expensive, as office space goes.

<comment><USER17> This could be due to the fact that margins are slim and they're trying to make a profit?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Prof Galloway wrote an article just days ago laying out what will happen to we work given the IPO is shelved now. First one was to replace the CEO.

[https://www.profgalloway.com/wewtf-part- deux](https://www.profgalloway.com/wewtf-part-deux)

</comment><comment><USER19> With $700M extracted and long term leases to the company for properties that he owns... One could easily ride off into the sunset.

It will be interesting, and insightful, to see if that is the tact he takes. If he does... It will add credibility to the already strong case for this being deliberate deceit versus unchecked ignorant hubris.

<comment><USER20> He's quoted as saying he wants to be "President of the World" and live forever. This guy isn't riding off into the sunset.

<comment><USER21> So the bank robber type who gets caught after the perfect crime for picking up a penny from the floor or for having one last job too many?

<comment><USER22> Both maybe? Trying for the We trademark money after cashing out 700m seems like picking up the penny, and the various We spinoffs seem like the job too many.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> What kind of company that is controlled by a single man insists on branding itself as "we"?

Even the name of the company is a bold-faced lie.

<comment><USER24> Is your argument that companies that use plural pronouns in their name should have certain types of ownership structures?

<comment><USER25> First rule of getting out of a hole is to stop digging.

Honestly how did you make this logical jump? It's pretty obvious to me the parent post was pointing out that there is a lot of irony in a company, completely controlled by one individual (or his wife if he dies), is named "We".

<comment><USER26> Unless it's the "royal We" and then it's even more potential delicious irony.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Didn't investors, especially SoftBank, enable this behavior? They deserve as much blame for this mess as he does, if not more.

<comment><USER28> Help me understand how this is a coherent argument. I could see making the argument that investors _share_ some of the blame for what the CEO did. How could they have _more_ of the blame?

<comment><USER29> I could argue it either way. But I think it's reasonable to suggest that there will always be people who are scammers (or so oblivious that it amounts to the same thing). We've only heard of Adam Neumann because investors gave him billions. SoftBank in particular gave $10+ billion [1], and I understand that's really just Masayoshi Son making those decisions. So I think it's reasonable to give him a lot of the blame for empowering somebody whose business plan appears to have been surprisingly close to that of the Underpants Gnomes [2].

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-06/wework- ip...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-06/wework-ipo-turns- contentious-at-softbank-s-vision-fund)

[2] [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/profit](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/profit)

<comment><USER30> > SoftBank in particular gave $10+ billion

This is the fundamental conundrum. Softbank has invested a total of $10.65B for a 29% stake in a company that (if valued like the commercial real estate firm it actually is instead of the tech unicorn that it isn't) is probably worth $5-6B if we're being generous. Further complicating matters, We is posting losses and burning cash at an incredible rate and will need additional financing in the very near future. It only makes sense for Softbank to continue to prop We up if they believe they can dump it on a greater fool in the very near future, which is looking less and less likely by the day.

<comment><USER31> WeWorks next finance round was supposed to be $4Bn IPO money + $6Bn loans contingent on the IPO succeeding. Another SoftBank-sized mountain of cash, which is now looks unlikely they'll get. It's interesting that it's the same amount. Maybe this was SoftBank's planned exit?

<comment><USER18> Even if someone were to invest in we work they will expect bargain price, given things considering.

I think SoftBank is probably pushing things further enough until they raise money for their next vision fund.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Considering he has the votes to fire the entire board, I'd be shocked if this happens.

Softbank is completely fucked.

<comment><USER33> Adam has the votes, but not the cash. Softbank has the cash, but not the votes. Arrangements can be made.

Ironically, that's a problem for Adam precisely because We is _not_ Theranos. Holmes had the votes _and_ the cash, which hadn't been spent yet since Theranos wasn't a real business, and she could (and did) just coast for years on what was already in the bank without any need to go to any investors or banks or third parties (who would of course have demanded her ouster as step 1). But since We is a real business with real users and a successful one, We can't just coast on its cash (even if it stopped expansion).

<comment><USER34> > But since We is a real business with real users and a successful one, We > can't just coast on its cash.

We have a very different definition of what does it mean to be a successful business.

<comment><USER35> It's successful in the sense that it could raise prices to make a profit and there's a possibility that it would still have enough customers left. Unlikely the oft-discussed "selling dollars bills for 90 cents" companies, WeWork is creating real value that its customers will pay for. The question is still open whether that value is more than the operating costs, but it's at least possible. I'd bet against it though.

<comment><USER36> Uber is also creating real value for its customers.

<comment><USER37> And Uber could be profitable and create real value for investors. The problem is that, in that case, Uber isn't a unicorn and isn't worth the billions already thrown into it.

<comment><USER36> Ye, but depends on how much loans Uber has if they can ever be profitable. But in theory yes. Just sack 95% of the RnD departement and raise fare prices untill supply and demand even things out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This is just the beginning. Start microwaving some popcorn because this will be quite a glorious train wreck to watch! Hopefully the negative impacts are economically isolated.

<comment><USER39> My popcorn got cold. This train-wreck is taking too long. The suspense is killing me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I don't mean to speak in support of the CEO, and I don't say this to support WeWork.

> The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Mr. Neumann had taken > marijuana on a flight from New York to Israel.

