Speaker 1: Now really, really really hello, and welcome to really know
Speaker 1: really with Jason Alexander and Peter Tilden, who remind you
Speaker 1: that not only can you work from home, you can
Speaker 1: subscribe to our show from the comfort of your home
Speaker 1: as well. The pandemic thrust millions of people into remote work,
Speaker 1: and the consensus.
Speaker 2: For most of us is we love it.
Speaker 1: The reduced commutes, our own bathrooms, muals, we enjoy a
Speaker 1: self determined schedule, and the ability to take a break
Speaker 1: when needed with our families and pets is wonderful. So then,
Speaker 1: why are employers increasingly pushing back against remote work, especially
Speaker 1: when their biggest corporate complaint, less productivity is a lie?
Speaker 3: Really?
Speaker 4: No, really, Today Jason and Peter.
Speaker 1: Call upon Nick Bloom, co director of the Productivity, Innovation
Speaker 1: and Entrepreneurship Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Speaker 1: He'll discuss the latest technological innovations created for at homework
Speaker 1: and the changing realities that make working from home a
Speaker 1: critical part of our economy.
Speaker 3: Now Here are.
Speaker 1: Two guys whose families beg them not to work from home,
Speaker 1: Jason and Peter, Is it not kind.
Speaker 5: Of historically amazing that at the moment this pandemic hit.
Speaker 4: We actually had this technology.
Speaker 5: I mean, zoom was around before the pandemic, but no
Speaker 5: one real video conferencing.
Speaker 4: Nobody was using it.
Speaker 3: Really to not to the extent that they are now.
Speaker 4: And then came bang, this thing hits.
Speaker 5: We're trapped in our homes and this lifeline of communication
Speaker 5: and business.
Speaker 6: We're four years into this work from home phenomenal instance
Speaker 6: of COVID right, and they're starting to get feedback about
Speaker 6: whether it's successful or not where they should allow people
Speaker 6: to stay at home.
Speaker 3: As far as productivity, I can I vote? Can I vote?
Speaker 6: We're going to have one of the top economies for
Speaker 6: this job from Oh can I vote?
Speaker 3: And by the way we do this job, can we
Speaker 3: can do remotely? We've been we have.
Speaker 4: We did it very successfully.
Speaker 5: Why why do I have to be goer to go
Speaker 5: to the valley?
Speaker 6: You like it, You like it, you like being in
Speaker 6: the same room with me to do this. You said
Speaker 6: you liked item. But here's the deal. The US economy
Speaker 6: is now a work from home economy, with forty two
Speaker 6: percent of the labor force full time working for home.
Speaker 6: So yeah, and as I said, after four years now,
Speaker 6: they've gotten some intel that says, and here's the headline
Speaker 6: that got us to go really, no, really, return to
Speaker 6: the office is pointless, really no, really, And they've got
Speaker 6: stats and studies that say that. Meanwhile, I pulled this
Speaker 6: headlines from different important business publications why the golden age remote.
Speaker 3: Work may be coming to an end.
Speaker 6: Some companies even threaten the fireworkers who don't return to
Speaker 6: the office for a certain number of days. The Wall
Speaker 6: Street Journal bosses push back and work from home diehards.
Speaker 6: They will need to show up. Manager say, team productivity
Speaker 6: has taken a hit. Amazon and Apple joint return to
Speaker 6: the office pushback against remote work, and of course one
Speaker 6: of the most famous pushback is Elon Musk. Elon Musk
Speaker 6: has said, get off your work from home bulb practibles
Speaker 6: and get to work.
Speaker 5: So what you're saying is that that productivity and sort
Speaker 5: of the joy of work has been proven to be
Speaker 5: much more advantageous when people work from home. But the
Speaker 5: businesses are saying, don't comment research, you're coming in there.
Speaker 6: And we got on one of the top guys because
Speaker 6: part of the part of the report and the study
Speaker 6: that did is so so damning about why managers want
Speaker 6: these people back.
Speaker 3: It's a control.
Speaker 4: Things, manage it if somebody's not there.
Speaker 6: But there's so many questions about this because it's really
Speaker 6: it's a bit complicated and where the future is heading,
Speaker 6: because it impacts how cities are built because people can
Speaker 6: move anywhere out they don't have to be an officer.
Speaker 3: They're leaving there. About working from home life.
Speaker 6: Balance, I mean, it's a whole different thing when you
Speaker 6: can work from home and answer they don't get your
Speaker 6: Amazon packed, or you don't have to hire a babysit
Speaker 6: if your dog or your kid, or spend three hours
Speaker 6: in the car driving from work.
Speaker 5: Well, which takes into account also the cost of what
Speaker 5: it takes for most people to have to go to it.
Speaker 6: Yes, but on the other hand, this is not in entitlement.
Speaker 6: It's a privilege because the company can say when did you, Hey,
Speaker 6: when did you employees decide, oh, I'm not coming in anymore,
Speaker 6: and I have no saying it because we feel and
Speaker 6: then some companies actually shove it up there. But this
Speaker 6: one made me laugh out loud. I'm almost positive to
Speaker 6: zoom it's making their employees come. Yeah, But then again
Speaker 6: that could be a tech thing rather than a they're
Speaker 6: not zooming there, making sure we can zoom, so I
Speaker 6: don't want to be so judgmental there. And I also
Speaker 6: saw that mentorship suffers, so I'm dying to ask our guests.
