It is hilarious that people think the second largest company on the planet, with a market cap over $5 trillion, spends even one second worry about the profit margins of commercial real estate companies, makes any decisions based on that, or is somehow cowed by their alleged political power despite being much, much, much smaller than Microsoft.

I always assume a different option, though (3) is likely part of it for Microsoft right now as well.

When leadership decides their velocity is too slow for whatever reason, they look for deck chairs to move. RTO is one big deck chair they can move and many will assume it will improve performance and velocity.

The problem is that I've never seen anyone actually prove that out for RTO with solid data. And that goes both ways, I haven't seen anything to prove that remote-first is universally better for performance.

Backdoor layoffs. It's always backdoor layoffs. If they really appreciated and needed you at the company, they would cater for your needs when you're delivering your work.

My personal pet theory (based on no evidence other than personal experience) is that, if your job is in senior management then your day-to-day work is going to meetings. And spending 8-10h on zoom meetings every day is unbelievably soul-crushing.

One you miss is that if other companies in your industry are RTO, and you don't, the first quarter you under-perform your competitors, your shareholders and activist investors will blame the fact that you haven't RTO when all your competitors have ... !obviously! that is the key issue. Effectively, if everyone else is, you cannot afford not to.

(4) In person teams outperform remote/hybrid teams.

I'm surprised this was not mentioned as a possibility.

This is dead on. In software especially, we have established ways for distributed individuals to collaborate (FOSS). RTO is meant to coddle the waterfall-addicted executive class.

(2) Seems like a media narrative rather than truth. I don't think that would be anywhere remotely high on a CEO's priority list unless they were a commercial real estate company.

It's far more likely a mixture of (1) and actual results - in-person/hybrid teams produce better outcomes (even if why that's true hasn't been deeply evaluated or ultimately falls on management)

I think it's naive to think that management would push something so unpopular and expensive just because some kind of emotional attachment or to help some other unrelated commercial property owners.

I think a more reasonable answer is they think employees are more productive and a large swath of employees don't do anything. I wouldn't believe it unless I've seen it myself. At a large org, there is a significant portion of people that don't do anything meaningful. Sure they'll waste time in the office as well, but at least they're somewhat more productive or available. They're not watching Netflix in their underwear. Every large organization I've been at had these people.

It's really that simple. The alternative is really conspiracy level stuff.

It’s just (3)

2 and 3 aren't real. Nobody gives a damn about their shareholders other investments, and no one company has the numbers to save them anyway. And nobody is dumb enough to do RTO as a layoff proxy because anybody with a brain knows you're going to lose the people with options, who are exactly the people you don't want to lose.

1 is spot on.

> (2) Interest in the investor class for the commercial real estate market. The business impacted may not be invested in it, but the businesses’ shareholders in sufficient numbers probably are

How is this not a net loss for them?

From their perspective, wouldn’t that just be moving money left to right, plus even more overhead?

Isn't 3 actionable under employment law?