In this day and age, where we have businesses that legally sell weed, this sort of commentary appears to be a pointless inclusion of "salacious" details. It is irrelevant to the discussion of whether WeWork has a legitimate growth model or whether the CEO is doing the "right" thing.

I suspect that SoftBank is attempting to win this battle in the court of public opinion, because they bought shares that didn't have the same voting rights as Mr Neumann's shares, and they now regret that decision.

<comment><USER41> The concern is not over the marijuana use per se, but over illegal drug smuggling across international borders. That shows a major lack of judgment and could have resulted in serious consequences for the charter company if they had been caught. Based on that behavior and other reports I suspect Adam Neumann suffers from narcissistic personality disorder.

<comment><USER40> That seems like a serious diagnosis for anyone to make based off of news coverage alone. I don't think we are helping the dialog when we propagate such ideas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Looks like the IPO delay has caused a back-firing to the CEO.

According to him, it's more like MeWork.

<comment><USER43> More like YouWork, MeEnjoy.

<comment><USER44> YouWork, a Me company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Didn't the two head honchos already redirect some cashflow to their accounts? I think they and their grandchildren will be fine... Softbank on the other hand...

<comment><USER19> Yes... And Softbank was so high on kool-aid they let Adam sell them $700M of his stake. Absolute worst use of investment at that level...

Taking a little out to derisk yourself after a B or greater round is reasonable. Taking almost 10% of a round is obnoxious.

<comment><USER46> ya i was surprised that he was able to extra so much money also.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> He adds very little of value at this point, and only harms the reputation and uses it as a way to funnel VC money into his bank account.

</comment><comment><USER48> Leaving aside all of the headline-making entertainment of Adam Neumann being Adam, the real problem here is that WeWork really doesn't have much in the way of enduring network-effect advantages -- even though it tried so hard to convince investors otherwise.

In many tech-fueled marketplaces, getting big in a hurry is a practically unbeatable advantage. I saw this 20 years ago when I was tracking eBay. No end of little players would approach me and say: "I've designed a better marketplace than eBay. If I just had 1 million users, you'd see how good it is."

But it was too late, and there was no way for them to go from 10 users, to 10,000, to anything bigger. Loyalties on both sides of the market were already sewn up. Both buyers and sellers wanted a deep, super-smooth market where they could transact 10-50 times a month without ever being frustrated by a lack of market depth. When people need a viable market many times a week, switching costs become unfathomably high. eBay owned that concept for as long as it would work. It's been basically the same story for Uber, Lyft, Twitter, etc.

But this is not true the one-time need of renting this season's splashy workspace with free kombucha. Tenants pick their spot and then stay for 3 months, 11 months, three years or whatever. There's a little bit of shuffling around and re-transacting, but not nearly as much.

Besides, if the WeWork concept is that good, it's easy to copy and does not need giant scale to work. That's totally different from trying to build the third ride-hailing service. In this case, someone who owns three office buildings in Chicago's West Loop can convert them to a WeWork clone and rent them just fine to people who want to be in that neighborhood. The fact that this new outfit (WeLoop) does not have a London outpost or a list of 75,000 other tenants in other states is irrelevant. Buyers show up for one transaction (get me a groovy office space in my neighborhood) and then they are done. That is already beginning to happen, in fact.

Yeah, WeWork has a greater ability to serve large corporations that want an ever-changing blend of space in a lot of cities. But that's not its core market. And even if it is, WeWork isn't automatically better off than existing REITs that can tweak their multi-city properties as needed.

So it's brave of Team Adam to go into a lot of cities all at once and tell people that this year's losses will soon give way to profits once the buildings fill up. But that doesn't seem to be happening on schedule. And even if WeWork eventually gets to breakeven, that just entitles it to compete against a lot of established players who already own better buildings in better locations -- and who can clone whatever elements of WeWork design seem appealing to customers.

Getting access to capital on super-friendly terms gave WeWork the ability to build fast, almost regardless of what the short-term economics might be. But now access to capital is getting quite a bit harder.

And that can feed on itself in scary ways. Once capital gets scarce, a lot of expansion plans get much harder to carry out. Now growth slows. And that makes investors more jittery. Borrowing rates go up; loan covenants get tighter, and equity dilution gets more severe. Growth shrinks further. Money gets tighter.

In such situations, it takes a skilled pilot to land the plane safely, let alone regain altitude.

<comment><USER49> I think it's possible there could be advantages for a chain co-working space over independent ones, but it depends on how the market looks long term. Not saying that chain has to be WeWork, of course.

For instance, short term users, who pay the highest rates, could turn out to be a big part of the market. That could be business travelers, companies moving office or setting up offices, companies that need temp office work, etc. They may go for a well-known chain over an independent, just like business travelers often do with hotels. Similar with, as you mentioned, big companies that need to hire in a lot of different cities at once.

It's also possible a big chain could manage to offer better deals than a smaller player if they can negotiate with big, multicity landlords and other vendors or get some kind of special deals for members (e.g., discounts on software, or cheap lunch delivery/taxi service sharing drivers between members).

We also owns Meetup, and I could see WeWork or another chain finding ways to offer additional uses that we don't currently associate with coworking spaces. The advantage could be easy online booking for all kinds of meetings and events, maybe with added features like food and beverage catering.