Speaker 6: Nick bloom is the William Everley Professor of Economics at Stanford.
Speaker 6: He's the co founder of Work from Home Research. Bloomberg
Speaker 6: ranked him is one that it's fifty monst in flunch
Speaker 6: on that. So that's when I go, I'm sure if
Speaker 6: you look at the ranking now ye for this appearance.
Speaker 4: And after this he's going, hold on, I gotta go.
Speaker 3: But did I go down to seventy five? If I
Speaker 3: was fifty before I did.
Speaker 5: The By the way, he was gonna come.
Speaker 4: In, but he opted to do it.
Speaker 6: But this guy was stiffy and the prestigious fresh you
Speaker 6: got the fish metal, really, yes you did.
Speaker 3: I was asking.
Speaker 6: Who got the fish? He got the fresh, the current
Speaker 6: holder of the fresh. But but Professor Reckon give up?
Speaker 5: Is it like Miss America? We have to give up
Speaker 5: the fish the next year?
Speaker 3: A fresh song?
Speaker 6: Here it is yah fresh, So we should ask her.
Speaker 3: Professor Nicholas bloom heinick, how are you hey? Good? Good?
Speaker 2: Good to be had?
Speaker 7: I have to say I've hitten it I've hitting the medal,
Speaker 7: so they can't give it away next year.
Speaker 6: Oh you just when people come you don't want it out,
Speaker 6: Like the oscars in the.
Speaker 3: Bathroom doesn't mean anything to me.
Speaker 2: Come on, hey, hey, hey, how did you know it's
Speaker 2: in the bosom?
Speaker 3: There you go, you're that kind of guy. So you are.
Speaker 6: But I saw that your expertise is from work from home.
Speaker 6: And because we are, as I said to the intro,
Speaker 6: years into this experiment, we're now starting to get some
Speaker 6: metrics about whether it works or not. So we're curious,
Speaker 6: where is it. Where are we right now with work
Speaker 6: from home? What do we know about it and how
Speaker 6: it's working and will it continue?
Speaker 2: So yes, it's here to stay.
Speaker 7: The other big thing is, look, you don't need to
Speaker 7: be in the office every day, but it does help
Speaker 7: to come in two or three.
Speaker 2: So you know, the.
Speaker 7: Pushback is basically against fully remote. Now, if you're week in,
Speaker 7: week out, never in the office, it is harder to
Speaker 7: mentor harder to innovate, to kind of connect with other
Speaker 7: people if you also don't need to be in Monday
Speaker 7: to Friday week and week out. So this is kind
Speaker 7: of cross wires, to be honest, what I see a
Speaker 7: lot of people is Elon Musk is talking about one
Speaker 7: thing and some remote advocate talking about another thing, and
Speaker 7: they're just talking across each other.
Speaker 6: And how did they curiously, how did they measure it?
Speaker 6: Because I got to tell you the BS in all
Speaker 6: of this for me is open floor plan. Who is
Speaker 6: that good for? When did open floor plan become Oh, yeah,
Speaker 6: that's great for employees because you'll hang out. I don't
Speaker 6: think so. I think that already was an intrusion there is.
Speaker 6: I don't want that to be the starting point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's funny.
Speaker 7: I had somebody tell me how they hated the open
Speaker 7: plan office. They said, look, the person next to me,
Speaker 7: she clips her toenails under the table. She thinks I
Speaker 7: don't notice, but I tell you I noticed. I definitely notice,
Speaker 7: and I can't work when I hear.
Speaker 2: That clipping sound.
Speaker 7: So yeah, look, that's one of the upsides of working
Speaker 7: from home. I mean, the big one people talk about
Speaker 7: is you don't have to commute. There's a fantastic study,
Speaker 7: one of my favorite research studies that came out in
Speaker 7: Science Leading Journal twenty years ago, published by Danny Cammermon
Speaker 7: Nobel Prize winner, Ask People evaluated what they like and
Speaker 7: least like doing per hour. Favorite activity per hour was
Speaker 7: called intimate relationships, which you.
Speaker 2: Know, you can guess what that's about.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 7: Second most hated activity per hour is working where I
Speaker 7: have to pay people to do it.
Speaker 2: People don't work for free.
Speaker 7: Turns out, the most hated activity for Irish commuting. People
Speaker 7: absolutely hate commuting. They hate commuting, and so if you
Speaker 7: work from home, you save them a commute.
Speaker 2: It's about an hour a day.
Speaker 7: And secondly, it's peaceful and quiet, and that's why you know,
Speaker 7: people like it, but they don't want to do it
Speaker 7: every day. You know, it's not like mostly they're on
Speaker 7: it every day. They just want two.
Speaker 2: Three days a week.
Speaker 5: But well, that's interesting because you know, i have such
Speaker 5: a small window of references because I've been doing what
Speaker 5: I do since i was a teenager. So is that
Speaker 5: other than the commute and the cost of it. Do
Speaker 5: the workforce not the management for us? The workforce report
Speaker 5: that there is also a positive a side for them,
Speaker 5: a positive experience from being back in the office, being
Speaker 5: back physically with their colleagues.
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean, look two things.
Speaker 7: One is more than a half of Americans have to
Speaker 7: come in every day, so they do jobs that you
Speaker 7: just can't do remotely. So in fact, the majority of
Speaker 7: jobs and mostly they don't want to.
Speaker 2: Go in every day.
