Business as Usual—Remotely
The coronavirus has prompted a radical work-from-home experiment by Microsoft, Apple and other tech giants. But for a growing number of smaller tech companies that have operated remotely for years, the shuttering of offices has had little impact.
Last week, Google, Microsoft, Apple and other big tech companies began encouraging tens of thousands of their employees to work from home, in a dramatic response to help curb the coronavirus pandemic.
Then there are people like Dave McJannet, whose company didn’t have to send employees home—because they were already there. McJannet is CEO of HashiCorp, a cloud software company that for years has operated almost entirely remotely, with about 85% of its 900 employees working from their homes, mainly in the U.S. and Canada. The remaining employees—including senior executives, human resources managers and others—are at its headquarters in San Francisco.
“We’re completely unimpacted,” McJannet said in an interview last week.