Matt Amdur
Appearances
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
This doesn't sound, this is a dream. This is an example. It sounds ridiculous. There were wires that you would stick out of your car and there were, there's a foam ball you'd stick on the wire. You're like, God, how long did you wake up? Yeah. This dream has gone on forever. And we had a, cause this was also a giveaway, right?
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
It was open Solaris antenna foam ball. Yeah. This sounds like a group hallucination. This just sounds nuts. So that is also in the conference room somehow. This really does sound dreamlike. I don't know what either of these things, but my recollection is that both those things are just kind of like there. And at some point, someone like a Paleolithic people discovering fire.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Someone stared at the ball in their hand, stared at the glass on the table, and attempted to throw the ball in the glass. And Z-Ball was born. Thus, yes. Not to be confused with any other... any other game that is throwing a ball into a hoop. This is Z ball. And okay. So it was what it was one point.
Oxide and Friends
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If your chair was touching the back of the wall, it was worth three points is what I want to say.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
And the only thing I can remember about Mary is her one act as far as I think we're both concerned with respect to DTrace. is she came in, saw us playing Z-ball, with all of us struggling to get the ball into the glass, took the ball, standing up to the furthest corner of the conference room, sank it, and walked out. Drained it. Unbelievable. Yeah. became a legend.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Yeah, that was coming up a lot. Yeah, yeah. I thought it was good. I, you know, there was something I was wondering if you heard as well. So, uh, Lucas known, your friend, Lucas, exactly. Um, Lucas described being at Apple and using, I believe, WebEx for all communications. It's either WebEx or a meeting. Whatever it was, those are kind of in the same bucket in my brain. I believe it was WebEx.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Larry, you are wherever you are, wherever you are, your legend lives on. It was okay. And like, that's the stuff you're not, you, that is an only in the office moment. That is an important, I know it's like, look, that's important. That's part of our, that's part of our fabric. That's part of our, our, our, our oral history that, that, you know, that is, I sort of actually don't want to dismiss it.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
The tchotchkes from having to throw away the trash from ordering the ping pong table and not having it show up and having to like invent something. It's like there is all of these things have these kind of these origin stories that are that where these quotidian accoutrements of the office become the stuff of legend. I mean, surely every office has this, right? This is not just us.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Meanwhile, every Oxide employee is like, is this their very long walk up to the Oxide return to the office mandate? So... But these are the kinds of things you only get in an office. I do think, and when I kind of replay the history, I've got those moments in the office. I've got the chariot race in the office. Do you remember that each floor had the emergency chariot to evacuate someone?
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
It was like a stretcher. It was a stretcher with wheels. With one set of wheels. I don't know if it was called a chariot, but please continue. But it's like, obviously, we're going to race these. Like, why would you? Who in their right mind would put this in the hand? It's a total apple of discord. I mean, just right to the fastest. The absolute apple of discord.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
The prefrontal cortex is not fully developed until you're in your late 20s, folks. And we were at 22, 23, 24. Like, sorry, these things are getting raced 100%. So it's like, okay, yeah, you only get chariot races. You only get Z ball. You only get the market game. You only get fish pong, all these things that require the office for sure.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
And the, and you, and then, I mean, the things we talked about, about, you know, a slightly more serious note about the lunchtime conversation and so on. Okay. You get that, those things from the office. But I was trying to remember, like, when have I had like the work product, uh, has like that flash of work product has happened in the office at a whiteboard. And it's not like that.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
It hasn't happened. And I could remember a couple of times in my career, but not very many. I mean, there are, it's a small handful and honestly, like they kind of predate chat and they predate the things where those things happen today. Yeah.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
That's right. I remember you coming up with the simplifying assumption, for example, in Detroit, which I think we talked about in the Detroit episode. That was at a whiteboard. That was the three of us at a whiteboard really struggling. But on other breakthroughs, I remember working with other people, but the breakthrough itself often happened In the shower. It often happened alone in my office.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
God, you know, we had an apartment once with two shower heads. And fortunately, my wife and I have a shared disposition on this one, which is like, uh-uh, no, no, no, no. Shower, solo activity.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
There we go. Sorry, you took us there. So I think that the idea that something special happens that is technical, that creates artifact, I don't know. I really struggle. I feel like for every example I can come up with where that's happened, I feel I can come up with dozens where that's not the way it happened.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
And he described a feature in WebEx where one of these new AI features where it would identify a hand gesture and then emit an emoji. And I'm like, is this where Apple got this, I think, regrettable idea? Yeah. Is the origin of this feature in some other species in WebEx?
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Yeah, I feel it's like most of those examples are like Z-ball and like chariot racing. Like, you know what? We should race these chariots. These things have wheels and we should race them. Like, I feel like that is like, that's the conversation that happened coming back from coffee. Like, why haven't we thought of this before? Like, absolutely.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
I too believe we should be playing the marker game with my brothers and sisters. We should be playing marriage should return as... the return of the Z ball queen. Uh, absolutely. Yeah, for sure. And like, I think that, but that's part of the problem with these RTO mandates is that's not, does not seem to be the angle like at all. And, uh,
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
the i mean i think you could make i think you could make a plausible case for that being the angle but did you read this thing from jazzy that i you know i only read reactions i didn't read his his whatever he had written all right good we're really going to read the tweet We're going to read the tweet.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
And we're like, of course, anyone listening to this in the distant future is like looking at their watch being like 25 minutes in like slow clap. And I'm finally getting context. It's like you literally talked about a two headed shower and chariot racing before you got to the top. Well, yes, here we are. You're welcome.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Well, so first of all, it's like the subject is strengthening our culture and teams. And, man, if that doesn't get every – I mean, that's got to get you on high alert when you get a CEO message about strengthening our culture and teams. And so I'm not going to read the whole thing. Although, actually, it is kind of –
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
worthwhile so it's like hey team maybe we'll revolve hey team i wanted to send a note on a couple of changes we're making to further strengthen our culture and teams immediately anyone is like who are we laying off like can we just like get like can we please get to it like i like there's clearly something radical that is going to be in this email and it's like okay so how am i going to find first for perspective i feel good about the progress we're making together all right a bunch of like blather about progress you're like okay next paragraph that's not it
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Next paragraph. When I think about my time at Amazon, I never imagined I'd be at the company for 27 years. My plan, which my wife and I agreed to on a bar napkin in 1997, was to be here for a few years and move back to New York City. Strike. Do not need that. Why is this here? Redline. I mean, I just feel like... So save it for the podcast.