Speaker 7: But Jason, you're lucky that you're you know, you're happy
Speaker 7: and enjoy going in. We survey people, We serve a
Speaker 7: ten thousand Americans month and in fact in the last
Speaker 7: month to be asked them, how is you know, how
Speaker 7: many days a week going in? Is it best for
Speaker 7: your physical health and your mental health? Turns out about
Speaker 7: a third of people say they're best going in every day,
Speaker 7: about a third say hybrid some days, and a third
Speaker 7: say being fully remote. So you know, there is no
Speaker 7: one sized fits or some people find it. You know
Speaker 7: me personally, I want to go in maybe three four
Speaker 7: days a week. You want some quiet, you want some energy.
Speaker 7: Some people find it depressing being at home and some
Speaker 7: you know, like the piece and quiet. So in that way,
Speaker 7: we're all very different. Actually, so you thrive off energy,
Speaker 7: but there are definitely other folks that, you know, like
Speaker 7: the tranquility at home.
Speaker 5: And is there is there a reliable measurement of actual
Speaker 5: productivity in one versus the other, not just what people prefer,
Speaker 5: but their actual productiveness.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's a number of studies.
Speaker 7: You know, I have a paper it's about to come
Speaker 7: out in Nature that looks at about one and a
Speaker 7: half thousand people working in a tech firm. So for them,
Speaker 7: for example, we have lines of code written and in the production,
Speaker 7: performance reviews, promotions and sales for that. For hybrid, which
Speaker 7: is when they work from home two days a week
Speaker 7: Monday Friday, they're about flat. So you know, basically going
Speaker 7: in five days a week or working from home Monday
Speaker 7: Friday is about the same. You could think, look, you know,
Speaker 7: you got more time at home, you save on commute,
Speaker 7: you're less tired, it's quieter. On the other hand, that's
Speaker 7: less face to FaceTime.
Speaker 2: But it kind of it's a wash.
Speaker 7: You see another data when you're fully remote, if you're
Speaker 7: working from home five days a week, productivity can be
Speaker 7: a bit lower. I mean there's you know, again some
Speaker 7: people thriveing to do well, but on average it's maybe
Speaker 7: five ten percent down.
Speaker 3: How do you measure knowledge?
Speaker 6: You got to sign hey, hell, you got to get
Speaker 6: your prodition productivity up and you got to solve this
Speaker 6: this virus problem by Thursday. How do you do a
Speaker 6: lot of work is mental work? Does that mess up
Speaker 6: to hot productivity thing? Is there no way to measure that?
Speaker 2: You're right, It's hard to measure.
Speaker 7: I mean, look, anyone that you know manages, anyone knows
Speaker 7: it's hard to measure it. Look, you guys are both
Speaker 7: in the creative industries. In a sense, I'm an academic.
Speaker 7: It's hard to measure this stuff.
Speaker 2: So you have.
Speaker 7: Reviews and you look at what people do, and you
Speaker 7: interview clients and customers, et cetera. Generally, it's particularly hard
Speaker 7: to come up with new ideas remotely because it's as
Speaker 7: much easier over lunch of kicking ideas around than it
Speaker 7: is over zoom. So that's why, for particularly for knowledge workers,
Speaker 7: you probably do want two three days a week interesting.
Speaker 6: And mentorship is mentorship done in the in the crapper
Speaker 6: because of working from home.
Speaker 3: Who's mentoring me?
Speaker 6: And nobody's in my bathroom waiting for me to come
Speaker 6: in and say, you know what you should be doing?
Speaker 7: Yes, you know, I don't know who's in your bathroom,
Speaker 7: but I can talk to mentorship more generally.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's the big problem.
Speaker 7: In the obvious point you point out is to be mentoring,
Speaker 7: you need someone being mentor and somebody doing the mentoring
Speaker 7: and to be there at the same time. And what
Speaker 7: you see is twenty somethings. You know, I teach tons
Speaker 7: of students in the early twenties. They all want to
Speaker 7: be in the office for typically days a week. They'll say, look,
Speaker 7: you know, it's so sure I can be mentored or
Speaker 7: some im and isn't great. I don't want, you know,
Speaker 7: I don't want to be at home every day with
Speaker 7: four of us sharing a smaller party. The problem is
Speaker 7: it's the thirty and forty year old managers that are
Speaker 7: mentoring them. They're the ones that don't want to come
Speaker 7: in as much.
Speaker 3: Got it.
Speaker 6: The other part of this, Nick, that I see and
Speaker 6: you have to tell us about the evolution of what's
Speaker 6: going on because I'm not up on this. The tech,
Speaker 6: all of the stuff to make your boss think you're working.
Speaker 6: They have mouse movers, automatic apps that move the mouse.
Speaker 6: I love if you don't have that.
Speaker 5: So are you saying that there's a device at the
Speaker 5: office that is measuring how much your mouse moves? So
Speaker 5: are you saying that there's a device at the office
Speaker 5: that is measuring how much your mouse moves?
Speaker 6: Okay, so Nick explained to Jason, because he doesn't know
Speaker 6: this that if you sign your doctor did you hear
Speaker 6: the it's condescension? Is that the most which means to talk.
Speaker 6: So the fact that once you sign that document they
Speaker 6: can want they're watching your keystrokes.
Speaker 4: If you have any winder at the office, what about
Speaker 4: the one that you're oh no.
