Fair enough, i certainly fit in the "older" category. I find it less than intuitive that those active here don't know the co-founder(and current CEO?) of Stack Exchange, or the team behind Trello. But i also accept I am not the target audience of HN and times perhaps have changed.
I also spent three years recently working for a company with < 10 employee's and no office, we all worked online from around the world. I don't think we followed any of the listed requirements. No video chat, no headsets(just text communication, same as how we developed open source software). Team members took care of their children whenever necessary and we did not have specific start/end times to our day. Some days i would take off for a 3 hour "lunch" (really an energizing ride through the mountains) and no-one ever asked about it. I believe they never asked because I was judged by my deliverables, little else mattered. We also didn't have any specific "work hours". Having team members from both coasts of America, Brazil, Bulgaria, Zimbabwe and the Philippines meant time of day meant rather little. Not having a specific start/end of my day often meant i worked much more than a 40 hour week, but it was a labor of love anyways.
Is he wrong? Hard to say, many different things work for different people. Is it right for me? Certainly not. Do the other people in this thread saying he's wrong believe they work better in alternate conditions to the ones proposed? Probably.
I also spent three years recently working for a company with < 10 employee's and no office, we all worked online from around the world. I don't think we followed any of the listed requirements. No video chat, no headsets(just text communication, same as how we developed open source software). Team members took care of their children whenever necessary and we did not have specific start/end times to our day. Some days i would take off for a 3 hour "lunch" (really an energizing ride through the mountains) and no-one ever asked about it. I believe they never asked because I was judged by my deliverables, little else mattered. We also didn't have any specific "work hours". Having team members from both coasts of America, Brazil, Bulgaria, Zimbabwe and the Philippines meant time of day meant rather little. Not having a specific start/end of my day often meant i worked much more than a 40 hour week, but it was a labor of love anyways.
Is he wrong? Hard to say, many different things work for different people. Is it right for me? Certainly not. Do the other people in this thread saying he's wrong believe they work better in alternate conditions to the ones proposed? Probably.