“William Whyte’s rule: virtually all corporate relocations involve a move to a location which is closer to the CEO’s home than the old location. Whyte discovered this principle after an extensive study of Fortune 500 companies that left New York City for the suburbs in the 1950s and 1960s. They always had big, complicated Relocation Committees which carefully studied all the options and chose, coincidentally I’m sure, to move to within half a mile of the CEO’s home in Danbury, Connecticut. Whyte also showed that these companies all tanked after the relocation.”

Comments

07 April | 11:05 | Chuck

The company I work for (and it's a great big one) is relocating sometime next year. The new location is in Santa Monica, about as far west as it's possible to go. Of course, it's also several miles closer to the new CEO's home.

Except for the CEO and the handful of people who live in Santa Monica, this move will be horribly inconvenient for everyone, and will probably add at least 20 minutes to my current 45 minute commute.

Sigh.

09 April | 14:35 | Jessa

My company started out half a mile from the CEO's house. I don't think we're going anywhere.

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Joshua Benton

Joshua Benton is the director of the Nieman Digital Journalism Project at Harvard University, among other things. Before that, he was a staff writer and columnist for The Dallas Morning News. (More.)