🖥 Monitor May Giveaways and commercial real estate trust issues

Good Morning,

We’re starting a new holiday at Remote Source, and it’s called Monitor May!

Over the next month, we’re giving away 4 portable external monitors so you can work efficiently from ANYWHERE!

Here’s how it works:

• Every week, we’re giving away a new monitor to one lucky winner

• Enter to win *only once* this month and you’ll be entered to win all remaining monitor giveaways

• When you enter, you can gain more entries by sharing the giveaway with friends and taking other actions

• Winners will be contacted by email, confirmed, and announced as soon as possible

Enter Monitor May here!

Need to know

Today, a lesson in understanding incentives when reading headlines about the future of remote work.

In October 2020, the CEO of Brookfield — one of the largest asset management companies in the US — held an interview with Bloomberg, in which he stated remote work was impractical and that people would be working in offices again shortly.

At the time, Brookfield had recently released a White Paper filled with selective pro-office data and quotes such as “a company’s culture needs in-person connection — and the physical workspaces that support it — to thrive.”

Luckily, Bloomberg’s article about the interview pointed out that Brookfield oversaw $200B in commercial real estate property at the time, stating the CEO’s thoughts “may be wishful thinking,” and we agreed wholeheartedly:

Fast forward to this year: while remote work isn’t the necessity it was during the peak pandemic years, it certainly hasn’t gone away, and employees in office roles are far more frequently seeking remote roles.

Just two weeks ago, news broke that Brookfield defaulted on $161M in office building mortgages. This was in addition to the $784M in defaulted office building mortgages earlier in 2023.

It turns out they had a lot to lose if remote work became a trend.

Whether it was to comfort shareholders, future investors, existing employees, or all of the above, it’s easy to understand the CEO’s comments. It was in his personal best interest for remote work to go away.

But was it in the best interest of employees across the world who were able to do their jobs, often more effectively, from outside an office? Absolutely not.

In very similar news, just a week after the latest Brookfield default news broke, Sam Zell — a billionaire real estate investor with an impressive career that began while he was in college — shared his thoughts on remote work: it’s “a bunch of bullshit.”

After the Brookfield example, you don’t need me to tell you how to interpret that headline and article 😊 

So the next time somebody denounces remote work, ask yourself what they stand to lose if (and when) remote work wins out. It will help you see the trends at play and the true future of work much more clearly.

Elsewhere

• The line is blurring between remote workers and tourists (Bloomberg)

• The “Three C’s” of building a strong remote team (Forbes)

• The best portable monitors, ranked (PCMag)

• Lyft CEO tells employees to return to the office 3 days per week (New York Times)

• Remote work poses risks to commercial real estate (The Gazette)

Closing out with a product recommendation for you: the standing desk made by Beflo. I met them at the SXSW convention in March and was so impressed with their desk that I reached out afterwards to see if I could share it with you all.

Their primary product is the Tenon Adjustable Desk, a “sit-stand smart desk” with tons of amenities, like:

• Touch screen control panel

• Scratch- and water-resistant desktop

• Ambient light strip, to remind you to stand

• Built-in power and USB outlets

• Tons of optional accessories

You can learn more here. As a disclaimer, this is an affiliate link, but having seen the Beflo desk in person along with thousands of others at the convention, I can confidently say it’s a high quality product. Give them a look if you’re upgrading your home office!

Cheers,
Grant