Speaker 3: Owner, Oh no?
Speaker 6: Nick Bill Jason in on how bosses and how many
Speaker 6: were like you calling him. That's why I think of okay,
Speaker 6: Nick professor, Nick professor makes Jason uncontrobed. Could you could
Speaker 6: you explain to Jason how much they can find out
Speaker 6: about you?
Speaker 2: So yeah, so let's let's go back.
Speaker 7: Let's go back to the dark days of twenty twenty.
Speaker 7: In the dark days of twenty twenty, everyone's thrown home.
Speaker 7: You're fully remote. It was chaos. A lot of companies
Speaker 7: had what will call surveillance software that they're watching keystrokes.
Speaker 7: Some of them they use the camera to take pictures
Speaker 7: of your face, are your eyeble I mean, or screenshots
Speaker 7: really really invasive things.
Speaker 2: But it was a you know, it was also backfar totally.
Speaker 7: Had a friend of mine, he said his sister worked
Speaker 7: for a big multinational and they were keystraight evaluating, And
Speaker 7: she said, whenever she went to take the doll for
Speaker 7: a walk, she got her mum just to press the
Speaker 7: space bar a few times. It was like ridiculous reworking
Speaker 7: it back out. So what has moved on by twenty
Speaker 7: twenty four?
Speaker 2: That is basically gone.
Speaker 7: It's much more evaluating output. So look, Jason, if you're
Speaker 7: managing me, it's not much use, you know, screenshot me.
Speaker 7: I'm just going to take a photo my face and
Speaker 7: to shove it in front of the camera.
Speaker 2: Yes, said you want to say, Nick, have.
Speaker 7: You done your sales targets, have you written your documents,
Speaker 7: have you met the clients, et cetera. So what I
Speaker 7: would call output managed rather than inputs, and once you
Speaker 7: move away from it, it works.
Speaker 2: But yes, surveillance was a bad, bad period.
Speaker 3: It's not. Come on, it's gone, companies, Not really, it.
Speaker 2: Has mostly gone.
Speaker 6: It has mostly because of the bad gas, because of
Speaker 6: the backlash of workers saying I hate.
Speaker 2: Because it doesn't really work. Ellnessy doesn't really work.
Speaker 7: I mean, look, if you're evaluating me on how many
Speaker 7: keys I pressed, you can go onto Amazon and get
Speaker 7: an automatic key keypress and machine that will go to
Speaker 7: twenty four You're like, Nick, my god, the guy's typing
Speaker 7: for twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.
Speaker 2: How's he doing it. You're like, that's.
Speaker 4: Amazing, and we're getting nothing.
Speaker 7: Exactly In nineteen ninety five, I bought it off Amazon.
Speaker 6: You know, it's like, Wow, that's good to know because
Speaker 6: I really for me, it's just what the assumption is.
Speaker 6: You know, you're gonna you're gonna shot, you're gonna lie.
Speaker 6: You're working for this company, but you're gonna shoat and lie,
Speaker 6: so we're gonna monitor you all the time. That's pretty wild.
Speaker 6: That's pretty wild. It's good to know that that's diminished.
Speaker 5: In New York on Sixth Avenue in the fifties, that
Speaker 5: was that was office building central, and as soon as
Speaker 5: the pandemic hit, those buildings were empty.
Speaker 3: I go back.
Speaker 5: I worked in New York all summer long. This summer,
Speaker 5: those buildings are still empty. What is the state of
Speaker 5: that infrastructure in a city as metropolitan as New York.
Speaker 7: Sure, so you know it affects anyone that owns apartment buildings,
Speaker 7: you know, or your own house.
Speaker 2: It affects this.
Speaker 7: So offices are about half full compared to what they
Speaker 7: were pre pandemic, and that looks like that's permanent. I
Speaker 7: mean it's been that way since the end of twenty
Speaker 7: twenty two. New office building is almost totally ground to
Speaker 7: a hole. You do see a few cranes around, it's
Speaker 7: because those things broke round before the pandemic.
Speaker 2: It's almost nothing starting. Now, what's the future.
Speaker 7: You're right, there's a lot of empty offices around, particularly
Speaker 7: New York at San Francisco, Seattle, because that's where there's
Speaker 7: a lot of tech and finance. Yeah, those things, if
Speaker 7: they're old. So if they're built before about nineteen thirty,
Speaker 7: they'll probably be converted to residential. Why is that because
Speaker 7: if you look at buildings built before nineteen thirty, there
Speaker 7: is not much electoral there's no electricity. So these are
Speaker 7: tall and skinny buildings because any daylight. And they're easy
Speaker 7: to convert because you know, you just put four apartments.
Speaker 2: In them and you have some central plumbing.
Speaker 7: Sure, if they're built from their sixties onwards, you are
Speaker 7: basically screwed because they are massive floor plans, huge kind
Speaker 7: of bank based buildings. There's only typically one toilet. There's
Speaker 7: nowhere near enough windows to convert that to residential. You
Speaker 7: can't really do it. Wow, those things are going to
Speaker 7: lie empty for five ten years and I don't know
Speaker 7: what's going to happen to those buildings.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so they didn't figure out They're not They're not
Speaker 6: racing like the Chrishman Wakefields and these big companies that
Speaker 6: own them. They're not racing to figure out how repurpose
Speaker 6: those I mean gyms, ceramics, studios, workout, workout studios. I
Speaker 6: mean that would that would beg that. But I'm thinking
Speaker 6: they're not going to sit for ten years and lose
Speaker 6: all that money and revenue they have.