Oxide and Friends
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You want to talk about your two-headed shower, do it in the podcast. Don't do it here. Also, you're talking about having been in the company for 27 years. That is a really, really, really long time. I think it's like... I was trying to think to myself, it's like, wow, that is like someone... I showed up at Sun in 1996.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
This is like getting a message from an executive talking about how they've been at the company since 1969. And that is, I mean, the company didn't exist in 19, there were very few Silicon Valley companies that existed in 1969. Like at that time, it would be like,
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
intel yeah that's kind of it you know and to think like that is a very very long time and like maybe you maybe that's something that you should maybe you should look inward on this one that's an extremely long time and like do you want and so okay so you know
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
bar napkin also like the agreement on the bar napkin isn't that weird why do you think that's true first of all did you really write that down like show me the bar napkin you wrote down an agreement on a bar napkin right have you ever written an agreement on a bar napkin like that seems that's a very transactional relationship to have with your spouse it's weird that's right is the bartender also a notary like what what is this
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
It's like, hey, pal, I need you to witness this. Jesus, are you guys getting divorced? What's going on? No, no, no. It's a prenup? We don't do prenups on napkins anymore after the litigation. Oh, okay. All right. This is an agreement about you. A job? What is going on? I mean, are there clauses spelled out? Anyway, I've got a lot.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
And, you know, I guess there's something wrong. He points out that he started as a level five, which I get it. It's like super meaningful for if you're at Amazon. To me, it sounds like you're talking about, I don't know, like a video game or something. It sounds like you're talking about...
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
are your brothers or something i don't know anyway started out as a level five right yeah exactly i started out as a mage um as um and uh okay fine so um our culture is unique and it's been one of the most critical parts of our success in the first 29 years okay jesus i get to it there's obviously a big announcement but keeping your culture strong is not a birthright you have to work at it all the time when you consider the breadth of your business their associated growth rates the
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
innovation required across each of them and the number of people we've hired in the last six to eight years to pursue these endeavors it's pretty unusual and will stretch even the strongest of cultures this is where you know this is not written by gpt because gpt would write up would not give you any of this blather this is just kind of like all right this is where are we going
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Strengthening our culture remains a top priority for the S-team. Do you know what the S-team is? That's clearly like, I don't know, supervisor team, studly team. I don't know what the S-team is. Do you know what the S-team is? I don't know. I think about it all the time. I think about strengthening culture all the time. We want to operate like the world's largest startup.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
That means having a passion for constantly inventing for customers, which they do. I mean, I think customer focus is great at Amazon. Strong urgency for big opportunities. It's a race. High ownership. Fast decision-making. Scrappiness and frugality. Deeply connected collaboration.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
You need to be joined at the hip with your teammates when inventing and solving hard problems and a shared commitment to each other. And you're like, okay, where is this going? Two areas that I've been thinking about in the last several months are, one, do we have the right organizational structure to drive the level of ownership and speed we desire? You're like, okay, it's a reorg male. And two,
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Are we set up to invent, collaborate, and be connected enough to each other in our culture to deliver the absolute best for customers in the business that we can? We think we can do better on both. Okay. On the first topic, you're like, okay, the reorg. This is the reorg. We've always thought to hire very smart, high judgment, inventive, delivery focused, and missionary teammates.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
What do you feel about that sentence? This is another one where it's like, he doesn't write this one. No, for sure. I just think like, it just high judgment as an adjective. I don't think that that's, I don't think you can just do that actually. And missionary as an adjective. I don't know. It's isn't missionary a noun.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
I don't know, anyone who is regretting the fact that we gave the topic at the top is now feeling much more comfortable that we're so far into the ditch on something completely unrelated.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Yeah. Do I work here or not? I need to go look for a job if I don't work here anymore. Can we just get here? We've always wanted the people doing the actual detailed work to have high ownership. I like that. As we have grown our teams as quickly and substantially as we have the last many years, we have understandably added a lot of managers.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
In that process, we have also added more layers than we had before. It's created artifacts we'd like to change, e.g.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
pre-meetings for the pre-meetings for the decision meetings, a longer line of managers feeling like they need to review a topic before it moves forward, owners of initiatives feeling less like they would make recommendations because the decision we made elsewhere, emails that go on and on and on and on and on. Okay, I may have added that last bit. I mean, it's like...
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Okay, you realize, I mean, there's an irony here, right? I mean, there's an irony here. This is not. Most decisions we make are two-way doors, and such we want more of our teammates feeling like they can move fast without unnecessary processes, meetings, mechanisms, and layers that create overhead and waste valuable time.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
But the problem with that feature, and so the feature, for those who are unaware, the feature is that if you hold a gesture, the Mac will, at seemingly a very deep level, seemingly like in the firmware for the camera, it is not happening at the level of the Google Meet that you're in. you, if you hold the gesture, you will, an emoji will explode. And this makes sense.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
You're like, meanwhile, I've got the stopwatch on how much of my own valuable time I've spent reading this, as do you, dear listener, have the stopwatch down and be like, you started reading this thing like seven minutes ago. Where are we going? I want a lot less context for all future episodes. Thank you very little.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
So we're asking each S-team organization to increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers by at least 15% by the end of Q1 2025. Adam, given our discussion last week, is that a founder mode sentence or a manager mode sentence?
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Okay, so I feel we could have a great Lincoln-Douglas debate about whether this is founder mode or manager mode. Because you're right. I mean, eliminating the managers, I immediately think founder mode. But it's also, you're not actually eliminating the managers. You're only increasing the ratio of contributors to managers by at least 15%. By the way, I can hire more.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
I can actually, if I go hire more contributors, I get more recs. And it's 50% by the end of Q1 2025. It's not exactly tomorrow.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
I feel like we've got a founder mode, manager mode duality in this sentence. And I feel that it's kind of in the eye of the beholder. I think it's kind of intended as founder mode, but I think it'll be read as manager mode. I think managers will be like, got it. I get 15% more heads than I get to go higher against.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
But I'm not going to tell you which 15%. That's right. I will save that for a future email. Were you at Sun when McNeely did his Rule of 11?