A chain could also effectively become a marketplace for coworking and other temporary business space needs. Maybe you could book a spot for your company holiday party, or reserve a shopping mall kiosk for a week to do user testing, or even book space at a non-corporate-owned coworking space through your account.

<comment><USER50> > We also owns Meetup, and I could see WeWork or another chain finding ways to > offer additional uses that we don't currently associate with coworking > spaces. The advantage could be easy online booking for all kinds of meetings > and events, maybe with added features like food and beverage catering.

> A chain could also effectively become a marketplace for coworking and other > temporary business space needs. Maybe you could book a spot for your company > holiday party, or reserve a shopping mall kiosk for a week to do user > testing, or even book space at a non-corporate-owned coworking space through > your account.

Much as WeWork could bring customers, I can't help but think Meetup would have been in a much better place to be that middleman for renting interesting and varied spaces without being lumbered with a branded workspace product...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Question, because I don't know how this works. Who sets the valuation on a company?

Does a CEO have anything to do with that, or is it wholly external?

<comment><USER31> If you declare your company has a billion shares and I buy 1 for $1 then you have a valuation of... one BILLION dollars.

If I later buy 1 share for $2 then your valuation has doubled. That is basically SoftBank's business model.

<comment><USER52> Basecamp even made a headline out of it a while ago: [https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/basecamp-valuation- tops-100-b...](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/basecamp-valuation- tops-100-billion-after-bold-vc-investment-fried)

<comment><USER53> > Basecamp is now a $100 billion dollar company, according to a group of > investors who

> have agreed to purchase 0.000000001% of the company in exchange for $1.

Just wow, this is gold.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It seems too late for this to make much of a difference in IPO valuation for investors (really SoftBank) to get the exit they want. Neumann's actions may have been a catalyst, but now everyone is really questioning the "tech startup" valuation and unit economics.

</comment><comment><USER54> Surprised it took this long!

<comment><USER55> Ponzi scheme Hail Mary.

Edit: This isn't meant to be flippant. There is literally no value in this company and its current owners are trying to dump it on a greater fool.

<comment><AUTHOR> Does WeWork not have a crunchbase profile page? I'm curious about who all managed to get out before the Softbank fiasco. Were employees allowed to sell shares on the secondary market, or are they all effectively hosed now?

<comment><USER56> [https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/wework](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/wework)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, not showing up in search for some reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Everyone likes to pile on WeWork, and I get it, but as someone who dealt with both startup and solo office leases in the pre-WeWork era: my God is WeWork's model comparatively amazing as a customer. The spaces are nice, there are no headaches, you can purchase the exact amount of space and duration you need, and you have a guaranteed decent place to do some work or just hang out anywhere you travel.

The "no competitive advantage / anyone can do this" crowd is sort of ignoring the fact that no one did, at least for folks that care about the things I mention.

<comment><USER58> There's definitely pay per 6 minute desks in every city I've worked in in the USA, did you mean something else?

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> No one discusses it, but I thought a bit reason WeWork got this far is that when they started, the financial crash meant commercial leases were very cheap. Since they lock those in for 10+ years, but then their contracts with the clients are 1m month plus, they have seen revenue rise with the economy but costs stay roughly the same.

Its sort of the opposite of the problem banks have where they borrow short term and lend long term.

</comment><comment><USER60> I am randomly bombarded by negative things regarding WeWork on the internet lately. Some posts linked to negative news coverages about WeWork appeared on my facebook feed (business insider articles) I saw somewhere else that how some WeWork division manager wanted employees fired because she didn't like their energy.

I have no opinion about the company neither I want to but I definitely feel pushed to have a negative opinion about them!

<comment><USER61> Yeah when the CEO is basically profiting off borderline fraudulent name licensing and leasing agreements there tends to be some moral outrage

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> I wish a company going public could only release one class of shares. One vote per share.

<comment><USER63> It doesn't appear this company will go public anytime soon, if ever. I give it 90 days before it collapses.

<comment><USER64> It has enough cash in the bank already to survive well past 90 days, even at it's current burn rate

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> I've seen on crunchbase and this app blind that there could be many layoffs. As many as 5000. Whats going on?

Are the extreme cost cuts true?

</comment><comment><USER66> Just like Theranos, investors once again fell for the personality and didn't do their due diligence. Sure, the idea is great, but they have losses exceeding $1.5 B. That in itself would scare me.

</comment><comment><USER67> Playing Devil's advocate imagine having potentially millions of dollars invested in tearing you apart - going through every piece on online history, video, etc., trying to find something juicy to tank the company you've tried so hard to build.

<comment><AUTHOR> What company? What was built? It's a money destruction machine, not a business. They have no plans or experiments or research moonshots that they expect to be profitable, ever.

<comment><USER68> People seem to forget that a lot: losing your shareholder's money isn't a business.

