According to this [0], 51% of stocks are held by the 1%. So you are correct that the rich control corporations. But 49% voting power is far from negligible.

Even a small minority of voters who care about an issue and raise a stink about it can swing a big change.

Most shareholders, including rich ones, are happily coasting along on autopilot. If someone with even a single share stands up in an annual meeting and makes a good point, I would pay attention.

The parent comment I replied to originally said that return to office is pushed at regular by a fund (Blackrock) that owns office space as well as shares in companies like say Apple or Google, even if that is a suboptimal choice for Apple and Google.

If there's a bloc of even 5% of ownership arguing against this at an annual meeting, it would be a major improvement in the state of affairs. Corporate America runs the world. We can't just relegate all important decisions to big owners by default - at the very least give them hell!

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/26/upshot/stocks-pandemic-in...