antipattern

If you've been following along, you know at least two things about me.

First, I ramble a lot about new entrepreneurship, idea engineering, and climate change and related not-so-nice-topics in Silicon Valley.

Second, I am looking for a new job. Preferably something that actually will make a difference.

All of this is somehow related to each other, at least in my mind.

Recently I have lots of time to think about these matters, partly because I am spending a lot of time in traffic and my mind wanders. There are lots of very interesting companies in San Francisco and the Peninsula, and I always seem to be in the wrong location.

So I move around all the time, like many of you.

My conclusion out of all of this commuting is that the majority of startups are absolutely pathetic when it comes to forcing moving people around.

You have to be in the office all week! Or you can work from home one day a week. The most progressive startup and I only found one so far, said I must work only Mondays and Wednesdays from the office (I think mainly because a very senior management person has commute issues herself).

For a supposedly bunch of forward thinking and innovative startups, this is totally stupid and backward.

Do you really need to have everyone in the same office? Do you know there are examples of successful tech companies where everyone is remote? Do you know video-conferencing actually works very well?

Do you know the extremely cost to the environment and our sanity on insisting people commuting?

Do you know that the new entrepreneur is supposed to think about this stuff for more than 5 secs ... ah, mmm, cough, no we all must work in the same office.

For collaboration reasons.

It is all just bullshit.

I am really looking forward to the day when the first venture capitalist says that they will only invest in companies that are 100% remote. Sure, some will snicker, but it will make me respect them and the companies they invest in.

Because they are taking a stand. And they think as the new entrepreneur should.