Hacker News Reader

Comment by codegeek | Hacker News Reader

He is smart and will go far in life. Sorry but if you are just starting out in a field, you cannot do remote (rare exceptions are always there). You need to learn from people face to face and no, nothing beats face to face collaboration and learning.

View on HN

Idk, I joined a distributed startup out of school and it gave me access to some of the best in their field from across the world. I learned a lot and there’s little chance I’d have an opportunity to work with that variety of talent if we were all were geo-locked and compelled to go into a local office. Not saying my case is the case for everyone, but I am saying the near-absolutes you’re presenting should be heavily qualified.

Yes but how do you know that Geo Locked with colleagues in person wouldn't end up teaching you more ? You don't know what you don't know.

With all due respect, these hypothetical geo-locked colleagues probably don’t teach at Oxbridge and have multi-million dollar patent portfolios. Short of moving to the UK myself and getting a job in his lab, the only reason I was able to work alongside one of the many of these types of persons was because of remote-enabled work. Believe me, I get what you’re saying on a “gotcha” logical level (because of course you don’t know what exactly could have been), but on a practical reality level, there are some things that in-office just can’t do as easily. There are highly sophisticated fields where remote is simply the best way for minds to come together when bodies can’t or can’t be bothered to.

We've had new employees straight from school no experience in the language excel. Picking the right employees help, you want curious minds and an environment that supports that. A lot of new grads are excelling away from the office.

You never need face to face as a developer. Face to code perhaps.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com