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Yeah. So he decided that, I mean, again, this is like in an active founder mode, had realized that there were a lot, there were, and this was definitely true of the company where you'd have, you know, and this is true whenever you get,
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
You know, blossoming middle management, and then you get some reorgs, and then you end up with like, oh, wait a minute, this VP has got two directors reporting to them. Each director has got three managers reporting to them. Each of the managers only has one individual contributor. Like this is an entire organization with like 20 people.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
With one person doing the work. And so McNeely instituted this rule, the rule of 11, that everybody had to have 11 reports. And I remember it was like, you know, you're an engineer. You're like, all right. So I'm like, yeah, for sure. Like, yeah.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
yeah let's go take a machete to some of the the middle management undergrowth and yeah that makes sense it was never enforced and mcneely to his credit enforced it for himself but then didn't actually put the and then his you know the folks that worked for him didn't do it it just it just wasn't done and there were no so we ended up with the rule of 11 was not enforced but what you're describing is also a sun pathology which is like oh for sure very little was enforced right like uh
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Yes, organizational mechanics, not strength. Absolutely not strength. And you had this kind of middle management class that was kind of looking after itself. So we have this sentence that has this duality to it. I mean, the next sentence maybe clarifies it a little bit. Having fewer managers remove layers and flatten organizations more than they are today
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
I think for thumbs up, um, like thumbs up, it makes sense. And they just needed to stop at thumbs up. Then you'd be like, you know what? Thumbs up is the one that people want. That's the one that people make sense. People hold the thumbs up when they hold the thumbs up next to their face. They mean thumbs up.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
If we do this work well, it will increase our teammates' ability to move fast, clarify, and invigorate their sense of ownership, drive decision-making closer to the front lines where it most impacts customers and the business, decrease bureaucracy, and strengthen our organization's ability to make customer lives better and easier every day. It's like, how about that sentence?
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
I have 15% fewer words in it, pal. It's a bit of a monster. we will do this thoughtfully and our PXT team will work closely with our leaders to evolve our organizations to accomplish these goals in the next few months. It's like, okay. I happen to be able to ask, how do I get on our PXT team? Oh, I've listened. If I told you that, then what would be the point of the PXT team?
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
If everyone could figure out how to get on the PXT team. Yeah, I've got no idea. Yeah, exactly. The PXT team is... Clearly, you've now... Any manager has now stopped reading the rest of this email and is now jockeying for the PXT team. That's right. Who do I know on the PXT team? What favors do they owe me? What favors do they owe me?
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
By the way, parenthetical, by the way, I've created a bureaucracy mailbox for any examples any of you see where we might have bureaucracy or unnecessary process that's crept in and we can root out. To be clear, companies need process to run effectively, and process does not equal bureaucracy, but unnecessary and excessive process or rules should be called out and extinguished.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
I will read these emails and action them accordingly. Okay. A little bureaucracy suggestion box. I don't know what to think about that. I mean, it feels like that's whatever.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
To address the second issue of being better set up to invent, collaborate, and be connected to each other and our culture to deliver the absolute best for customers in the business, we've decided that we're going to return to being in the office the way we were before the onset of COVID. Hmm.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
When we look back over the last five years, we continue to believe that the advantages of being together in the office are significant. I've previously explained these benefits in this February 2023 post. I guess this was after we were recorded by quite some margin. But in summary, we've observed that it's easier for our teammates to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Collaborating, brainstorming, and inventing are simpler and more effective. Teaching and learning from one another are more seamless, and teams tend to be better connected to one another. Also, there's many more chariot races, Z-Ball, and marker game.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
It's kind of a dumb feature, but the one that, that we, they, they wanted to go further and they did other things, um, And this is where they just the mistakes compounded because they got something that is that will emit. I believe if you hold your fingers up like jazz hands, it will do balloons.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
When you're done with this, you're going to want to jump off the cliff. That's the, that's the kind of, so if anything, the last 15 months we've been back at the office, at least three days a week has strengthened our conviction about the benefits. And I feel that like, this is the bit that I feel the, I mean, this is kind of just like double talk about the benefit of being in an office.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
And I, I feel that like for those people that have been commuting to be on zoom calls with people that are in other far flung offices, this is not going to resonate. This is going to feel like how, wait a minute. No, if anything, the last 15 months has shown how stupid this thing is. And that the, you know, the fact that they've been taking attendance and
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Um, and in particular, so your manager will get a report of like when you badge in and there's something called coffee badging. I am led to understand where you, you go to badge in, you get a cup of coffee and then you split. Um, and they want to, they want to crack down on coffee badging. You're just like, oh man, this is not taking attendance.
Oxide and Friends
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This is not, that's not what things were prior to COVID. Prior to COVID, you were not taking attendance.
Oxide and Friends
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Well, and this is, I think you've hit on something that's really big and important here, which is just the breakdown of trust here. And I mean, this is kind of telling people by fiat how they're effective and not actually letting them figure out how they're effective. I mean, because what you want to, you want a team to, A team ultimately needs to deliver an objective of the business, right?
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
And you want them to prioritize that with urgency, to have customer attention, and so on. But this is where you're like, you know what? And also, no more blue jeans in the office. It's like, okay, why? I actually don't see how this is that different from a dress code. And all the arguments you can make in favor of this, you can also make in favor of a dress code. What are we doing here with this?
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Yeah. And, you know, if you, especially if you are feeling like, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm commuting in to her zoom calls. Like you're not, no, this is, this just feels very, it feels distant. It feels, I think the art is going to feel disingenuous. Um, and, um, So yeah.
Oxide and Friends
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And I should actually also just say, and maybe this is a good time, a good juncture that, you know, one of the things that listening to that previous episode from two and a half years ago did remind me of, I did love the call in aspect of that. So I do want to get other people up here. I don't want to just merely.
Oxide and Friends
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So I want you to know that I received the subtext that you would like me to not read the rest of this very lengthy email.
Oxide and Friends
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No, we're not done. No, we're not done. I mean, it's fine. But it goes on for another four paragraphs. And it doesn't really add much. Although it does say the next paragraph is... Well, no, no, no. It goes on for five more paragraphs. Let me get one more paragraph in because before the pandemic, not everyone was in the office five days a week every week.