Speaker 7: They kind of hope, you know, they're hoping for a
Speaker 7: hail Mary. A lot of these buildings. To value them
Speaker 7: right now is the land minus the scrapping cost, which
Speaker 7: tells you, you know, how people read they are the
Speaker 7: industry is fascinating you that are doing really well a
Speaker 7: leisure So did you mention gyms?
Speaker 2: Gyms?
Speaker 7: I thought were absolutely screwed in you know, summer twenty twenty.
Speaker 7: I was like, who wants to go indoors to summer
Speaker 7: really sweaty in the middle of the pandemic. Turns out
Speaker 7: they're booming now why because of work from home to
Speaker 7: have Another study looking at golf turns out if you're
Speaker 7: looking golf playing in twenty nineteen, kind of quiet in
Speaker 7: the week, picks up on Saturday Sunday. You look at
Speaker 7: golf playing in twenty twenty three, it's jammed all week.
Speaker 2: Why because of people working.
Speaker 7: From home and slipping out they can do it morning,
Speaker 7: Hey golf, So golf golf rangers are absolutely minting cash.
Speaker 7: Same with gym's DamID pickleball, same with you know, leisure stuff.
Speaker 7: Maybe people around so maybe some of these office buildings
Speaker 7: get turned into you know, big gyms, indoor driving ranges.
Speaker 7: The promise there isn't enough of that to fill every
Speaker 7: office building in New York, so skinny ones go to apartments,
Speaker 7: the big ones kind of stay empty.
Speaker 6: We may empty out city because when people are working
Speaker 6: from home, they don't want to drive the digges that
Speaker 6: so there may be the great migration happening.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 7: Yeah, So another thing that we I call the donut effect,
Speaker 7: which is we're seeing about a million Americans of left
Speaker 7: city centers and moved.
Speaker 2: Out to the suburbs. So it's kind of I only need.
Speaker 7: To go in the office two days a week, so
Speaker 7: three days a week about one a bit of space
Speaker 7: at home in the backyard, so I move out. That
Speaker 7: has driven to house prices or property prices and rents
Speaker 7: in the suburst skyrocketing.
Speaker 3: A two parter.
Speaker 6: Is there new technology that's on the horizon for work
Speaker 6: from home? That's even it's going to help us even
Speaker 6: more than what we have now that they're foreseeing that
Speaker 6: we need that I can't even anticipate. And what are
Speaker 6: what's what is a trend that maybe we don't know?
Speaker 2: So on new tech definitely.
Speaker 7: So I had a dinner about you know, I live
Speaker 7: out in Silicon Valley, so you know you have lots
Speaker 7: of dinners, adventure capitalists, and you know, all these people
Speaker 7: come along and they're all excited or the tech firms.
Speaker 7: One of them about six months ago is pretty cool.
Speaker 7: So this guy was saying, we're basically making holograms, and
Speaker 7: he said, think of the Jedi counsel in Star Wars.
Speaker 2: That is what we're designing.
Speaker 7: And somebody had invested several million dollars into his companies,
Speaker 7: So I'm pretty sure it's going to happen. You go
Speaker 7: into the studio, they spend an hour very carefully taking
Speaker 7: hologram pictures. Yeah, all three sixty degree perfect of you.
Speaker 7: Next time you're in a meeting, they kind of have it.
Speaker 7: The camera takes much of you, but they can just
Speaker 7: fill in the blanks from the pre recording. Now when
Speaker 7: you have meetings, it's literally like the Jedi Council, there's
Speaker 7: you know, kind of holographic Jason, a holographic me and
Speaker 7: you and look, it's not as good as being in person,
Speaker 7: but you can't whether it's links spray on or not.
Speaker 2: But uh, it's pretty good.
Speaker 7: And it means that rather than going to the office
Speaker 7: two three days a week, we may be going in one.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of other work.
Speaker 5: Here's here's what I don't get with that though, with
Speaker 5: the Honestly, I'm having a fine conversation with you. If
Speaker 5: you were a hologram in front of me right now,
Speaker 5: I don't think our communication would.
Speaker 4: Have been that much more enhanced or improved. Why are
Speaker 4: I don't get.
Speaker 6: There is a different hit when you go because what
Speaker 6: they're doing is desktop holygram. At that point, it's so
Speaker 6: much preferred.
Speaker 5: A foot and a half toll sitting on the stand,
Speaker 5: Picture it, picture, do it right now.
Speaker 3: I wish you were like Jimminy Cricket, Jimmy Crickett. Would
Speaker 3: your voice go off to.
Speaker 5: Like I am a lot of this world. He's a
Speaker 5: very excited man. This man's excited about being on our show.
Speaker 5: He's excited about anything you might I might even.
Speaker 2: Show you my fresh medal.
Speaker 6: We all know you're showing before. What are What are
Speaker 6: the paper? Every time we bring up something, you go,
Speaker 6: I have a paper, I have a paper going on.
Speaker 6: How many papers you got going?
Speaker 3: Wow? A lot.
Speaker 7: That's why the fisherward is staying here anywhere you are
Speaker 7: really busy. I tell you another one, tell another paper.
