Meta recently threatened to fire employees who did not adhere to a strict return-to-the-office mandate. But CEO Mark Zuckerberg is still excited about the possibilities of remote work — just apparently not with current, widely used technology.
In a Thursday episode of the Lex Fridman Podcast, Zuckerberg gave an interview in the metaverse. He and Fridman chatted in a virtual room using Meta Quest Pro VR headsets and photorealistic Codec Avatars, technology that Meta is still developing.
The experience was so eerily realistic that Fridman repeatedly marveled at it, saying things like “this is honestly the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen” and “it feels like we’re in the same room.”
During the extended conversation in the virtual reality room, Zuckerberg eventually turned to remote work.
“One of the things I’m curious about is that there are all these debates right now about remote work, or about people being together,” he said. “I think this brings us a lot closer to being able to physically work in different places, but still feel like we are together. I think the dream is that one day people can just work where they want, but we all get the same opportunities because you get the feeling that you are physically together.”
He contrasted the technology he and Fridman used with the technologies most remote workers currently use to connect with distant colleagues.
“I don’t think we’re there today with just videoconferencing and the basic technologies that we have,” he said.
Zuckerberg is one of many CEOs demanding that employees return to the office and that managers enforce the policy by tracking card keys and other techniques. But Meta’s return to the office, which requires three days in the office, has not gone smoothly, with many employees who do show up struggling to book a meeting room or secure a desk for the day.
“We haven’t discovered hybrid work yet,” Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, which like Facebook is owned by Meta, admits in a Threads post.
But on the Fridman podcast, Zuckerberg talked about the potential of remote work with the technology they were using. With that, he said, over time you could get “closer to the feeling of being together physically.”
He continued: “That would open up a lot of opportunities, right? Because people can then physically live where they want, while still getting the benefits of being physical, or feeling like you’re with people at work – all ways that helps build more culture and better building relationships and building trust, which I think are real problems if you never see people in person.
In 2020, Zuckerberg boasted about Meta’s embrace of remote work. He said at the time: “We will be the most progressive company in remote working at our scale, with a thoughtful and responsible plan for how to do this.” He estimated that about half of the company’s employees would be working remotely within the next five to 10 years.
But later he changed his tune.
Paul Graham, co-founder of startup accelerator Y Combinator, noted in June: “I’ve recently spoken to several founders who have changed their minds about remote work and trying to get people back to the office… Why were all these smart people turned to fooled? ? Partly I think remote work will work initially, if you start with a system that is already healthy from in-person work.”
But doubts emerged among many business leaders, who worried about maintaining a strong company culture and mentoring young employees who would rarely, if ever, meet anyone in person.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, called the remote work “experiment” a mistake, saying at the Stripe conference this summer:
“I think one of the biggest mistakes the tech industry has made in a long time was that everyone could work completely remotely forever, that startups didn’t have to meet in person, and that there would be no loss of creativity. I would say that the experiment on that is over, and the technology is not yet good enough to be able to completely keep people at a distance forever, especially in startups.”
Zuckerberg seems to feel the same way about today’s technology. But the extent to which advanced headsets can address CEOs’ concerns about remote work remains an open question.