Oxide and Friends
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If you or your child were sick or if you had some house emergency or if you were on the road seeing customers and partners or if you... If you needed a day or two to finish coding in a more isolated environment, people work remotely. I love that, like, of those examples, like, first of all, if your child is sick, like, aren't you taking a... Like, you allow employees to take a sick day, right?
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Before the pandemic, not everyone was in the office for five days a week. Some people were dead, and that was understandable. That was fine. We understood that tragedies happen. The death was an impediment to full productivity. That's right. Some sort of house emergency. Okay, that feels like it's also a sick day. If you're on the road seeing customers or partners,
Oxide and Friends
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you're like, you cannot be serious. It's like, oh, I don't have to go to work that day? Thanks, boss. Thanks, boss. Okay, thanks. By the way, I am at work, out on the road, seeing customers and partners. I'd forgotten that was part of my hobby project. Or if you needed a day or two to finish coding.
Oxide and Friends
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I, I will do whatever you tell me to do. Basically. I feel that you could. Yeah, no, really.
Oxide and Friends
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this was understood and will be moving forward as well. It's like, okay, great. But before the pandemic, it was not a given that folks could work remotely two days a week. And that will also be true moving forward. Our expectation is that people will be in the office outside of extenuating circumstances, like the ones mentioned above, uh, at least two of them are work by the way.
Oxide and Friends
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So extenuating circumstances, including work, um, uh, or if you already have a remote work exception approved through your S team leader. And then I just, the final paragraph to read, we are also going to bring back assigned desk assigned arrangements. So I guess that was, so, you know, yeah, that going on. Hey, it looks like you've got your own desk here.
Oxide and Friends
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I'm not sure what you're complaining about. So, and then it goes on, but yeah, there we are. That's the context. And I think it's, I just think that even if you want people back in the office, I feel there's a much better way to position this. And so here's the question I've got just about this. Because many people are like, look, you are overthinking it.
Oxide and Friends
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I think we even had someone on the internet who was just like, yeah, it's a shadow layoff, like short episode. They don't want to get people to quit. They don't have to pay them severance. I think that is overly reductive because I feel, I mean, are they really so cowardly as a management class at that company that they can't just lay people off?
Oxide and Friends
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And if they don't pay people severance, don't pay people severance. Severance is not something that is, that's something that companies do because they feel a responsibility to their employees. But if you want to, you don't have to do that. Just do that. To me, that's actually not the answer.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
It does. And I would love to see, remember when Game of Thrones had that, the Red Wedding episode of Game of Thrones, and there was a bit of a meme where people would video other people watching this particular episode that had this huge twist in it.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
So the other thing is, like, I also agree, they're not stupid, but they surely must know that so much, yes, collaboration is an important part of work. So is that quiet time when you are working by yourself and you need that quiet focus time. And that often is really hard to get in an office, right?
Oxide and Friends
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And surely they know that the things that we actually build happen in that quiet time, that focus time, right? And this is where you get to like, so here's my theory on this, by the way. I think that this is not rational. I think this is emotional. So my theory is that you get people who have lost their own sense of what their contribution is to an organization. They don't write code.
Oxide and Friends
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They don't operate a service. Their job is to lead the organization. And so they go into an office that doesn't have any people in it. And I just don't know what I do. What value do I add? So is this like, not to go too Citizen Kane on you, but is this like Andy Jassy's search for meaning?
Oxide and Friends
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Yes. Yeah. I think that, right. I think so too. And, and then I think also just like, you know, there's something, you know, we, you're at a startup and it's like, it's 8 PM on a Thursday and everyone just ate pizza and they're going back and they're all working. And it just feels like, ah, we're so scrappy. Right. And, and, And it's like, is that the past that he's trying to get to?
Oxide and Friends
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And wouldn't you watch a collection of people, of organizations trying to figure out what the fuck just happened with the balloons that just went off on someone's camera?
Oxide and Friends
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That kind of nostalgia for a company that is... And does he feel like, no, this feels ossified, even though you're not actually looking at the work product. You're looking at this physical artifact that actually doesn't have necessarily that much to do with the work product. Yeah. I don't know. All right, so there we are.
Oxide and Friends
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I just want to get my crazy theory out there, that this is my rosebud theory.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
The other thing I wonder about, it's like, I just feel like if you wanted to give this message, right? So you, Andy Jassy, and by the way, I did the experiment of having ChatGPT write a message to the company about returning the office, wrote a much better, I mean, wrote like a much crisper email and a much more uplifting.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
I just feel like you could do it in a way that would feel much more uplifting and much less punitive and much less like it's resorting to coercion. Yeah, I want to hear other people's experiences. So are people enduring office mandates now, return office mandates? How is it going?
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
It's like, I didn't do anything. It's like, that's not true. We all saw it. Balloons just exploded on you. So it's like you definitely did something. There's victim blaming, gaslighting. I mean, it's the works. Yeah. It was... Uh, so I wondered if anyway, they may have gotten that from fried. So they, they could have gotten that from WebEx is what I'm trying to say.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
But that's, I mean, can we call bullshit on that, though? I mean, that's not, I mean, in so many different regards, right? I mean, in that it's, first of all, a lot of, I mean, so much of hardware is software, right? You're using EDA tooling to develop, whether you're developing an ASIC or you're doing a board or you're doing soft logic.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
I mean, you're doing, and actually Nathaniel on our team has got a great blog entry on how you build a hardware team with a distributed workforce. I mean, not to, sorry, Matt, I'm sure that I'm telling you the things you already know, of course.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
And this is in this regard though, Matt, I do think it does look like a dress code. You know what I mean? Where it's like, no, no, like engineers wear a tie in the office. Like why are, and you know, part of the reason that, you know, and Tom Lyon on here has talked about the kind of the West coast companies versus the East coast companies and how they, all the East coast companies got fired.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
kind of disrupted by the West Coast companies in the 80s, in part because they're... I mean, McNeely's famous dress code for Sun was, you must. And that was kind of... There was a time in which, like, that was iconoclastic. And you're like, we are... the idea it's like, yeah, your idea of, of what an engineer is, is changing.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
And then they have this engineer is in flip-flops and they're developing something that is a, you know, a chip and they're doing it in flip-flops. It's like, yes, these things can both be true.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
What's the dress code? Jesus. Yeah, exactly. Thank you. Same question. Go ahead.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Anyone who wants to represent you, my co-host is a lawyer. Yeah, happy. Adam Leventhal, employment lawyer, would be happy to represent you in your dress code claim.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
I mean, Matt, that is great. I mean, that's terrible. I know this is what you're living, and I know that you're – this is not for our, your dress code is not our entertainment, but all of that said, and it's a bit shocking that they got a dress. I mean, it's like, you don't need to have a dress.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Where that oxide and friends, there's a clue in an early oxide episode about the Wuhan bat for this feature being actually being, uh, from WebEx. So that's the first thing I got to say. The second thing I got to say is I just want to go back as long as we are, as long as we are, where the hell are we? Our episode from last week. First of all, have there been any repercussions for you?