<comment><USER7> _losing your shareholder 's money isn't a business._

True, but if you do it right it can be a very successful career.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Help us find a conference for mathematics and art in the US? - <AUTHOR>

I'm trying to help an artist find a conference or other venue to exhibit some art work he developed which relate to tesselations (objects which cover or tile the plane, similar to to some of M. C. Escher's work).
I've found the Bridges Conference (http://www.bridgesmathart.org/), which is running in Finland in 2016 but we are also interested in smaller conferences, particularly those held in the US.
The medium is linoleum and other floor covering textiles, rugs, carpets, etc. so we are also interested in conferences specific to these materials; so far the ones I've found focus on installation and other industrial uses rather than art and mathematics.
Thanks in advance. <comment><USER2> You may try contacting major art museums in the US they would probably be better suited to answer this question specifically. Ideas would be the Smithsonian in DC or NY Metropolitan Art Gallery.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good suggestion, thanks. I'm also going to look for a local opportunities to exhibit.</comment></comment>


Reinforcement Learning Jupyter Notebooks - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Pulkit-Khandelwal/Reinforcement-Learning-Notebooks <comment><USER2> More great Jupyter Notebooks in the AI field:

1) 16 notebooks from the book "Python Machine Learning" by Raschka & Mirjalili [https://github.com/rasbt/python-machine-learning-book-2nd- ed...](https://github.com/rasbt/python-machine-learning-book-2nd- edition#whats-new-in-the-second-edition-from-the-first-edition)

2) Linear Regression, Logistic Regression, Random Forests, and k-Means Clustering notebooks by Nitin Borwankar [https://github.com/nborwankar/LearnDataScience](https://github.com/nborwankar/LearnDataScience)

3) scikit-learn tutorial notebooks by Jake VanderPlas [https://github.com/jakevdp/sklearn_tutorial](https://github.com/jakevdp/sklearn_tutorial)

4) Lots of deep learning notebooks from the book "Deep Learning with Python" by François Chollet [https://github.com/fchollet/deep-learning-with-python- notebo...](https://github.com/fchollet/deep-learning-with-python-notebooks)

Bonus) Jupyter notebook on AWS tutorial (when your local computer just won't handle your notebook requirements): [http://efavdb.com/deep-learning-with- jupyter-on-aws/](http://efavdb.com/deep-learning-with-jupyter-on-aws/)

Please share your jupyter notebook recommendations.

<comment><USER3> Bonus, Bonus) Google Colab offers free hosted jupyter notebooks with shared access to a K80 and Google Drive like sync. [https://colab.research.google.com/](https://colab.research.google.com/)

<comment><USER4> Kyso also offers free hosted jupyter notebooks, as well as access to free jupyterlab environments in the cloud. We render your notebooks as rich blog- posts. Feel free to check it out!: [https://kyso.io](https://kyso.io)</comment></comment></comment>


Why companies who don't embrace remote working are wrong - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@isev/why-companies-who-dont-embrace-remote-working-are-wrong-e54389c638bd#.9rzzukyky <comment><USER2> Terrible article, however, as a remote worker myself I see both advantages and disadvantages.

1\. Some people's lives are better suited for it. This is especially true in the summertime when the kids are home from school all day.

2\. Having an office is still very nice. Sometimes you simply can't get work done and home and need to come to the office.

3\. Collaboration tools are awesome. Working with remote teams has never been easier if you have the right tools.

4\. When you work from home you actually get more done. This seems strange, but you can actually get more done since there are no random impromptu meetings nor is there the guy that chats you up all morning with a cup of coffee in his hand.

5\. Design sessions are better done in person. White boarding remotely doesn't work very well still.

6\. Remote workers work at night. Give an employee a laptop and he'll work till 2:30 in the morning until the work is done.

7\. Meetings tend to be shorter and more well defined. When people are co- located, there is a tendency to abuse people's time with meetings that have no agendas. When you have to organize people for a meeting, your forced to do a better job planning. That's been my impression at least.

I favor some sort of balance. 2/3 days in office 2/3 days remote seems like a good balance. this allows people to collaborate in person when they need to, but have a flexible schedule for the rest of the week. This sort of schedule actually is a productivity boost and is better for employee morale.

<comment><USER3> I have experienced far too many meetings without agendas.

I would __much__ rather see two types of meetings.

b) A brainstorming session where ideas are proposed (just exactly that, no further discussion of them, even though that part is difficult).

v) A meeting where voting on pre-discussed ideas happens; this assumes you have a discussion mechanism of some sort outside of meetings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think larger companies don't like remote work because in such a setup a lot of middle management has nothing to do. From my experience in remote setups people communicate directly and there is less need for endless meetings. It's also harder to micromanage people. There must be some level of trust.

<comment> at-fates-hands This is a great observation and I can support your idea with some support from my own experience.

I used to work at a large corporation who had a ton of middle management. For a few years people had the ability to work from home in an emergency, but it wasn't something normal and you were expected to be in the office otherwise. At this point, people were working from home less than 2% of the time.

Then we got a new manager, who was a huge promoter of "ROWE" or Results Only Work Environment. within 6 months, 90% of the office were working from home 90-95% of the time. I used to come in on Monday's and the office would be empty, dead, not a peep and where six months ago, we had 15-20 developers working, we now had one or two. You seriously could have mistaken the office as being on holiday - it was crazy.

As such, the middle managers suddenly had a lot less to do. Since results were all that mattered, their jobs of micro-managing all the daily/weekly/monthly metrics they were following and tracking and emailing developers pretty much went out the window. Three months later, 5 managers either quit or were laid off because ROWE made their jobs essentially obsolete.

