It's management instinct to want to see people. IF they can't see you, I think they feel that maybe you're slacking off. (Of course, the manager never sees you when you write a bunch of code in the middle of the night because you didn't get any real work done in the office.)
These changes, particularly in the Yahoo case, reflect poorly on those managers in my mind, not on the concept of remote work.
The ideal programming environment is effectively remote- every engineer in their own office, with multi-party audio or video (e.g.: google hangouts) for collaboration.
If your primary cost is engineering staff, why would you make them %50 less effective when they're working and on top of that take 2 hours out of their day each day for a stressful commute?
If your primary cost is engineering staff, why would you make them %50 less effective when they're working and on top of that take 2 hours out of their day each day for a stressful commute?
Because the engineers are not the ones doing the accounting or managing. The accountants and managers do. It's similar to how social events tend to be planned by socially-focused people, which is how a shy and/or introverted person can end up being dragged to a noisy bar for their birthday.
I think it's more about cultivating culture. It's almost impossible to build culture with 80% of your staff working remotely on different timezones. There are ways around it but it's just way better to see your team.
I disagree. Denying that online cultures exist is just as silly as denying that quality software cannot be written by remote people. You've just posted to a very distinct culture.
All of my remote gigs have had very different cultures. People communicated, friends were made, etc, etc.
These changes, particularly in the Yahoo case, reflect poorly on those managers in my mind, not on the concept of remote work.
The ideal programming environment is effectively remote- every engineer in their own office, with multi-party audio or video (e.g.: google hangouts) for collaboration.
If your primary cost is engineering staff, why would you make them %50 less effective when they're working and on top of that take 2 hours out of their day each day for a stressful commute?