Remote is Here and Now.

The Download: In 1990, Steve Jobs gave an interview discussing this specific point. It was long before the rise of remote and flexible work. But Jobs already understood that something fundamental had changed about what it takes to build a winning business and about the tools available to managers and entrepreneurs. Here's a clip:

"As business conditions change faster and faster each year, we cannot change our management hierarchical organizations very fast relative to changing business conditions. We can't have someone working for a new boss every week. We also can't our geographical organization very fast... We can't be moving people around the country every week.

But we can change an electronic organization, like that [snaps finger].

And what's starting to happen, as we start to link computers together in sophisticated networks and great user interfaces, we are starting to be able to create clusters of people working on a common task in literally 15-minutes' worth of setup. And these people can work together extremely efficiently no matter where they are geographically and no matter who they work for hierarchically. And these "organizations" can live for as long as they're needed and then vanish.

We're finding we can reorganize our companies electronically very rapidly, and that's the only type of organization that can begin to keep pace with changing business conditions."

Originally appeared here: https://www.drorpoleg.com/remote-as-a-corporate-needs/