The funny part is the manager who was all about ROWE ran into some roadblocks for his other initiatives and left shortly thereafter (he lasted just over a year). Once he left, upper management quickly revoked ROWE (even though it had been incredibly successful and raised production 11%) and required people to be in the office 5 days a week unless it was for an emergency.

<comment><USER5> Interesting anecdote. Can you maybe provide details about this "raised production 11%"? How was this measured? I'm baffled to see that they would revoke the policy if it was so successful and removed useless positions.

<comment><USER6> Yeah if it raised production 11% and 5 managers were no longer needed, that would be a substantial savings. Why would upper management revert from ROWE?

<comment><USER7> One reason would be an assumption that ROWE requires a manager like the person that quit to maintain it, and without him, the production would drop through the floor. Upper management were conservatively rolling back to what worked before him.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Very light on facts. (Cherry-)picks a few companies which embrace telework that are successful. Lists four collaboration apps. Fails to make a compelling case that companies who don't embrace remote working are wrong,

Also author's affiliation is unclear. Retweets everything from PukkaTeam (a product mentioned in article) -- which says © isev -- which author works for. A disclaimer in the body or footer of the article would have been welcome!

<comment><USER9> top of the head, duckduckgo , buffer

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This trend of extremely polarizing and provoking headlines is getting out of control.

Reading this headline, I feel like if you're not doing remote work, then you're wrong. Aren't there shades of grey here? Is remote work the way for EVERYONE? I understand that people need to get clicks but this is a worrisome evolution.

<comment><USER11> Agreed. It also completely glosses over the difficulties in managing collaboration across time zones. Yes, software tools make this a lot easier, but there is still the physical limitation of different members of a team working at different hours. And guess what? Some of those team members may end up working longer or later than they'd want to because they're farther away than everyone else.

<comment><USER12> I've worked for companies as a remote worker, and I've owned a company that for its entire lifetime hired remote staff. In my experience, as long as you hire good people, the time zone delta is the only limitation that's extremely difficult if not impossible to overcome. Everything else can be solved with good communication (which should exist anyway), good requirements (which should exist anyway), and good process (which should exist anyway).

If the time zone range of a team is less than about 4, then in my experience the team works quite well. If the range is greater than 5, it almost always encounters problems that even good process, requirements, and communication struggle to solve.

There are always exceptions, of course.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Okay, I get the article is a bit polarizing. I've been wanting to work remotely for about a year now. Remote jobs are hard to get. Here's what I think about remote workplaces though:

\- Remote work is hard. It's tough to get right. However, remote work is worth it. It's worth putting in the extra effort to try and get it right for your work place and your job. You get to spend more time with your kids, your SO, and you can travel.

\- Face time is still important. Remote work makes face time a pleasant treat that you look forward to.

\- Remote work makes financial sense.

\- Good remote workers have to be excellent communicators.

It's not for everyone, but it's important that most organizations at least try and make it a reality for those that want it. Everyone will be the better for it.

</comment><comment><USER14> I would be happy if more companies were open to giving 1 or 2 remote days per week. Breaking up the daily monotony of a commute for even just a single day makes me feel a lot better and less stressed. Makes it easier to do things like pick up your kid after school.

<comment><USER15> This is an accepted, if not encouraged, practice at my employer and it is much appreciated. Entire teams tend to schedule their "WFH" days together as a general time to focus, no meetings, etc. And, the teams that don't schedule together almost always have most members taking 1-2 WFH days a week.

For context: Employer is a late stage startup with ~500 employees that generally embraces remote work with many full-time remote employees.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Since this article uses Spotify as an example, I'll use a Quora reply from a Spotify Employee

 _Does Spotify hire remote employees?

If you have something spectacular to bring to the table and absolutely won't come aboard otherwise. Otherwise, no.

Spotify is not 37Signals - we work in small units called squads, and each squad fits into a medium-sized room. It extremely efficient, but totally suboptimal environment for remote workers, because we cannot shoot you with nerf darts to call your attention when it's time for the daily standup._

<comment><USER17> > _but totally suboptimal environment for remote workers, because we cannot > shoot you with nerf darts to call your attention when it 's time for the > daily standup_

[http://i.imgur.com/TIVp2.gif](http://i.imgur.com/TIVp2.gif)

Do they have tickling contests too?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The headline makes a strong claim and the article actually makes this much weaker claim:

Of course, there will be jobs where telecommuting isn't practical, but in situations where all you need is a computer and an internet connection, then telecommuting is something to try.

</comment><comment><USER19> Good virtual reality could make remote working a lot easier. Face time is important. I don't know if VR meetings could fully replace face-to-face, but I feel they'd go a lot further.

</comment><comment><USER20> My biggest question about remote work is how do you get the culture and knowledge-sharing-through-osmosis (that is, unconference style chats at the watercooler or the pub after work or whatever informal knowledge sharing that happens)?

I work from home 3 days a week, so I still have enough office-face-time for that not to be a problem, but we have a lot of 100% remote workers too (who aren't even in the same country) and who get left out of a lot of informal conversations just because they don't happen to be there when a group of us walks to the shop or whatever it is. We do fly everyone over every few months, and those periods are fantastic, but I still can't help but feel that the remote people are losing out and the company is losing out on their input outside of the normal work stuff.

Would love to hear others thoughts and experiences on this and ideas on how it could be remedied!

