The Unintended Consequences of Remote Work

It is Tuesday, Reader. I’m Paayal Zaveri, a senior reporter for Insider’s Tech Analysis team, replacing my colleague Diamond Naga Siu.

It has been three years since yesterday that the US government declared a national emergency related to the outbreak of COVID-19. To say time flies is an understatement – our lives have changed so much in the last three years.

Take remote work for example.

While teleworking offers flexibility, it often comes at the expense of work-life balance. But don’t fret. Solutions are in progress.

I found this essay by a remote work coach particularly helpful, in which she shares her tips for avoiding burnout as a remote worker. According to Insider’s Stephanie Stacey, architects are now even designing homes to help remote workers find work-life balance.

Remote work has also made it possible to hire anyone, anywhere, which CEOs and hiring managers are beginning to realize. That’s exactly what I looked at today in our first story.

Let’s begin.

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1. American tech companies are shifting jobs, but it’s not just because of remote work. In fact, remote work was just an intermediary. The real culprit behind this trend is probably America’s broken immigration system.

• Experts tell me that America’s tech industry has relocated many jobs to countries like India, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia in recent years.
• As it becomes more difficult to attract tech talent to the US, companies are hiring and opening offices in other countries to fill people who would otherwise have come to the US to work, the experts say.
• While outsourcing jobs to countries where workers demand lower wages is nothing new for American companies, it appears to be only part of the story.
• Given the difficult immigration processes in the US and the popularity of remote work, we can expect more companies to continue relocating and hiring abroad, experts told me.

Read more about what drives US tech companies to hire abroad here.

In other news:

2. This is the defining moment for AI. Tools like ChatGPT barely scratch the surface of AI’s potential. We could see it fundamentally transforming our economy and our lives, but we need to make sure it’s safe, Insider’s Hasan Chowdhury reports. Dive into the AI ​​debate here.

3. Startup founders reeled by Silicon Valley Bank implosion. Founders are in a hurry to find a new home for their money. They go everywhere from big banks like JPMorgan to neobanks like Brex. Because of this, the fallout will change the way startups store cash.

4. More and more CEOs are getting involved in the fake work debate. As big tech companies like Google and Meta are accused of hiring people for “fake work,” tech leaders debate what constitutes real work. C3.ai CEO Thomas Siebel intervened. He says remote work is what led to all of this in the first place.

5. Why the SVB crisis will change the banking industry forever. Unlike other bank runs, the SVB collapse was the first in history to be quickly escalated via social media. According to a former federal regulator, “The whole system needs to be looked at differently.” The whole story.

6. Google employees are testing a smarter chatbot. Many Google employees had the opportunity to test Big Bard, a superior version of the Bard chatbot. A version of Bard will eventually take on OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Because of this, Google wants to release a limited version of Bard first.

7. The next step for OpenAI: convert text to video. A Microsoft executive said that the new model of OpenAI will be released this week and GPT-4 will be able to convert text to video. Worth noting: This is already something Google and Meta AI can do. Read more about the upcoming release.

8. TikTok creators are loving the new paywall feature. TikTok is testing new ways for developers to make money from the app after some said it wasn’t making as much as other platforms. Specifically, it’s a new feature that allows creators to charge users for specific videos. Here’s how some go about it.

Bits and pieces:

9. A Tesla SUV gave Ferrari and Lamborghini supercars competition for their money. In a recent YouTube video from online car buying marketplace CarWow, a Tesla Model X crashed into a Ferrari and a Lamborghini. The results were too close to tell.

10. SVB merchandise for sale. Following the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank on Friday, items bearing the Silicon Valley Bank logo were auctioned on eBay over the weekend. Items included a $201 carton and a $42 wine tumbler. Here’s what else was listed.

What we see today:

Curated by Paayal Zaveri in San Francisco. Edited by Matt Weinberger (tweet @gamoid) in San Francisco and Hallam Bullock (tweet @hallam_bullock) in London.