Speaker 7: Then it's pretty fascinating, which is I'm working with a
Speaker 7: company that has GPS data. So I don't know if
Speaker 7: you're aware, but every time you drive in your car,
Speaker 7: if you have GPS, which pretty much all cars do now,
Speaker 7: even if you are not using it, it's measuring it
Speaker 7: and it's transmitting back to the manufacturer and they collect
Speaker 7: the data and anonymous. So I have a BMW X
Speaker 7: five is whatever, six years old. I never use the
Speaker 7: GPS to use my cell phone, but I know they
Speaker 7: know they're anonymous and sell it. So we have millions
Speaker 7: and millions of journeys. One of the other fascinating things
Speaker 7: is we're seeing this rise of supercommuters, so that these
Speaker 7: folks that are moved out to the suburbs, they're now
Speaker 7: going into the office maybe once or twice a week,
Speaker 7: but they're driving like one hundred miles I mean, insane
Speaker 7: amounts of distance going in and out.
Speaker 2: The other thing we see is because of.
Speaker 7: Work from home, traffic volumes are down, and it's a
Speaker 7: gift from you know, the work from homemans to the
Speaker 7: rest of us that that are commuting. So speeds, for example,
Speaker 7: into New York are about ten percent faster in the
Speaker 7: morning commute than they were pre pandemic, just because you've
Speaker 7: cleared the road, aren't going in.
Speaker 5: Elik Duddley, I'd like to push back on that and
Speaker 5: tell you, no, no, no, it's.
Speaker 6: Still I don't know. Well, you're a joy to have.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for having me on.
Speaker 7: And I'm going to go move my Frish award to
Speaker 7: the hiding place because it sounds like hint, it's not
Speaker 7: buried in the garden anywhere, but that just sorry, what
Speaker 7: do you think.
Speaker 4: It looks like?
Speaker 3: What is that what you want?
Speaker 4: I'm going to go for it. Just based on the
Speaker 4: name of the Fresh Award.
Speaker 5: Right, it's got a lose I think it's very similar
Speaker 5: to the Tony Ward. It's got a loose sight base,
Speaker 5: a little plaque on it that you know, has a
Speaker 5: little announcement and who it's for, and then it's got
Speaker 5: I'm going to imagine like a sort of a rounded
Speaker 5: disc held in some sort of structure, like a gyroscopic
Speaker 5: that's a structure, and that it's about ya tall and
Speaker 5: uh and weighs about three and a half pounds.
Speaker 7: You know what, I'm not going to tell anyone because
Speaker 7: the thousands of people listening to this podcast, they are
Speaker 7: now going to break into my house trying to find.
Speaker 3: The family. Were your parents proud of the Fresher Ward?
Speaker 2: At least they were?
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 7: The weirdest thing is I'm on the committee this year
Speaker 7: to award it because they get pasted in it.
Speaker 2: This is a very same that.
Speaker 3: That's great, So we will we will be.
Speaker 6: You've got a calls when you give it away this year,
Speaker 6: but that's gonna you're gonna cry, You're gonna throw from
Speaker 6: when you have to hand it over.
Speaker 2: I'd give you one hit. It's extremely heavy, so if
Speaker 2: I throw it.
Speaker 4: You have to the I was like an Emmy, and
Speaker 4: that's why I didn't.
Speaker 2: I had no records.
Speaker 3: You never saw much.
Speaker 6: Jason has a daytime Emmy, but the day to daytime
Speaker 6: talking about.
Speaker 5: Also love that he thinks we have thousands of listeners
Speaker 5: to this podcast.
Speaker 3: I think that was very you know something, Why do
Speaker 3: I why don't we get up and get I don't
Speaker 3: know why why do I do anything?
Speaker 4: And they listen?
Speaker 6: Thank you so much for coming on appreciating congrat seriously,
Speaker 6: congratulations on the work, Congratulations on the fifty most influential,
Speaker 6: and congratulations on being so prolific.
Speaker 5: And for keeping an eye on this stuff, which I
Speaker 5: think is going to become even We're gonna need to
Speaker 5: know more and more about this because I think this
Speaker 5: revolution is far from done.
Speaker 2: Hey, Jason Peter, thanks so much for having me on a.
Speaker 3: Great presu.
Speaker 4: Well what do you think we do it?
Speaker 3: Remotely? From now right? Why not? Laarne spinning blood? I
Speaker 3: heard the laugh. I heard the laugh through the wall. Yeah, well,
Speaker 3: I booked a studio all the time. This is where
Speaker 3: we should do it. I need to stop talking about it.
Speaker 3: You just do a studio.
Speaker 4: We don't need the equipment. We don't need to dies,
Speaker 4: we don't need it.
Speaker 3: Like it? Wow, you like it?
Speaker 5: You were like you like commuting and you like the
Speaker 5: commute from your fur f and hour takes me forty minutes?
Speaker 3: Wow? Whoa what are starts to do? All these shows
Speaker 3: that we can whole episode. You get to see how
Speaker 3: we could see all these other.
Speaker 4: We get to see how we.
Speaker 1: Know we do.
Speaker 5: You know we do, Lauria, what I say to Jason,
Speaker 5: see my friend, Here's what I do.
Speaker 6: Is I say to Jason, we'll discuss it. So all right,
Speaker 6: and he's a major dude. Another major dude comes on,
Speaker 6: I'm doing this.
Speaker 5: I'm doing that thousands of listeners. Of course, I'm shock.
Speaker 5: And Laurie calls in and go, yeah, okay, bye, here
Speaker 5: are things that now can be done remote.