<comment><USER21> In a mixed on-site/remote culture, I don't think you do get fair knowledge sharing. In that culture, the on-site workers will always have an edge. And they will be more likely the ones to get promoted.

For anyone looking for remote work, I suggest finding a "remote first" or "100% distributed" company.

<comment><USER20> In a 100% distributed environment, how do you get the same knowledge sharing and culture? Or is it largely not an issue, because everybody communicates the same way (text chat, video chat, voice chat, screen sharing, email)?

Is company culture and the connection that people have as strong? What about the random after-work-pub-chats where people say whats on their minds or otherwise talk about things that they might not during the normal course of the day?

Maybe its not an issue when everyone is in the same boat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think there would be value in distinguishing fully remote from occasional work from home.

I can see reasons to reject the former, but the latter (at least to me) should be a given. If you don't do it, you are losing a significant competitive advantage over the competition to hire great people.

I used to work at a company where WFH was not allowed. We were working with a recruiter to fill a few positions, and the guy was pretty honest, it told us "you guys are at the bottom of the pool because you don't allow WFH".

</comment><comment><USER22> well they have to pay the comute costs, if you ignore everything else</comment>


What I learned in My First Year as a Female Startup CEO - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/p/19ce929c9679

<comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7577535](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7577535)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7584673](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7584673)

</comment><comment><USER3> Author states early on the undesirable result of being an aggressive female CEO is being called a bitch. Half way through the post, she uploads a photo of herself wearing a t-shirt that says "I'm an Entrepeneur, bitch."

Next.

</comment><comment><USER4> (from the article)

[https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/999/1*Cu- LnVKf3kUh...](https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/999/1*Cu- LnVKf3kUhzukK1alYog.jpeg)

Is that how folks roll in the Valley?

I'm curious if anyone has studied the dating/courting patterns of engineers in different areas.</comment>


Everyday Life and Fatal Hazard in Sixteenth-Century England - <AUTHOR> http://tudoraccidents.history.ox.ac.uk/?page_id=177 <comment><USER2> It's kind of thrilling to see the narrative historical detail still available to us at a 500-year remove. There's so much we don't know about Europe in these ages, but we do know that at 3pm on March 11, 1550, the laborer John Rusey tripped over a cart-rut in the road and landed on his own knife, stabbing himself to a depth of 2 inches and dying there. It's almost like you were there...

<comment><USER3> There are many archives across Europe with boxes upon boxes of old documents, 100's of years old, that nobody simply has had time to look at. If it weren't for a 'History of the Law in the Southern Netherlands' course I took as part of my law degree (and frankly, I took it because the schedule fit better around my job than other courses), I would never even have known about the archive near me. The professor took us there one day, we signed in, got given some latex gloves and were each handed a box of documents from the medieval archives of the city (by one of the librarians). They were all old court cases, and the assignment was basically to look through them for a case that looked interesting, try to read it, and write a report on the judicial organization and procedural rules in it.

Anyway, to get to your point: yes it's awesome reading these old accounts of seemingly mundane things, so many years ago, sometimes references places or houses that still exist. I don't think I could ever be a historian and do it for years on end, but just sniffing around a bit (and in a repurposed medieval church, with the complete surroundings just breathing that 'The name of the Rose' feeling, in my case) is, in a way, intellectually exhilarating (who would have thought anyone would ever describe reading 500 year old court cases 'exhilarating'...).

<comment><USER4> > They were all old court cases, and the assignment was basically to look > through them for a case that looked interesting, try to read it, and write a > report on the judicial organization and procedural rules in it.

That sounds like a really interesting course! How difficult was it to parse the old Dutch?

<comment><USER3> Quite difficult TBH. Not only the different spelling, but also that there were lots of different words than we use now for the same thing, and cases where the old word looked like a weird form of something of today but then turned out to be very different; and then all the linguistic embellishment. Instead of saying "x and y happened on date z" (as you would read in today's court transcripts), it would say "and so then it happened that, upon so many days after Easter, when the moon was full, also indicated as the year of the lord so and so and this month, that the horrible event of which we are talking about today too place, where first x was said by person bla", ... - on and on and on. I wonder how they got anything done those days.

If you're into this sort of thing (and know Dutch), a really fun read is "Een notabel boecxken van cokeryen", a Dutch cook book from around 1510. Annotated (translated) version available at [http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_not001nota01_01/_not001nota01_01....](http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_not001nota01_01/_not001nota01_01.pdf) . Illustrates the issues above very well.

<comment><USER4> Neat! I'm learning Dutch and can understand some of what's in that old cookbook, still not easy though. Kind of surprised at all of the spices it calls for...must have been food eaten by the wealthy. The old Dutch in that book looks a little like Frisian, as far as I can tell.

<comment><USER5> If you like this kind of stuff, there's a Dutch researcher who maintains a blog about old books, many of which are in old Dutch: [https://medievalbooks.nl/](https://medievalbooks.nl/) Sadly not updated in over a year, but there are a lot of gems in the archives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's a great story in the Jamestown Museum about how John Smith almost died from stepping on a stingray.

>> When exploring and mapping the Chesapeake bay Smith waded in the shallow water. Smith was stung by a sting ray.

The barb in the ray's lashing tail pierced his arm. Smith got so very sick, thinking he would not survive this …his men dug him a grave. But a doctor applied heat to the wound and by this Smith was saved. Feeling better that evening, he ate the stingray for supper that night.