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
I mean, if you need to have a dress code, something is, because clearly like if you were with someone for which you need to dress professionally, you will need to dress professionally. And if you are going into the office to work on an ASIC, you can wear flip flops, but it just goes that same like undermining of, of trust.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
I will, whatever it is about this voice is just going, this is good. I mean, you said really good. You know what I want? Let's end on time.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
And by the way, I mean, how many people that move away do so because, you know, my spouse has, you know, her residency is in a remote community or I need to be with my mother is ailing. I want to be close to her. I mean, it's like people move because of their own sense of duty to their broader families. I think so frequently.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Well, and you got some folks in the chat who, some folks who are either in cultures that have an RTO or at Amazon specifically that are asking like some pretty good questions. Like, Hey, we're like, we quantify things at this company. Can you, can you quantify some of this for me? Can you quantify this? Like, great. I'm all for making us more productive.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
And then being told by management, like, no, no, this isn't about quantification. Like this isn't about, you know, Emily in the chat saying, Hey, stop asking for the numbers. This isn't about the numbers. And it's like, you know, it seems to like it's been about the numbers for lots of other things around here.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
And it's like that really, again, undermines the faith that I have that this is a decision that's actually rational, let alone one that is in my best interest. It's like this is not this is not I don't understand why we're doing this.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Yeah, interesting. And then this is not a topic that's up for discussion, obviously. It's just like, take a hike if you don't like it, which I think is okay. And maybe there's some folks that really do. But it feels like you're going to get some regretted attrition this way. You're going to lose folks that you don't want to lose.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Right. So on the leadership principles, because one thing I, you know, Amazon had 14 leadership principles for a long time and then kind of had this like late tack on of two additional leadership principles. One of which is yet bonus leadership principles. So those post date my, my talk on the, on them actually.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
uh half truth during a deposition that's right uh no what i also love about that episode that i i that i would like someone to play for me on my deathbed is when you're like we're we're not going to talk about we're not we don't feel comfortable this is what i feel comfortable talking about and i'm like i think we feel a lot more comfortable than that you're like i don't think we do i don't know no don't we do not feel comfortable like yes yes now is the time
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
And one, I mean, they're both kind of like nonsense, but one of them is to strive to be earth's best employer. Um, and I, which I think was honestly a consequence of some of these New York times pieces that were some of these, these pieces that were revealing some of the, the, the really tough working conditions that people had, not just on the, on kind of the AWS side, but, but Amazon writ large.
Oxide and Friends
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And I think it was, uh, it was beginning to threaten their kind of pipeline of young folks has, uh,
Oxide and Friends
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chris do you know if if that's i mean that's a leadership principle right is like and has that leadership principle kind of have people been like hey is this part of striving to be earth's best employer because not really feeling that one here yeah that one doesn't come up as much in conversation uh almost ever i don't think in all my performance reviews i've ever ticked that box for for anybody just because i just don't it's kind of hard to apply um
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Are you tempted to try? Because it'd be like, no, that's not a leadership. We put that there for the New York Times. That's not an actual leadership principle.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Okay, so another question on this. First of all, it's really interesting to hear kind of from the inside about how the – I mean, this is obviously not popular, and this is very uprooting to people's lives, I'm sure. One of the comments he said is that we want to be like a startup again. And speaking as a startup, I don't know.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
The startups these days are kind of taking advantage of the fact that you larger companies have these dumbass RTO mandates. And I don't think Oxide is the only startup that is benefiting from some extraordinary people who are wondering what's next because they are leaving these established companies. Are the startups out there... I mean, it feels to me like startups are remote increasingly.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
more the default answer whereas in person was the default answer previously yeah i think so too so and chris inside because i know that that historically when some of these mandates came down there were some exceptions that people were able to get and that the reality was the folks that needed the exceptions were always able to get them is that what's the thinking on whether that's going to continue or are they are they trying to crack down on some of those exceptions
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
I did. And then I really, I feel like I did not adequately, I mean, I really was a co-conspirator in this.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
What's the answer to that out of curiosity? the answer to why can't we be remote? Yes. I mean, just like when you try to get it to ground, can we just talk about some of this, the magical collaboration that only happens in person? Can we just get to some concrete examples of that? Is that where, I mean, why are we even asking this? Of course, like,
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Listen, pal, as I recall, you redlined all over the thing I wrote. We had to workshop it for three and a half hours.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Honestly, no, that would have been like, no, I was not on any, I was not on IRC jabber. I was on, Um, when we were working remote, it was email. I mean, it was just like, if you want to go like really get tears in your eyes and, and you know, uh, the, uh, it was email. Yeah. Um, what was the way we, and we used email differently than it's used now. Totally. Totally.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Uh, and you were much more current on email. There's a lot of email back and forth. So that, but it, but email was very important. And I think that, and obviously, someone in the chat is saying, like, email. Sorry, not the thing that I, the thing that I have to put a confirmation code into in order to log into the website.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Absolutely. No, I think, and I think, but to the question, but you're right, we didn't have any of those tools. So it looked very different. And I think that the, I think you're right that this is just a generational shift and people are, and this is why I think it's like, this is closer to a dress code than not that the, you know, they're absolutely, I mean, it's kind of amazing.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Exactly. Blog entry of Theseus pranking a CTO for his... self-praising autobiography. But so I did feel like there was one detail that I, that just was kind of occurring to me later as I was reading the blog entries that I just, I think it is worth. So just to catch people from last week, there was a Dave hits wrote this self-praising autobiography. We created, and we, there we are.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
This is where I do feel like I'm a fossil that when I entered the workforce and it was a big deal that even in, by the mid nineties, when you went to an East coast tech company, there was like, people were in like business casual to do work.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
I mean, it was not, I mean, you were only kind of just out of the era where engineers wore ties and the, I mean, obviously I'm like, no, you just wear like blue jeans and the, and why? And I remember thinking that, As a 22-year-old in 1996, why is this company acting like it's a big deal they don't have a dress code? Of course you don't. Of course you don't.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
