this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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Software CEO worth almost $12 billion says he goes into the office ‘about once a quarter,’ bucking the return to office trend in Big Tech (fortune.com)
submitted 1 year ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Software CEO worth almost $12 billion says he goes into the office ‘about once a quarter,’ bucking the return to office trend in Big Tech::undefined

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[–] pixxelkick@lemmy.world 110 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Atlassian is an Australian company, that's why.

The companies pushing to get people back into the office are coincidentally the ones being run by individuals who also have a vested interest in avoiding the corporate property market bubble bursting, as it has become increasingly clear that the absolute monstrous amount of parking lots, giant offices, and fast food chains in inner cities are no longer very much needed in the modern world, when a massive amount of the work force can get their job done just as well, if not better, from the comfort of their homes.

Unfortunately they have a vested interested in keeping that market, which is already on life support, breathing as long as possible or their net worth crashes.

Result: try and force your employees back in the office in a vain attempt to perform CPR on said market an--- oh shit what, you just quit and got a job for a company halfway around the world? You can just do that? Are you telling me there's countries out there not propping up overly engorged property markets and teetering their economy on top of a dead in the water industry...?

Shit, guess they didn't think that through very well...

[–] Pregnenolone@lemmy.world 33 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This is equally true for Australia. It has nothing to do with the fact it an Australian company

[–] notacuban@lemmy.world 32 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yep, believe it or not, we have cities and an overinflated property market in Australia too. But Scott Farquhar is very down to earth for a billionaire. Comes from a less-affluent area of Sydney, went to public school (admittedly one of the most difficult to be admitted to), doesn't surprise me that he's more "understanding" of the employees.

[–] IonAddis@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Are you familiar with Atlassian in particular? They are a software company whose customers are generally other software companies.

So yeah, sure, Australia has cities and overinflated property market. But the point is more the geographic distance from other English-speaking nations. Or so I assume.

Atlassian specifically does a HUGE chunk of their business with clients and companies in the US. And if they started forcing their US-based people (or Europe, or wherever) to return to office, it could result in a clusterfuck of losing their overseas employees to places that do still allow remote work, which would be a big headache to fix because if it got bad enough they'd have to start flying people from Australia (presumably where corporate headquarters are) to start figuring out how the hell to recover from that. And I've worked for software places that had to abruptly send people to their offices in other nations because shit went wrong on the ground and phone calls weren't fixing it.

(I've had aussie co-workers and clients...inevitably, one side or the other has to stay late or come in early to get a live phone call done. The time zones are so far apart between Australia and the US time zones. It's REALLY easy to struggle with that if something is going wrong on one side or another.)

When you're separated geographically so far from a BIG chunk of your market, it's downright dumb to rock the boat by forcing employees to choose "you, or remote work". Especially when Atlassian is a "known" name and looks good in a resume. So the CEO probably recognizes that and has no interest in being dumb like that. There'd be a risk of losing your current employees with all their knowledge and replacing them employees who aren't skilled/good enough to get a remote job.

So, sure, Australia I'm sure does have cities and markets just as big and messy as anywhere. But Atlassian in particular is a software company that does a LOT of remote overseas work--it makes a lot of sense they would not want to push employees back into the office. The geographic distance between their Australian offices and their employees in Europe and America could make things get messy if things went out of control. There's a vested interest here that is probably different than other corporations.

[–] avater@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

well to be fair, Australiens learn very early not to be a cunt...so his nationality has in fact some relation to his actions.

[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 4 points 1 year ago

Morrison disagrees

[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 6 points 1 year ago

Uh might want to read up on the current state of Australian real estate before making that connection dude...

[–] ganksy@lemmy.world 65 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Not sure why net worth would legitimize his position

[–] mustardman@discuss.tchncs.de 24 points 1 year ago

For me it acts as a warning of the credibility of whatever newspeak is going to come out of his mouth.

[–] _bug0ut@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago

Probably because most of the people at his net worth are pushing for RTO so he's the exception to the rule.

[–] avater@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

because it means he is fucking successful and on pair with other big players, so nobody can say he is just a little light.

[–] criticon@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 year ago

Because he could be a "CEO" of the company he founded with 3 employees

[–] DrQuint@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

If anything, it weakens the article

"Duh of course he doesn't go. Rich people and C suites are the two classes that NEVER work. And he's both"

I have no idea why the title doesn't focus on the policy for the workers, rather than the CEO's

[–] Mikey_donuts@lemmy.world 31 points 1 year ago (3 children)

How the fuck does anyone get to be worth 12 billion dollars?

[–] DoomBot5@lemmy.world 40 points 1 year ago

By having every large corporation using your products to operate their businesses.

[–] Pat12@lemmy.world 28 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I don't know about now but back when i worked in STEM, almost everyone in tech used some atlassian software

the company has an IPO so the net worth is largely equity value, i'm sure the net worth would have increased substantially during COVID/wfh periods.

from his wikipedia page "Farquhar often carries the epithet of accidental billionaire after he and his business partner Mike Cannon-Brookes founded Atlassian with the aim to replicate the A$48,500 graduate starting salary typical at corporations without having to work for someone else"

[–] MonkderZweite@feddit.ch 4 points 1 year ago

Nobody should be a billionaire.

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 23 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Atlassian implemented a Team Anywhere policy in 2020 and has stuck with it, even as companies began introducing hybrid working schedules with the end of the COVID pandemic.

Farquhar’s views on remote work put him at odds with other major tech CEOs, who are increasingly trying to get employees back to the office at least part of the time.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told employees in an internal meeting this month that fully remote workers likely would not have a future at the company, reports Insider.

Many tech companies that once praised remote work are now trying to get people to the office, citing improved collaboration and productivity.

Even Zoom, whose videoconferencing software helped power the pivot to remote work, is trying to get its employees back to the office at least twice a week.

Founder and CEO Eric Yuan told Zoom employees that it was tough to build trust remotely, Insider reported earlier this month.

The original article contains 576 words, the summary contains 156 words. Saved 73%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] SmashingSquid@notyour.rodeo 18 points 1 year ago

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://fortune.com/2023/08/29/atlassian-ceo-scott-farquhar-office-once-a-quarter-remote-work/

Non paywall link