Hybrid is Hell

In June, the founder and CEO of Yelp, Jeremy Stoppelman, boldly referred to hybrid work as “the worst of both worlds” and “the hell of half measures.”

Unlike a lot of CEOs, however, he didn’t double down on coming back to the office. Instead, Yelp announced that it’s closing offices in New York, Chicago and D.C.—as well as reducing its Phoenix space—and sending all those employees remote.

Getting rid of offices, in Stoppelman’s view, isn’t just a way to make tech employees, who want to be remote, happy. It saves Yelp a lot of money on office space — money he says they’ll reinvest in employee hiring, benefits and perks.

Not every company is a tech company. For a lot of the companies I work with, there are still a lot of benefits to be gained from in-office work. But it will be interesting to stay tuned and see whether the tech companies, as usual, will lead the way.