When he drew up his map,… he marked the spot on his map where he almost met death "Stingray Point"

([http://www.williamsburgprivatetours.com/captain-john- smiths-...](http://www.williamsburgprivatetours.com/captain-john-smiths- escapes-death-again/), there's a similar account inside the museum)

<comment><USER7> > he ate the stingray for supper that night

What a baller! Fantastic story, little touches like this make it so believable.

<comment><USER6> Yep, it's a great punchline. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This site made me realize what a powerful effect fonts have on our perception of a text. I had to keep reminding myself that I was reading the words of modern historians and not a scan of some 400-year-old document.

<comment><USER9> My reaction was the opposite. I want to scream at the site designer that we have readable fonts these days.

<comment><USER10> Hmm, I agree the font was annoying, but it not unreadable. Indeed it is much easier to read than the grey-on-grey text that you often find on modern sites.

And contra the parent comment, it doesn't look like a scan of a centuries old document -- it just looks a scan of a book from the mid 20th century.

I've read lots of such books, and while some have better typography than others, they are all quite easy to read. I think we have a habit of conflating "this is ugly I wish it were different" with "I can't read this".

<comment><USER11> Lots of things hamper the legibility of that site. Poor font choice, pure black text on pure white, long line length, narrow leading, small size. Looking at the site header it appears the typography decisions were based on decoration instead of legibility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I recently visited Duncan Mill, a steam powered saw mill, which runs a couple of times a year in Northern California to demonstrate how redwoods were cut into lumber in the the late 18th century.The number of ways you could die or get maimed in an instant was pretty astounding.

Example video [https://www.instagram.com/p/BVeIBFdBgtI/?hl=en](https://www.instagram.com/p/BVeIBFdBgtI/?hl=en) Life was amazingly dangerous until very recently...

<comment><USER13> Still that way in some places I've been. Construction in places like Mexico doesn't seem to have anything like OSHA, at least anything that's having an influence. Lots of concrete cutting with unguarded blades, loose clothing, no eye protection, etc.

Or check out this one in China, forging huge flanges in the street with very little safeguards. [https://youtu.be/yE8A6uMYXmw](https://youtu.be/yE8A6uMYXmw)

<comment><USER14> Yep, spemt three months backpacking through Central America. Even as a tourist, you sort of start accepting that life is dangerous after a while. Or you just don't leave the hotel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The twitter account Medieval Death Bot provides a morbidly entertaining stream. [https://twitter.com/DeathMedieval](https://twitter.com/DeathMedieval)

</comment><comment><USER16> Wow, maybe don't put an open tankard of beer right next to an open tankard of lice poison. Next to your bed. In the dark.

<comment><USER17> Yes this was before they brought in poison bottles [1]. We take for granted the ability to turn on the light when trying to find the right bottle in the dark.

1\. [http://www.collectorsweekly.com/bottles/poison- bottles](http://www.collectorsweekly.com/bottles/poison-bottles)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Well, this certainly puts things into perspective. It's pretty amazing how many people died just from lack of knowledge of either the nature of, or remedy to, their illness.

</comment><comment><USER19> I find these oddly comforting. Yes, fate can still strike at any time, but many of these injuries are now so much more preventable and treatable.

Especially fascinating are the cases where modern life is significantly more or less dangerous. You might be more likely to be killed by a house fire or stairwell fall now, but less by animals (simply due to reduced contact) or drowning (because so many more people can swim, or even perform CPR).

<comment><USER20> I don't think you're anywhere near more likely to be killed in a house fire today. Fires are much less common, owing to much fewer naked flames (for heat and light) and much less fuel lying around to sustain them. And even when the fire does happen, modern houses are much less flammable (less wood is used, and the wood that is used is often treated, carpets, drapes, furniture etc is made from flame retardant materials) so fires spread more slowly. Also, smoke alarms will help you discover the fire in time and get out, which you can generally do, because modern building codes ensure multiple exits.

I'm pretty sure something similar is true for stairwell falls and drownings would probably be tempered by the prevalence of lifeguards in popular swimming spots, and signage warning of particular dangerous areas.

<comment><USER21> I heard that in ancient Moscow, house fires were so frequent, that there were markets of pre-half-built houses for sale outside the town. They weren't that expensive (wood was cheap), wo that if your house was burnt it was not really that big of a deal (still big, but not the end of the life).

The biggest threat was massive blaze. If some house caught a fire, no one would be putting it out, instead, everyone would be breaking other nearby houses, to contain the fire.</comment></comment></comment>


Humans Accidentally Created a Protective Bubble Around Earth - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/05/wow-guys/527193/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> Potential solution to CME's? Would love to hear a sanity check from a physicist with some back-of-napkin math.</comment>


What the Quantum Internet Has in Store - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/here-rsquo-s-what-the-quantum-internet-has-in-store/ <comment><USER2> > The first—which they say is a sort of stage 0 because it does not describe a > true quantum internet—is a network that enables users to establish a common > encryption key, so that they can share their (classical) data securely. The > quantum physics occurs only behind the scenes: the service provider uses it > to create the key. But the provider also knows the key, which means that > users have to trust it.

I don't like where this is going.

> In stage 1, users will start getting into the quantum game, in which a > sender creates quantum states, typically for photons.

