Comment by bko | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bko | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

What does this mean? This is such a low quality meme. Most businesses don't own their buildings. So what's the rationale?

1. Company leases expensive office

2. Realizes that no one has to work from the office anymore so they're wasting money on this office

3. Inconveniences everyone by making everyone return to the office

4. Profit?

The lease is a sunk cost. They can try to sublease it out or pay some penalty to get out of it. Even if they owned it, why would they force people to come into the office and not just sell it? If it's worthless to them, then again what they paid for it is a sunk cost and they may as well just sell it. And why wouldn't they try to greatly expand their application pool to non-local workers if WFH is just as good. It's insane.

I've never heard a reasonable explanation as to why managers are so invested in commercial real estate prices that they'll collectively organize and forsake their interests to keep up the mirage.

The more reasonable explanation is that a lot of people work bullshit jobs or can skate by doing very little. These people are harder to control and less visibility by WFH makes it very obvious and managers don't feel good about it.

I believe the idea is that the same investors that invest in VC firms that in turn invest in companies, also invest in commercial real-estate, and that these investors can apply pressure to "their" VC-firm executives, to ensure that "their" commercial real-estate is getting used.

Come on, let's get real. Sure, perhaps this can happen in limited individual instances, but the idea that a major rationale for execs pushing RTO is that they're feeling pressure from investors in their VC firms to spend more money to keep the commercial real estate market afloat is just plain silly. Even if I believed it all, it's not a conspiracy theory that even makes sense because the incentives it proposes are just dumb - business execs may care about a lot of things and may have to do a lot of juggling, but worrying about the other investments of their VC's investors is not exactly high on the list. It's like my favorite meme of "Anyone who believes in conspiracy theories has never been a project manager."

The RTO/WFH debate can be so infuriating because there is so much dishonesty on both sides. Yes, WFH has huge benefits in terms of flexibility, reduced commuting, better supporting those with disabilities, etc., but it also has downsides in terms of less in-person motivation/support, loss of in-person mentorship for younger/newer employees, worries about building knowledge networks, loss of serendipitous interactions, and more difficulty managing performance for remote workers. Simultaneously, while I can understand the corporate desire for RTO, the reality of the work world has changed, so I see these stories of these execs pushing for RTO, then everyone gets to the office and is on Zoom 80% of the time because their colleagues are spread all over the place.

Just wish there could be more of an honest debate about the pros/cons of BOTH WFH and RTO, and to see how some/either/combo may work better for different employees/companies, without resorting to silliness like "business execs are feeling a ton of pressure to save the corp real estate market".

Cities give tax breaks to corporations and compete over who gets to host their campuses for a reason. If wealthy tech workers abandon the city, it kills the businesses that they patronize. It also lowers the demand for real estate in the city.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com