Your syllogism doesn't work. You begin by stating accurately that most companies aren't like Google and Facebook, which is true. Then you implicitly state that Basecamp and Automattic are more representative of most companies, which is patently false in many ways; in the relevant way, it's untrue because most companies do not have remote workers, and most people do not work remotely.
You can't really lead with, "Basecamp and Automattic are closer in size to most companies, and companies of that size employ the most people; therefore they're excellent role models." Size draws a false equivalence, because the remote culture at those two examples depends on far more than size, and they differ from most companies in the same size range.
As for the parent's logic, he is starting from the premise that larger companies have a much stronger signaling effect for business case studies, which in turn prompts changes adopted at other organizations in the same industry regardless of size. I think that's probably a fair premise; it's not necessarily rational, but it's correct that the business practices of large tech companies are reported on, studied and emulated more than smaller companies.
Well, no, I was responding to the claims of the parent comment that stated we need massive businesses to shift to remote work to prove that it's workable. I was only comparing on size, so I think the argument is sound.
As for other factors, of course there are lots of companies and roles for whom remote working won't work, but there are certainly more it would work for than currently allow it - and many of the reasons they don't allow it aren't sensible, which is why I think essays like this that make the argument in favor are useful.
Well, look at it this way. You and I might have our minds changed by insightful essays, but looking at the broader business landscape, which of the following appears more likely to persuade an organization to consider changes?
1) A collection of insightful essays discussing the merits of remote working for amenable cultures, written by people who work at companies that basically only our ingroup is very familiar with; or
2) An academic study explored by Harvard Business Review, which discusses the way remote work at a household name improved productivity in a quantitative way?
There's a herd mentality here. Larger companies impact organizational choices down the size chain. It's very similar to open source software. A large, recognizable company is much more likely to have its open source software adopted by other companies of different sizes. Not necessarily because it's more functional or robust, but very often due to signaling.
As another commenter very adequately put it: if a high-quality engineer can work remotely from a beach-house, they will. And the companies who are adamant in ther on-site policy will be left with the more mediocre engineers.
And I already seen it happen several times in my home country.
Sure, I agree: they're theoretically limiting themselves to mediocre engineers, I guess. But the companies with the greatest potential to effect cultural change in the industry don't really care, because their returns look like this:
Which brings us back to my fundamental premise - companies emulate the business practices of the companies they desire to become (or in the special case of tech, desire to be acquired by). For every company that wants to virtue-signal their remote culture, or be avante garde out of sincere appreciation for the concept, there are many more that don't want to make changes like that without seeing it work at widely recognizable examples. When the companies with the collective lions' share of business signaling power in the industry have returns that look like those, they're not concerned about having mediocre engineers. Privately, they'd probably disagree with you that their engineers are even the competitive advantage.
To reiterate: this is all coming from someone who presently works remotely and enjoys it thoroughly. I just really don't think there are substantive arguments that it should be adopted by companies that don't already have the culture in place.
I dislike the herd mentality you're describing but I know it's real. And I know that most people are followers -- only when they see something like WFH brings widely recognized benefits from bigger corporations, it's only then when they will follow suit. Sad state of affairs but nothing much can be done.
At the same time, such changes never happen overnight. The returns you're linking to IMO hardly have any meaningful correlation with the on-site vs. WFH work. Engineers must deliver and produce, but the company's bottom line is only partially influenced by the engineers.
> it's untrue because most companies do not have remote workers, and most people do not work remotely
There is work at home and there is remote work. Most companies of any size (more than 1 location), have remote workers. My first job out of college in the late 90s had most of my 'team' spread across the globe in other offices. We got everything done through conference calls and emails. Eventually I stopped going to the office because there was no point. This also was not some super forward thinking tech company, but it was very cost conscious. The cost savings alone led the company down the path of figuring out who could WFH and how to make that work.
Considering that we're talking about work outside of a shared office in this context, I don't think this is relevant or a good-faith response to the point at hand. We're not defining "remote" as "more than one location", we're defining it as, "people who don't work in one of the locations."
You can't really lead with, "Basecamp and Automattic are closer in size to most companies, and companies of that size employ the most people; therefore they're excellent role models." Size draws a false equivalence, because the remote culture at those two examples depends on far more than size, and they differ from most companies in the same size range.
As for the parent's logic, he is starting from the premise that larger companies have a much stronger signaling effect for business case studies, which in turn prompts changes adopted at other organizations in the same industry regardless of size. I think that's probably a fair premise; it's not necessarily rational, but it's correct that the business practices of large tech companies are reported on, studied and emulated more than smaller companies.