Okay, it's going _exactly_ where I thought I was going!

\----

At the risk of falling victim to the Gell-Mann effect, I'm going to call bullshit on this article.

It's overwhelmingly likely that _quantum cryptography_ will not be the next iteration of network security technology in the real world. Rather, the focus is on what's called _post-quantum cryptography_. Despite what you might think, these are not two points on a timeline.

Post-quantum cryptography refers to asymmetric cryptography features that are secure even in the presence of practical quantum computers. It's not a stage that exists after quantum cryptography. There's no "intermediate" stage in which we use quantum physics itself for encryption.

There will likely be a transition, wherein today's elliptic curve cryptosystems are used in addition to a post-quantum cryptosystem (e.g. ECDH + RLWE), until industry-wide confidence is gained in the security of the latter. I expect a lot of interesting attacks to be found in PQ algorithms during that time, and eventually we'll settle on constructions that are secure without pre-quantum cryptography.

Note: Symmetric cryptography is largely unaffected by quantum computers. You essentially halve the security levels (nitpick: which is an exponent, so you'll effectively be taking the square root of the possible values rather than just "halving it", which would just shave off one bit).

Quantum key distribution and other entangled photon madness? I doubt we'll see widespread deployment of this.

EDIT: I see this article isn't the author's first inaccurate foray into this topic. They might want to consult a cryptographer before publishing bunk science. [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-quantum- inter...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-quantum-internet-has- arrived-and-it-hasn-rsquo-t/)

<comment><USER3> I think you are conflating two similarly named topics, or at least missing the point of why one of them is useful. At the risk of saying stuff you already know (do check the last paragraph for something you might not):

Quantum key exchange (only one of the applications of "quantum internet") is completely orthogonal to post quantum encryption.

Quantum key exchange is a way to distribute keys, which will be used in some symmetric encryption scheme that runs on classical computers. That scheme has security that does not depend on any "difficulty" conjectures. It is "information theoretically perfect" modulo implementation bugs. (Assuming Schroedinger's equation is not wrong).

This does not require the creation of a quantum computer. Actually it is much easier and already done in labs.

Post quantum encryption is just the name for asymmetric encryption algorithms that run on classical computers and are difficult to break on both classical and quantum computers.

Even though quantum key exchange is an exciting application of "quantum internet", way more interesting would be its use for the establishment of globe spanning entangled states. This can be used for the creation of sensors that surpass the diffraction limit and other practical "science stuff".

<comment><USER4> No. I think that is the exact point he was making that quantum key distribution is orthogonal to post-quantum cryptography and that the consensus is that poat-quantum cryptography will actually be used while quantum key distribution is basically an academic exercise because it doesn't have practical utility for the problem it is attempting to solve.

<comment><USER3> I am confused. How is "security that does not depend on any 'difficulty' conjectures / information theoretically perfect" not of practical utility?

<comment><USER5> The so called quantum key-exchange requires a shared secret, so it is actually doing key-expansion. Besides that it has practical problems in side-channel protection and cannot achieve a high enough bandwidth to be of interest in most practical settings.

<comment><USER6> If you wanted to toss out public key cryptography as insecure, I guess you could use QKE to make symmetric key cryptography more practical. You would have a secure method of communicating your keys, and wouldn't have to worry that your new post-quantum public key cryptography was broken- since symmetric cryptography just isn't vulnerable in the same way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm not an expert on this. Right now this looks like there's lots of stuff for math and physics nerds to get excited about and not much else. Certainly words like "quantum internet" sound like complete bullshit designed separate investors from their cash rather than market any concrete products or solutions.

All I'm hearing in terms of practical applications has exclusively to do with hardening cryptography: safer ways to do key exchange basically. That's nice and probably desirable long term but doesn't sound like it would cause most people to get really excited about buying new computers and connecting to a brand new "quantum internet" any time soon. As it is they barely notice or care about stuff like https and equate the google search box with the internet.

This crypto hardening would only be needed when quantum computing compromises existing algorithms. So far, that is not yet practical to do. It seems we first need some practical quantum computers that compromise security in a way that could feasibly be used by malicious parties. I'm not talking proof of concepts, I'm talking actually broken keys. My guess is that this is either impossible or stupendously expensive to pull off and will be for the foreseeable future.

Once this happens, there will basically be an arms race to upgrade existing algorithms and deprecate the broken ones. Given people still happily use known/suspected compromised ones today, I imagine this will take some time. Decades basically.

<comment><USER5> When quantum computers break existing algorithms, we do not need to resort to quantum key exchange, but we can make the switch to post-quantum crypto, as also indicated by the other comment[0].

However, switching to the next generation of crypto only after the current generation is broken is not a solution. Much data needs to be kept secret for a long time. Internet traffic is currently being stored so that when the current crypto is broken all data can be decrypted retroactively.

[0]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18327175](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18327175)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Their "stage 0" seems like it's worse than not doing this at all.

</comment><comment><USER9> > Physicists say this futuristic, super-secure network could be useful long > before it reaches technological maturity. Isn't that what they also say > about the internet atm?</comment>


Project Hierarchy is fusing Java with a Database - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/986918042/hierarchy-the-future-of-programming

<comment><AUTHOR> Feel free to ask the devs of Hierarchy any questions on this Hacker News submission!</comment>