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Comment by Cookingboy | Hacker News Reader

>They are doubling down on real estate because they have sunken costs,

I'm pretty sure a company like Google that has no problem killing unsuccessful products after multi-billion dollar investments, knows how not to fall for the sunken cost fallacy.

> execs themselves probably have serious personal real estate positions and

As opposed to move to a different state, buy a house 3x the size for the same money, and save 10% on state income tax? Hmm....

>companies have a sizable chunk of h1b-captive employees that has to stick around anyway.

The very fact companies sponsors H1b instead of having them working remotely from China or India is precisely because they believe in the value of everyone physically together.

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> I'm pretty sure a company like Google that has no problem killing unsuccessful products after multi-billion dollar investments, knows how not to fall for the sunken cost fallacy.

You're making the assumption that people behave rationally.

In actuality, rationality takes effort and as such, is rarely used.

We are irrational beings who are capable of rational thought, that doesn't mean that we always do.

Additionally, as you go up the hierarchy, people disagree with you less and less, which means that you start thinking that your ideas are better than they are.

Like, I fundamentally believe that pushing employees back to the office is not going to work out well for many companies, but they'll do it for emotional reasons rather than rational.

(And I say this as someone who misses the office).

>You're making the assumption that people behave rationally.

What? No, my original post was completely about how people don't act rationally, and that's why WFH will not be as amazing despite it can be more product in many cases.

> I'm pretty sure a company like Google that has no problem killing unsuccessful products after multi-billion dollar investments, knows how not to fall for the sunken cost fallacy.

Deadweight products vs appreciable assets are not the same thing. Not only they would have to justify throwing away their future returns on appreciation, if the word got out that any of the FAANG is liquidating tiniest bit of their real estate a panic pricing could erase a lot more. This is much harder to reconcile with fiduciary duty than “well, that deadweight product was costing us money with little in return so we’ll kill it”.

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