But that's one of those generational shifts. I definitely think, Chris, it absolutely is a generational shift. I do think that the other thing, and this is to get back to that emotional issue, I think, you know, is it Gloria Steinem? Is that Aging is Not for Wimps? Who is that? Is that Bette Davis? It's either Ben Franklin or Mark Twain or Eleanor Roosevelt. Anyway, Aging is Not for Wimps.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
And I think that it is really hard to age as a technologist because – you do like especially and this is why it's so important to me personally to stay like on the details because once you have a couple of years where you're off the details and you're no longer making individual contributions it becomes really really daunting to to think about like going back and
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
you don't really know what your role is anymore. You know, in the office space, you know, I'm a people person. And like, what is my role? And I think that there's a great solace to know like, oh, my role is there are a bunch of people here in cubicles and I walk around from cubicle to cubicle. This is the HP, you know, famously. The management by walking around. Walking around. Yeah. And
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
you would you walk around you know hey how's it going um and that is how you managed and i think that you like that doesn't work in this world and i i think that that i think you've got an entire generation that's having a hard time coming to grips with it and that's why i really wonder about new company formation this idea like we want to act like a startup it's like well funny you should mention startups because startups are all going to work remotely
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Or at least have a big remote component. I don't know how things are going to – I mean, obviously, our physical office is still important to us. I'm here now. It's a lab. I mean, it does – and it functions as a meeting space, right? We're going to have our meetup here in a couple of weeks, which everyone is really looking forward to. We have all that goodness that comes from being together.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
I don't think anyone wants to say that there's no value in physically being together. It's just that That does not make sense for 100% of your at-work activities. I also think the other thing, by the way, and Chris, I'd love to get your take on this. Does this come up? Because the other thing that's changed is the expectation of what are the hours of work?
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
And it used to be when you left work, because you did not actually have a computer in your pocket and because you did not have a computer at your home, you were actually unreachable. And you were actually off work. And that is not true for us now. Obviously, people are always connected all the time and they're expected to be.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
We created, we created a, a, a fake fan blog. Wondering if it would thinking that this might get his attention and he, boy, he just chomped down on it. The one thing I did really love is when you got the kind of the letter from the email from him, right? Telling you like, look, the lawyers have some issues with this. Yeah. And you kept going.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
And Chris, is there any kind of pushback internally being like, all right, hey, look, you want me to come to the office? Great. By the way, laptop closes at 6 p.m. So I'm sorry. This has got to cut both ways.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Yeah, exactly. It's like the manager themselves, like, it applies that they're working on a Sunday night, but they send you that email on a Sunday night. So it's like, yeah, I don't think they'd be doing that. That's right. Someone had asked in the chat about like, hey, what was remote work like at Sun? And so when I was there, like literally when I arrived there,
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
making the change that he requested and then making some other change as well that would be in the opposite direction. But you kept not following his directions precisely and forcing him to come back and be like, okay, thank you for taking down the NetApp logo there, but you've put the NetApp logo now. Now you're using it in three other places that you're not allowed to use it.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
the engineers in kernel development had just gotten approval to have the ISDN lines so they could actually meaningfully work from home. So when I was there, the engineers had started to work from home, but I did not. And it's kind of amazing to think, Adam, how it feels like it was such a long period of time and it was such a kind of a blink of the eye that in 1996...
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
The engineers had just started work from home. Bonwick would, the engineer, Jeff Bonwick, who I'd come to work with, Jeff wouldn't get in at like 2 p.m. 2 to 3 p.m. He'd kind of like hang out in the evening and then he'd go home at like 7. And then he just to like wait out traffic. And then he'd be up until, you know, I would be working with him over email until, and also the phone.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Adam, that's the other thing. We did use the phone. people would, he would call me, uh, and we would talk on the phone at like, on your, on your landline, just to be on my landline in the office. And because I could not work from home because I just did not. So I was in the office more or less all the time. Um, and I would be in the office until, you know, four or five in the morning.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
And I, so the first year that I was working, I was working Bonwick hours, which was really stupid because Bonwick standard time is not meant Standard time is not actually like it's not diurnal. It is not actually. So I would end up because I had a reverse commute. It would take me like six minutes to get into the office unless I was going into the office at 4 p.m. and it took me 45 minutes.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
And I'm like, I have got to be like, I got to get off this and I got to get something that looks more like rational human kind of hours. But these people had started to work remotely. And then, Adam, by the time you came in 2001, and we had DSL. I remember when we got our new place in San Francisco in 2000, I got DSL. That was a big deal. And we were starting to work remotely a couple days a week.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Yeah, I saw Dan McDonald was here. Well, that predated the punch-in stuff. It did predate punch-in. You're right. Yeah, you're right. We had some kind of VPN stuff. And then I definitely remember you were the messenger on Wi-Fi. You were describing Wi-Fi. And I'm like, this sound, you came from the future. It sounds like there are no wires plugged in your laptop at all.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Like I, that says no way that's not possible. And I realized wifi was just like, wow. And then, so by the time we, and then, so things were pretty hybrid from that point. You know, I remember a lot of detrace we did in our, like working at home for sure.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
It was really great is what I got to say. It was delightful. It was a masterstroke. Nonstop Lawyers is the blog entry that describes your ultimate exasperation because it feels like whatever you do, the lawyers are telling you to do something different when in reality, your alter ego was deliberately doing things incorrectly. It was really, anyway, chef's kiss. Good stuff.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
When we started Fishworks, I remember really being explicit about, like, we want the office to be that kind of gathering place. And yes, we're going to do work from home, but we're going to work from work. And it gave us Fishpond, just as the world, just as our working office gave us Seaball and the Mark Trucaine.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
I don't know how to tell you, but whatever illness has afflicted you has given you enormous profit. I just think you sound both, I mean, obviously serious, but also like mellow and chill. That's the whiskey. That part's the whiskey.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
I do know because I listened to it over the weekend and I was also shocked. It was an hour and 57 minutes or whatever it was. And I had the same reaction. I was like, Jesus. Did you really listen to this? So this is the future of work that we did like two and a half years ago.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
we did. And we also, I remember thinking like, this will be good for the first like year or two, then we'll need to get a bigger space. Yeah. Much bigger space to accommodate the, to accommodate. And it's like, Nope, we're not going to do that. And I mean, I think the thing that gets really weird to think about is like, what if there's no pandemic at all?
