I'm glad he hinted that there are a lot of people reverse telecommuting at their jobs. Even though companies usually try to stop this by monitoring their employees' desktop and network activity (which I think is wrong), it's nice to know people still do it.
As mentioned in PG's "What Business can learn from Open Source" essay, employees often want to build great things for the companies they work for. When companies squelch that by locking down their computers and networks and spying on employees (I understand the security and intellectual property motives of this), they sometimes inadvertently prevent such enterprising employees from helping them in this way.
Even if it doesn't look immediately relative to their jobs, working on a more-interesting side project brings new skills to the employer for free. It also revitalizes that employee toward their actual job. When the employee can no longer do this for themselves (and their employer), they get upset and leave, taking their increased abilities with them.
Eventually, they realize that pretty much anywhere they go, they'll encounter the same problems they just left. That's the cause of a lot of entrepreneurship.
As mentioned in PG's "What Business can learn from Open Source" essay, employees often want to build great things for the companies they work for. When companies squelch that by locking down their computers and networks and spying on employees (I understand the security and intellectual property motives of this), they sometimes inadvertently prevent such enterprising employees from helping them in this way.
Even if it doesn't look immediately relative to their jobs, working on a more-interesting side project brings new skills to the employer for free. It also revitalizes that employee toward their actual job. When the employee can no longer do this for themselves (and their employer), they get upset and leave, taking their increased abilities with them.
Eventually, they realize that pretty much anywhere they go, they'll encounter the same problems they just left. That's the cause of a lot of entrepreneurship.