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What's the thought on disagreeing with the frictionless element?

I mean, even with a vast pool of employees (people in Austin or ready to move to Austin), you are sacrificing the option of people who would take less because they don't live in Austin. You also have to pay a competitive salary in Austin, which is probably notably higher than someone who works remote and lives in Ames, Iowa.

Now as you said, having people in the building might provide more value, but on the cost side, assuming the job can be done from most anywhere, you almost assuredly generate savings from being able to choose from more people in more places, or a well-run business should be able to. Maybe I'm missing something?

Taking the time and making the effort to micro-manage employee salaries that closely, requires additional resources from a company, so you're already losing some of the benefit. That's one example of the friction.  There are likely more but it's already proven not to be frictionless.

And many jobs nationally simply demand a particular salary, regardless of where you live.  Sometimes you might get a COL bump for employees living in, say, California, but again it's more costly to manage the variety and some companies don't offer that at all.

I'll say that I'm talking mostly about high tech work, and/or Fortune 500 companies involved in banking/insurance/consulting that all share similar requirements, because that's what I'm most familiar with.  But that also represents a significant portion of the potential market for companies that have the option of remote workers in the first place.

When you get to be a certain size, with enough history, it might not be possible to be a "local" company. Acquisitions, spinoffs, etc. As my industry became increasingly commoditized, it naturally led to consolidation. There are now only 3 companies in the world who manufacture the product we do. But that consolidation means that you've picked up people/companies over the decades from different areas of the country/globe, and you don't want to lose them and the knowledge they have.

We're lucky if we can have meetings where people are in remotely similar time zones, much less offices. I've got a meeting at 5 PM today where we're going over things with our APAC team, and then we'll host the exact same meeting tomorrow morning at 8 AM for our US/EMEA teams. There is exactly zero value in hosting those meetings in a conference room + virtual when 95% of the attendees won't be in that conference room.

As for the part you've quoted, I'm torn. I like going into the office if there's a real reason. But I'm also an introvert so I don't seek people out when I'm in the office much at all any more. But as for the mentorship thing I had a meeting with one of the younger folks from our team who was asking for something where I specifically scheduled it on a day when we'd both be in the office because I knew it would be a better meeting that way.

As for @utee94 , I suspect this same thing exists. He might be at the "mothership", but despite the rich hiring environment in Austin (or places like Silicon Valley), I think it might just not be feasible to limit your hiring pool to Austin because you already have offices all over the country/world. I used to visit a company that his company acquired back in the day... They always got happy when I came to visit in winter because people from CA often avoided them in winter in... MN.

When you get to be a certain size, with enough history, it might not be possible to be a "local" company. Acquisitions, spinoffs, etc. As my industry became increasingly commoditized, it naturally led to consolidation. There are now only 3 companies in the world who manufacture the product we do. But that consolidation means that you've picked up people/companies over the decades from different areas of the country/globe, and you don't want to lose them and the knowledge they have.

We're lucky if we can have meetings where people are in remotely similar time zones, much less offices. I've got a meeting at 5 PM today where we're going over things with our APAC team, and then we'll host the exact same meeting tomorrow morning at 8 AM for our US/EMEA teams. There is exactly zero value in hosting those meetings in a conference room + virtual when 95% of the attendees won't be in that conference room.

As for the part you've quoted, I'm torn. I like going into the office if there's a real reason. But I'm also an introvert so I don't seek people out when I'm in the office much at all any more. But as for the mentorship thing I had a meeting with one of the younger folks from our team who was asking for something where I specifically scheduled it on a day when we'd both be in the office because I knew it would be a better meeting that way.

As for @utee94 , I suspect this same thing exists. He might be at the "mothership", but despite the rich hiring environment in Austin (or places like Silicon Valley), I think it might just not be feasible to limit your hiring pool to Austin because you already have offices all over the country/world. I used to visit a company that his company acquired back in the day... They always got happy when I came to visit in winter because people from CA often avoided them in winter in... MN.

During Covid we were all remote (we were forced to be - not our choice).

Obviously, I'm still remote. Every time I try to get out, they pull me right back in.

We just granted permission to our first employee to be remote. She moved to Naples, and we didn't want to lose her.

We're having lunch next week.