Speaker 4: You tell me better or worse?
Speaker 3: Denis book of records better? Joey Chestnut from home?
Speaker 5: This guy remote medicine happier with them.
Speaker 3: It's happy. I have no choice at this point. Yes, yes, I.
Speaker 4: Know many doctors that go I won't do remote. I
Speaker 4: just yes, is that a thing I should come in for?
Speaker 3: That's the thing I want to Well, I can tell
Speaker 3: you that.
Speaker 2: They won't go.
Speaker 3: I just want to go. Just can you always? How
Speaker 3: about this?
Speaker 6: How about this remote medicine where you could never see
Speaker 6: the specialist because he's in Cleveland and he's on with you.
Speaker 6: You send him your stuff and you get a consultation
Speaker 6: with a doctor to who you would never get to meet.
Speaker 6: Who's the primary guy in your area that you need
Speaker 6: to talk to?
Speaker 3: So their plus is a minding. What was wrong with
Speaker 3: the phone?
Speaker 4: I couldn't I couldn't call them on the phone.
Speaker 3: You can see the guy, they can, Oh my gosh,
Speaker 3: you are.
Speaker 4: How does that help me? That's like the hologram?
Speaker 5: How does having the little hologram on my table as
Speaker 5: a book?
Speaker 3: And the guy?
Speaker 6: I am so glad that you you're a little acting
Speaker 6: thing and you're not a visionary same thing.
Speaker 3: If I can say you don't impact my life.
Speaker 6: Remote teaching and learning, Yes, because you have kids who
Speaker 6: can never get this great teacher.
Speaker 3: You can get a horse from Harvard want to hard teacher, fantastic.
Speaker 5: You know they did it all through the pandemic and
Speaker 5: test scores and because it went down dropped because.
Speaker 6: It was new, it was it was it was new,
Speaker 6: it was untested, and he didn't know how to do it.
Speaker 4: They still don't.
Speaker 3: I think they're getting better and better at it. Think
Speaker 3: that's what do you think? Remote therapy?
Speaker 4: Let me let me suggest you begin it.
Speaker 6: Remote therapy. Wow, can I see whether they're sleeping or not? Oh?
Speaker 3: It wasn't it to me because the guy is always asleep.
Speaker 6: How about have you ever a theraph therapist that when
Speaker 6: you're done, you do this long this horse skiel and
Speaker 6: you've really opened up and they go all right, let's
Speaker 6: continue next time.
Speaker 3: And you know he didn't. He was doing his bills.
Speaker 4: That's never been my thing.
Speaker 6: Remote warfare, tapping to drones and all it, and I think, frankly,
Speaker 6: there was a Star Trek episode.
Speaker 3: Star Trek Okay, it was a Star Trek.
Speaker 5: Episode where where a war that had been gone going
Speaker 5: on in generations was being conducted by computers. It was
Speaker 5: remote and the attacks were all computer simulations.
Speaker 4: But if your city got destroyed.
Speaker 5: By the computer, it was up to you to report
Speaker 5: to an annihilation center to be killed. And Enterprise shows
Speaker 5: up and goes, this is nuts. He pulled the plug
Speaker 5: on the computer because you know that.
Speaker 3: No interference remote romance, yew, think about that.
Speaker 5: There are people that are having long distance relationships and
Speaker 5: they're really being conducted.
Speaker 3: You know, it used to be more money. So I
Speaker 3: consist I don't think they get out you give me.
Speaker 3: You know how many of those are which are really scary?
Speaker 3: Remote romance, You know, the weird thing is romance. You
Speaker 3: usually got to see the person on a date or whatever.
Speaker 6: It's remote and they're that far away, just the obstacles you've.
Speaker 5: Got to But for some people the romance is going
Speaker 5: better because it's only seeing romances fantasy romance. Yeah, interesting though, right,
Speaker 5: this is But I I believe, I believe our.
Speaker 4: World is going to become more and more a remote experience.
Speaker 5: As we don't leave our homes to go to work,
Speaker 5: we don't leave our homes to go for our entertainment,
Speaker 5: we don't leave our homes. If this hologram thing comes
Speaker 5: and goes, let's go to Grandma's for the weekend and
Speaker 5: you holographically put yourself in there. You know, it's I
Speaker 5: think it's a it's it's a trend that I worry
Speaker 5: about because what.
Speaker 4: Do I do for a living? Bring people to where
Speaker 4: I am?
Speaker 3: And yeah, and asked me, do you want to know
Speaker 3: what I believe? What do you believe. I believe for
Speaker 3: every job of brain falls. I believe that for every
Speaker 3: job I believe the children.
Speaker 8: Listen, Grandma is never gonna it's never gonna be remote, Grandma.
Speaker 8: She's I can't get the hologram to the hologram.
Speaker 3: I can see your body, I can see your test.
Speaker 5: You're seeing through me. Yeah right, it's not working for me.
Speaker 6: All right, doesn't look like you. By the way, did
Speaker 6: you have to wear those stairs in the hologram?
Speaker 3: Go ahead? Not the cargo shorts.
Speaker 8: Why do they never follow the prime it's the prime directive.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the prime directors right. It's like the Kobe Maru.
Speaker 4: He you know he changed it.
Speaker 5: He read the cheater. That's why I like him. That's
Speaker 5: why he's the best captain. All those other captainship like them.
