Member-only story
“I Got It! Fully-Remote Must Grow Faster!” (Pause.)
That chart is some new nonsense out. I think it’s from Nicholas Bloom, who has become the de-facto guy you mentioned on LinkedIn or in HBR when discussing remote work trends. Some people are looking at this chart and saying:
“Well, zero days in office is fully-remote. And those companies are growing faster! Why can’t people see this? Why are we so stuck in the old mentality?”
There are a few challenges to that, though.
First off, this chart uses “headcount growth” as the metric. Headcount growth is very much a variable and bullshit-prone metric to use to approximate actual growth. First off, investors and executives don’t truly care about headcount growth except as an illusion representing something else. If you hire six more peons, that’s not improving Tad’s bonus. Headcount growth can mean sales growth — you would hope, to pay for people! — but it doesn’t have to mean sales growth, no.
