LinkedIn and Slack CEOs Downgrade the Future of the Office

The CEOs of the platforms that defined our working lives during the pandemic have laid out their vision of the future of work, and the long-term prospect for the office looks bleaker than ever.

Slack replaced most offices during global lockdowns, while millions affected by coronavirus-related layoffs turned to LinkedIn to find their next job.

Slack’s Stewart Butterfield and LinkedIn’s Ryan Roslansky now both argue the balance of power has shifted to employees, rather than employers. This may come as news to some hospitality firms battling a labor crisis, but there’s a potential upshot for the travel industry ahead. Company retreats are likely to grow over the coming years, with some platforms like Airbnb already seeing a shift in booking patterns.

Butterfield, who sold Slack to Salesforce for $27 billion in December 2020, said many people were “going bananas” working from home — but that doesn’t mean they want to go back to offices without people, or any energy, inside them.

“Some people are eager to get back to the office, and it’s certainly possible they feel that way because they’re going bananas trapped in their house,” he said, speaking at the virtual Charter Workplace Summit this week.

“But you don’t have to physically work from inside your home. Conversely there are other people that think they’re never going to go back to an office when the alternative is presented as offices that are Flexiglass-covered, you have to wear a mas