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
And cause that is like, that takes us into bizarre land because we make a whole bunch of different decisions and And I mean, it's, it's actually horrifying. I actually, it is, it is actually too scary to contemplate if the pandemic, no, I'm serious. Cause like I, there were so many jobs that I had it in my head have to be local. Yeah. Um, operations had to be local.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
No, it's scary. My breathing accelerates just kind of thinking about it because I don't know that we pull it off. Actually, I almost know that we don't. And the ability to get folks wherever they are is an absolute magic power that any startup is going to use.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
I mean, so I think part of the reason that I think this is going to shift so radically is because startups, one, I mean, so Chris, just for the generational issues you're mentioning that like, hey, this is generationally, this is not a big deal to me. I'm born in the mid-90s. I play video games. I'm just used to like online communities. So, Like that is not a big deal for me.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
And so I think that one, you kind of have that big adjustment. Then you also have like, Oh, wait a minute. The pool of talent that I want to hire from is they are making this incredibly bad decision that I can take advantage of and get people. I was like, Oh, okay. Wow. Great. Thanks. Amazon. I didn't think I was going to be able to hire any of your folks, but you know, thanks. Broadcom. Thanks.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Google. Thanks. And again, And because as a startup, you've got to find a way to differentiate yourself. And obviously, there's a degree of venture-funded startup, you're giving up a degree of job security, obviously. You've got to find a way to differentiate. And boy, being able to hire remote is a really, really, really key way to differentiate.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
And this is the bit I think with Andy Jassy, I'm like, do you think if you were a startup today, do you understand that you'd be a remote company? Yeah.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
That's not why we're here. So we are here, and so people complain, people who do complain about us giving insufficient context may complain this time that we give too much context. I'm just going to warn you in advance, because this is a note that Andy Jassy sent last week on a return to the office mandate for Amazon.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
I think so too. And I think that like you, you know, an evergreen for years and years and years and evergreen about like, Hey, I want to have a hacker news thread. That's going to have a thousand comments. Talk about office layout, right? We open plan offices, cubicles, like everyone's at war with everyone else. Right.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
And the, you know, that's not something we need to, you know, we've got other challenges in our remote world.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
but but office layout is not something and do you remember like i don't remember we were talking about like you know at joint we kind of had these cubicles that weren't cubicles they were dividers where it was like an open plan that where the dividers were of a very specified height so you could kind of like keep your head down and headphones on but you could also like look up i mean it was like all all this like nonsense that we don't need to do anymore yeah yeah for sure
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Totally. And then all these things that we kind of talked about that episode that I think people should go back and listen to because I do think it's all the stuff that's now really important to us, like the side chat and the side channel and the back channel, the ability to record meetings, all the stuff that I just can't live without.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
The other thing is that also I was actually interacting with someone who was at a return to office company. And was having a conversation with him, was scheduled to have a conversation with him. And he was like four minutes late. And, you know, in the post-pandemic world, four minutes is like, okay, I like- Call the cops.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Call the cops. National disaster. Check Twitter. There's been an earthquake. It's like, you know, this is cataclysmic. And he was very apologetic. He's like, God, I'm so sorry. I, I had to get a conference room and I was like, the, the, I had this conference room booked and these guys wouldn't leave because they went over.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
It's like, God, the idea that like your, like that conversation, which is like, let's assume is a good conversation is grooving and has to stop now because somebody else needs to have a conversation because it's like, Oh my God, like, what are we doing? This just makes no sense in terms of, and I think this is what, um,
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
you know, what people are latching onto in terms of like, hey, this doesn't feel like it's making us more productive. Well, Adam, I'm not sure where, do we think there's going to be a trend? Actually, let's leave on this. Do we think, does this pretend a trend? Is this going to be an outlier? Are we, what is the future here for these RTO mandates?
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
So Amazon, and I think this happened actually maybe just before we did our episode last time, two and a half years ago, or around the same time, had a hybrid return to the office mandate. You'd return to the office for three days a week. Which, I mean, feels, I don't know. I mean, what was your take on that at the time?
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
I think we land pretty hybrid-y where I think that there's a lot of new company formation ends up being remote first for all the good reasons to be remote first. And I think that that alone will, and I think also you're going to have, I do think that companies are going to look different in the future. I don't know that we're going to have these massive hundred thousand person tech companies.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
where I think you're going to have more smaller companies. I think that's what makes more kind of sense in the abstract anyway. And so I think it's going to be, I think, hybrid-y. I think you're going to have a lot more. I think some of the stuff is going to look really, really dated in hindsight. I also think that there are going to be companies that have no RTO mandate.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
So I think that these RTO mandates are going to, at some level, backfire. I don't know if they're going to backfire quickly enough to kind of give feedback to the folks that institute them. You know, one company we have not talked about, do you know a company that does not have, that is truly hybrid and has not had any RTO mandate since the pandemic? NVIDIA. Hmm, interesting. Yeah.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
NVIDIA is, it's like, I don't know. That's interesting. How are they doing? I haven't checked. Are they doing okay? I don't know. Are they having any success? And that's pretty interesting. I think that I do think we're going to have a qualitative shift. Not for the first time. I think we've had a lot of these qualitative shifts.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
The internet was a qualitative shift where it's like you had companies that got it, succeeded, and companies that didn't, perished. And I think that, I don't know that these hyperscalers are, I mean, obviously Amazon's a wildly profitable company.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
I don't know they're in danger of perishing, but I do think that this approach, this kind of coercion approach is going to undermine trust to the degree that I don't, I don't know that it's going to work. I think it's going to backfire.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
that offices, like cities, that are not, because there are, just like, Chris, it's an interesting analog, because the, you know, like cities, you know, everyone kind of spent a bunch of time trying to flee cities, but actually young people are attracted to cities for a lot of the reasons that you're attracted to something that's got, you know, hustle to it, and that's got verve to it, and Z-ball and chariot races.
