>"First, tech should embrace and accelerate distributed work. It makes tech more accessible to more people. It seeds more parts of the country with potential entrepreneurs. It dramatically decreases the cost of living for employees. It creates the conditions for more stable companies that can take on less risky yet still necessary opportunities that may throw off a nice dividend instead of an IPO. And, critically, it gives tech companies a weapon to wield against overbearing regulation, because companies can always pick-up-and-leave."
The next big "tech" revolution is working from home -- and distributed working. It has been around, like the way smartphones were around before the iPhone -- in concept, but never realized in practicality. It is an imperative that tech should accelerate and develop a cohesive set of products that will enable iPhone like working from home.
This is so true. Half the VCs you talk to want you to re-locate to the Bay Area.
What does that mean to someone mid-career (you know, the type with enough experience to really do something big and build) - it means:
- They often have kids.
- They may have student loans from advanced degrees
- They have to worry about healthcare for their whole family
- They may be willing to live on ramen-noodle salaries, but dont want to subject their kids to it.
Unless seed funds and VCs start allowing more reasonable founders salaries, or allow non-bay-area founding locations with reasonable cost of living, the numbers often just dont work out
At this point in the discussion, I will often have a load of people jumping on me to "get roomates" or "eat pasta" or the "all schools are good" argument. Let me pre-answer those:
1. OK, so you have a family with children. Do you really want roommates?
2. Yes theoretically I can eat pasta everyday and save money. But is that really the life I want to give to my family (FYI, I can easily work on wall street and make a half-million salary, so really...)
3. No, not all schools are good. My high school for example had metal detectors on entrance. A staff member died from a heart attach after a confrontation from a student. No, not all schools are good. Perhaps you want to subject your kids to that, I dont.
So what do you end up with? Rich kids funding other rich kids building juice squeezers, after which they will just join the VC firm and perpetuate the cycle.
And as for the eggheads, present them with a shitty enough "deal" and it makes total sense to either go to a big firm or go work on Wall St. "Thought Leadership" is cheap.
The next big "tech" revolution is working from home -- and distributed working. It has been around, like the way smartphones were around before the iPhone -- in concept, but never realized in practicality. It is an imperative that tech should accelerate and develop a cohesive set of products that will enable iPhone like working from home.