I think they realize the truth which is that productive people can be productive anywhere. Do they care about the toll a 2-hour commute takes on the workers or how that translates into deliverables and timelines? Ask yourself if this sounds likely.

Also they understand that most of these companies are 100% losses anyway, but real estate investments are much less likely to go to zero. (Plus rent is just cold hard cash.)

Because that would involve these people caring about their "boots on the ground" or thinking in the long term. Those two things to happen less and less as things scale up and become public respectively.