Wed Mar 18 21:36:24 2020
<6707bcd9> <@U036M05JL> you mean like restaurant vacancies?
<8f79fcda> restaurants closing, strip malls, etc. If you think the retail apocalypse was bad just because of amazon delivery… That’s only half of it.
What happens when companies with offices figure out they can still function with 90% of staff being able to WFH? it costs like 5k-30k *per employee* *per year* (minimum) to actually host employees at a centralized office.
<8f79fcda> it’ll be a slow decline because these offices are on fixed lease periods
<8f79fcda> but what if renewals go belly up and noone wants to pay hundreds/thousands/millions of dollars per year to have an office?
<8f79fcda> a smart person would buy that for american manufacturing, but that requires a complete reshuffle of why we have offices in the first place, how me supply/manufacture/distribute stuff
<8f79fcda> retrofitting an office to… idk… produce x.y.z. shit is a huge change cost that needs a long-term, profitable, stable revenue stream to be viable and justify the change cost.
<8f79fcda> instead of … glorified coffee shops that you have access to because you work at “acme software co.”
<8f79fcda> <@U03694HFD> are you wfh?
<9e126bf3> yes
<8f79fcda> point is… the only real reason to work from an office if you’re a knowledge worker is direct access to specialized equipment
<8f79fcda> and having a hybrid server for a company allows you to remote into any HPC if you need to
<8f79fcda> so, again… making shit in buildings besides bits and bytes
<8f79fcda> (i’m kinda discounting the social aspect of working in an office and the value it has… but what about VR enabled conference rooms??? put on a headset and everyone sits at a conference table like in the kingsman)
<8f79fcda> now all you need is an avatar with a suit, and you can host high-powered meetings in your birthday suit if you wanted.
<8f79fcda> and let’s be real… given transmissability of deadly viruses… wouldn’t you want your company to pass the risk of infection down to the employee level and say “hey man, wfh, but if you get sick, that’s not on us”
<8f79fcda> reduces insurance premiums blah blah blah
<8f79fcda> coming full circle… we need to be able to make “breaking bad superlab” manufactories for everything. Tomatoes, plastics, magnets, widgets, gizmos, gadgets… all of that shit needs to infect commercial real estate
<8f79fcda> </rant>
<6707bcd9> <@U036M05JL> i agree, there is huge opportunity. If you can see the future, then get out in front of it and make something!
<6707bcd9> Corona virus is a rare opportunity, there is so much change going on in society, figure out what the new norms are, and build something to support them
<8f79fcda> basically starbucks, bars, and taco bell will be left standing
<6707bcd9> Here’s a brief list of things that will be affected:
– restaurants
– sanitation and hand washing
– disaster preparedness
– going out in public
– shaking hands/interacting with other humans
– people working in offices vs. wfh
– food delivery
<8f79fcda> those are the big impact areas