Oxide and Friends
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I think it's you are someone who, I mean, this is probably true for me as well, like really missed that in-person collaboration that we had in an office.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Yeah, well put. And I think it is going to really depend on what you're doing. And there will be some companies that... There's some companies where dress codes make sense, right? I mean, it's like... I mean, for any company Matt's at.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Yeah, if you wouldn't mind, if you would please reflect on that. I assume that we're going to have at least some future episode only on Dress Codes featuring Matt. I'm envisioning Fashion Plate Matt, where I can put different outfits on Matt.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Okay. Sorry. Here in the Bay Area, getting your catalytic converter stolen, it's like the sun rising. I had forgotten this. Was there a catalytic converter?
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
It was very bleak. Yes. Well, and I think that, I mean, I would like to say that those thieves really were innovators. And I would like to believe that somewhere there's another podcast going on with catalytic converter thieves reminiscing about Sun Microsystems back in the day.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
It was just like this flightless bird where you could just go, you had all the time all day to just, you know, put it up on jacks, really do it right, you know. And back in the day, there was real attention to the craft.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Well, this has been, I don't know if this has been cathartic, uplifting. I don't know where we land on this. This has been, certainly I think, I would say that for those folks that are going through this, I definitely, heart goes out to folks who have really, for whom this is really a challenge for their lives. And I think that this too shall pass in that regard.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
I think that remote work is here to stay at some level in our industry. Yeah.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
I think that the path that this podcast took is very much a consequence of that. And we talked about that earlier, that the thing that when people talk about what you have in the office that's so special, one of the things is junior engineers being able to get lunch with senior engineers. And for us, that was getting dinner on Monday nights.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
And next podcast, we'll have Dave Hitz on here on RTO mandates. Dave Lightman. We'll bring back Dave Hitz. There we go. All righty. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, especially Chris and Matt. I really appreciate both of you. I mean, it takes real courage to kind of get up on stage here.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Although I feel that, Matt, I would like to, that your Broadcom overlords should note your praise for Hawk Tan's honesty and your respect for the Broadcom dress code. So I'd like to explain that to your overlords as they are pouring over this podcast, that you are actually an obedient servant. You are not a... A ne'er-do-well or a miscreant? A rebel rouser?
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
There you go. Okay, it's just like that. But with even more feeling? Okay, that sounds good. I'm ready to go. I'm ready to sign the affidavit that you are welcome, your Octan overlord. I'm excited about the dress code.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Yeah, awesome. Thank you, Matt. Thank you, Chris. Really appreciate it. Thank you, everyone. And thanks for all the great comments in the chat. Thanks, everyone. See you next time.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
And we've talked about this, that this podcast kind of serves that purpose, we think, or gets to some of that, of tapping into wisdom and letting people kind of... gathering at the metaphorical bar, if you will, where the bar only serves Diet Cokes, as it turns out. So no, I think it's a very good point that this podcast is very much a consequence of that.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
So yes, so we, so mixed feelings maybe two and a half years ago. And I think it was interesting to re-listen to that conversation where, because Lucas in particular was like, all right, hey, we seem to be kind of in praise of remote work. Can we kind of talk about some of the things we have lost here? Some of the things that we only get from in-person collaboration.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
I actually want to come back to that because I think there's a lot of things we can talk about there. But this note, so Amazon had this kind of hybrid model three days a week. You had to be in an office, which is where this thing begins to kind of teeter a little bit. It's not like the office because Amazon's not in one office anymore. I mean, do you know folks at Amazon currently?
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Or I should say operating under symbol or return to the office mandates. I'll tell you that you and I know someone in common, a technologist in common who is at Amazon currently. And his frustration with this is my team is not co-located with me at all. So I've got to drive for an hour and a half in pretty thick traffic to get into an office in which my team is not located. And I got to spend...
Oxide and Friends
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and I had to endure a long commute and like, I'm not going to be able to be there in time for my kid's soccer game this afternoon or this evening as a result. I mean, it just feels like it. And I think people are willing to accept certainly. I mean, I think you and I are both willing to accept it. Yes. There's a, a chemistry, something you can have.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
happen when you are in person that you don't necessarily get otherwise. I've been trying to replay my own career, though, about the times when there's truly been that spark in a conference room at a whiteboard with dry erase markers. That's not the marker game. Perhaps a subject of its own.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
Like, look, I feel also having re-listened to that, anyone that complains about our audio or the fact that we don't actually explain what we're talking about should go listen to Oxide and Friends from years past. Where the audio was worse, and I don't feel we got to the topic any sooner.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
And people don't realize that we... Because we are such over-sharers. People think there is nothing about... us or Oxide ourselves that we haven't shared. But in fact, perhaps our greatest innovation has been Unshared, an office game that is, well, some of us acknowledge.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
I'm so glad you said that. I really want to talk about Z-ball right now. I know it's off-topic, but we can get in and out of Z-ball pretty quickly, I feel. Sure. I don't know. Go for it. Get us in there. Okay, so this is like, okay, this is an actual concrete in-office innovation. You're only going to get this one in the office because it requires everyone to physically be in the same room.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
So I, and actually, you know, I think, I believe that this glass is still in my house. I became very concerned. No, I became very concerned because I'm like, this is a historical artifact. And like one of the kids is going to like break it. I have a Solaris Zones glass. I don't know how many there are.
Oxide and Friends
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And I, and this glass was just drifting around the conference room in which we would have the Detroit meeting.
Oxide and Friends
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Oh, my God. Yeah, I know. That cemetery is now a Chili's. It just feels like it's such a sad end for – no, that – you could actually find that spot a little more easily because it's close to a stairway. Yeah. Because it's – only the stairways remained. Oh, I've been there.
Oxide and Friends
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I tried to take a photo of where my office was, and I was ushered out for taking a photo of this confidential... I'm in a Facebook office. There's nothing... Can we just have some respect for this ancient burial ground that I then... I put a spell on that spot, and I'm convinced that... You're haunting it to this day. I am haunting it to this day.
Oxide and Friends
RTO or GTFO
So we had this Solaris zones glass that had drifted ashore in this conference room. And then somehow a ping pong ball enters.