Speaker 6: Okay, this is a guy who's gonna say he's going
Speaker 6: to travel time and space to solve problems.
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, the crew behind his back plotting every day. How
Speaker 3: do we kill them? And I get caught?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I don't know if you want to hear it,
Speaker 8: but I got the top ten employers in the United States,
Speaker 8: which as rated by glassdoor dot com.
Speaker 5: Okay, sore, we guess all right, I think you know
Speaker 5: any any two of them.
Speaker 6: Got to be Apple, got to be Microsoft. It's going
Speaker 6: to be Amazon. It's got to be.
Speaker 3: Walmart, Walmart. Yeah, yeah, I think so retail on the Google, yeah, Google.
Speaker 8: All right, Well, I'm actually going to switch my list
Speaker 8: to the worst company.
Speaker 3: Because that's the ones. That's the ones you're talking about.
Speaker 8: Number one, and this one is as measured by.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna switch it to the worst smelling companies.
Speaker 8: I want to make you feel that your guesses are good.
Speaker 8: This is This one is compiled by resume dot io
Speaker 8: and it calculated. The worst place is by how quickly
Speaker 8: people left.
Speaker 4: Okay, the average ten years of the employee.
Speaker 1: Number one is Apple.
Speaker 3: Really, they're in and out.
Speaker 4: Number two is Amazon.
Speaker 9: I think we probably could see that at the warehouse.
Speaker 3: Number three is Meta.
Speaker 4: Yeah sure, I'm sensing a theme.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The biggest they have the biggest because you have volume.
Speaker 3: You turned around.
Speaker 4: Yeah that makes sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's see.
Speaker 9: Some of them are who knows what Tesla is number five, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 9: Salesforce dot Com number eighth, Netflix number thirteen, PayPal is
Speaker 9: nineteen in alphabet. The parent company of Google is number twenty.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 5: So it seems like the high tech people can't and
Speaker 5: the get a better job because you get higher trained
Speaker 5: to get better.
Speaker 6: You know, you're always looking for better gets. You know
Speaker 6: how to do that online and cheat while you're working
Speaker 6: on the other job.
Speaker 3: Well, by the.
Speaker 5: Way, working remote is great.
Speaker 4: I don't know what anybody, Yeah, exactly right.
Speaker 3: It worked out for us well nine finale.
Speaker 2: I hit it well right, three companies, but I had them.
Speaker 3: Why, David, you're the best. Thank you, Laurie, thank.
Speaker 5: You, thank you everyone. Thank you Professor Bloom who was
Speaker 5: a lovely guy. That was very very And I'm sad
Speaker 5: to see that there's just empty buildings sitting on six
Speaker 5: seven in New York City and there's no let's break
Speaker 5: them coming back break the Let's see if you and
Speaker 5: I can figure out what pull me out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and he's one bathroom in a long quarter. All right.
Speaker 3: Obviously we're not the visionaries you're looking for. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: if you listen to the show, you kind of know that.
Speaker 3: To thank you among the oh you know what you.
Speaker 4: Take it away announced with.
Speaker 1: Noah, No really, that's another episode of really no really,
Speaker 1: it comes to a close. I know you're wondering what
Speaker 1: are some of the strangest jobs you can actually get
Speaker 1: paid to do from home? That list in a moment,
Speaker 1: but first let's thank our guest Nick. You can find
Speaker 1: him on LinkedIn where he is Nick Bloom, on x
Speaker 1: he is at im Nick Bloom, or you can visit
Speaker 1: his website Wfhresearch dot com. Find all pertinent links in
Speaker 1: our show notes, our little show hangs out on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube,
Speaker 1: and threads at Really No Really podcast, And of course
Speaker 1: you can share your thoughts and feedback with us online
Speaker 1: at reallynoreally dot com. If you have a really some
Speaker 1: amazing fact or story that boggles your mind, share it
Speaker 1: with us and if we use it, we will send
Speaker 1: you a little gift. Nothing life changing, obviously, but it's
Speaker 1: the thought that counts. Check out our full episodes on YouTube,
Speaker 1: hit that subscribe button and take that bell so you're
Speaker 1: updated when we release new videos and episodes, which we
Speaker 1: do each Tuesday. So listen and follow us on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: And now you ask, hey, can you hit me with
Speaker 1: that list of unusual jobs people can actually get paid
Speaker 1: to do from home? Well, since what I do is
Speaker 1: one of them, yes I can. How'd you like to
Speaker 1: be an online bounty hunter? You can work for bail
Speaker 1: bondsman and collection agencies, saluting out the whereabouts of deadbeats
Speaker 1: from the comfort of your living room. You can also
Speaker 1: be a fraud investigator from home as well. Many companies
Speaker 1: will hire you for this fancy title Chief Listening Officer.
Speaker 1: Clos are paid to listen to and analyze complaints from
Speaker 1: both customers and employees. So if you don't mind people
Speaker 1: complaining to you all day, this could be your gig.
Speaker 1: Or how'd you like to be a virtual juror? Lawyers
Speaker 1: in law schools pay people to sit online and hear
Speaker 1: practice legal arguments. And lastly, you can make some big
Speaker 1: bucks with my personal favorite video game tester. Seriously, okay, well,
Speaker 1: if you don't hear from me again.
Speaker 2: I found a more lucrative gig.
Speaker 1: No Man, Really, No Really is the production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: and Blase Entertainment.