I work in FAANG and I am really not convinced this is the start of a trend.
First Twitter was already moving towards permanent WFH before the pandemic, it only accelerated their plans. I highly doubt (m)any other companies were also seriously considering that move before the pandemic.
Second, working in a remote only team is very different from working in an office, or even from occasionally working from home. I have seen the best managers get completely clueless when managing full remote people.
Third you lose a lot of things by going full remote. You can no longer have hallway conversations, sharing new ideas over lunch, trying to pitch new ideas organically. You lose a lot of spontaneity by going full remote, which I fully expect to impact innovation potential. Some of the best ideas in my group are things that came up from organic conversations that we have been productizing.
Fourth has to do with company culture. I can't speak for every company, but I know that at my company there is a very clear favoring people local to where the HQ is located, probably at least in part for the reasons above. I don't see that changing easily. East coast to West coast in the same team means you have 3 hours a day where you can't have your whole team available at the same time.
What I expect to happen is most likely much greater flexibility for companies that were not open about it before, but full time remote for everyone seems like a huge stretch even over several years.
First Twitter was already moving towards permanent WFH before the pandemic, it only accelerated their plans. I highly doubt (m)any other companies were also seriously considering that move before the pandemic.
Second, working in a remote only team is very different from working in an office, or even from occasionally working from home. I have seen the best managers get completely clueless when managing full remote people.
Third you lose a lot of things by going full remote. You can no longer have hallway conversations, sharing new ideas over lunch, trying to pitch new ideas organically. You lose a lot of spontaneity by going full remote, which I fully expect to impact innovation potential. Some of the best ideas in my group are things that came up from organic conversations that we have been productizing.
Fourth has to do with company culture. I can't speak for every company, but I know that at my company there is a very clear favoring people local to where the HQ is located, probably at least in part for the reasons above. I don't see that changing easily. East coast to West coast in the same team means you have 3 hours a day where you can't have your whole team available at the same time.
What I expect to happen is most likely much greater flexibility for companies that were not open about it before, but full time remote for everyone seems like a huge stretch even over several years.