在一个鼓舞人心的 主题, 脸谱网创始人马克·扎克伯格在传统的脸谱网开发者大会上分享了他对未来分享的看法, which was held in San Francisco on March 25th and 26th. 这个领域开始是文字而不是图像，现在视频正在占据主要地位. The future is inevitably related to sharing videos, 还有什么比直接与你的朋友和家人分享实时流媒体VR更好的呢?

脸谱网 has invested a lot in VR technology; they purchased 眼睛的裂痕, and are working extensively on projects related to it. 今天, 我们很高兴地通知我们的社区，Toptal已经成为我们连接世界的战略合作伙伴. 我们的愿景是让开发者遍布全球，成为一个分布式的、没有办公室的公司，事实证明，这与脸谱网连接世界各地人们的努力是惊人的匹配.

在过去的四个月里, Toptal has conducted a real-life test of creating a global virtual office, in which we included our 100 top 开发人员. 我们要求我们的开发者每天花几个小时在VR办公室工作, together with the rest of their team, and compare the experience with the way they worked before. The results were eye-opening, 并帮助确定了Toptal远程工作方法中的几个弱点.

一去不返

最能说明问题的是，远程工作者的工作效率并不像我们之前认为的那样高. Toptal CEO Taso Du Val commented, 他说这个实验是他职业生涯中最重要的突破之一.

“Toptal has been promoting a remote work culture for years, supporting the digital nomad lifestyle of its 开发人员 all over the world. However, the results we got from this trial showed that we have been wrong. 人 seem to be much more effective and happier when working in an office, 我们现在正在考虑建立第一个Toptal办公室的最佳选择.”

VR办公室的实验有助于识别远程开发人员的一些有趣的社会学方面. According to Kenan Salihbegovic, the Head of 社区 at Toptal, “开发人员 started communicating in code snippets and they rarely, 如果有, interacted with people outside of chat rooms. 为了克服这个问题，我们正在花费大量的精力举办会议和聚会. 然而，开发者似乎忽略了这些事件，很少有人出现.”

How Did We Make It Happen?

我们仍然相信开发人员不必在同一个物理位置, 但在发现在人多的办公室里工作效率更高之后, we decided to take it to the next level. 如果我们对人们如何工作的理解是错误的，那么如果我们对人们如何上班的理解也是错误的呢? This question led to another great experiment. 我们让开发者在虚拟巴士上模拟1小时的上下通勤(101是旧金山的一条著名街道). The results were amazing! 事实证明，积极进取的开发者在开车上班的过程中会想出很棒的想法和创造性的解决方案. 这显示了另一个原因，为什么有一个实际的工作场所上下班是有用的, 如果处理得当.

当然，这对参与实验的每个人来说都是一大步，而且有很多障碍. Toptal首席运营官Breanden Beneschott管理了整个项目，并分享了一些有趣的见解:

“A lot of people have been puking during the first few days, and it’s been a tough transition working while using Oculus VR all the time, but ultimately we feel that everyone else has been right all along. You really need an office to be productive.”

Without trying to hide enthusiasm, he continued:

“谢天谢地, 这种转变使我们能够比以前更专业、更专注. As COO before, I was constantly focused on growth and building things. 现在我可以集中精力安排最佳的虚拟座位和最佳的虚拟照明.”

Thanks to our strategic partnership with Autodesk, we received access to the best 3D artists in the world. 他们非常乐意参与创建我们的3D办公大楼，直到最小的细节.”

我们的开发人员与脸谱网团队合作开发了下一代Oculus软件. Our own Gergely Kalman used 他的经验 在高性能视频流中，通过Oculus接口将软件开发环境直接交付给VR.

的Toptal 产品开发 team, with CTO Alexander Danilenko, took this experiment even further. They decided to use VR during all of their work hours. 审判期间, 在过去的两年里，他们在平台上实施了一些最重要的变化. According to Alexander, “我们在4个月内交付的VR代码比我们在12个月内完成的代码还要多. The next step shall be installing.”

Some teams were less successful than others. 我们的内容团队, 由Demir Selmanovic领导, was one of the last to fully embrace the benefits of a VR office. Due to their frequent contacts with the development 社区, 很难在虚拟现实办公室和“真实”世界之间来回切换. 德米尔与脸谱网的客户经理分享了他的观点，后者对此并不高兴 “眼睛的裂痕和VR应该被禁止，因为它们会分散我们对现实世界的注意力. If I could, I would ask our authors to mail their articles written by hand”德米尔告诉他. 然而，我们确信，当我们所有的 开发人员 join our Oculus project and meetings start taking place in VR rooms.

几乎完成了

Truly, the future is bright, and VR technology is here to stay. Toptal决定加入，并再次开拓未知领域, while still delivering amazing software and services to our clients. 我们的世界级开发者，即全球前3%的开发者，再一次证明了他们能够胜任这项任务.

We are proud to lead the way at the frontier. 当远程工作成为“工作方式”时，Toptal是首批全力以赴的公司之一。, and we are happy to lead the way back to the office.

的确，我们将不得不对我们的开发人员施加一些限制，并引入固定的办公时间——但我们认为现在这是一件好事. Our research showed that too many distractions, 旅行, and enjoying the nomad lifestyle is distracting and inefficient. To quote Breanden once again, “I was wrong when I was writing about the 旅行 engineer life. 在遥远的地方，鼓励人们去旅行，去追求他们一生的梦想，现在可能是不好的, because the human brain can only handle so much distraction.”

Our research shows that over 90% of our engineers do not really travel. They mostly work from home, and giving them the option to virtually drive to work together, collaborate in their offices, and even take a lunch break together is just a great bonus.

从长远来看, Toptal will have its own office building, 我们计划尽可能多地引进我们的开发人员到Toptalplex工作. Until that dream comes true, 我们将在今年年底向所有Toptal开发者提供眼睛的裂痕, and make VR a standard way of collaboration in our company. If anyone is interested in early access, please send us an e-mail at 眼睛toptal(在).com, and we will try to prioritize accordingly.

To all of you members of the Toptal network, we wish you a happy April 1st, the international day of jokes. May the force be with you, live long and prosper.