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Comment by crystal_revenge | Hacker News Reader

> There is no logic in RTO

The logic of RTO has always been about two things:

1. A desperate attempt by investors higher up the food chain to salvage the commercial real-estate market.

2. A "work force reduction" technique that avoids too many negative headlines.

Anytime you see RTO the logic is always coming from one of the above, and has nothing to do with productivity. Reduced push for RTO in tech is primarily because the commercial real-estate market is increasingly looking doomed regardless of efforts to get people back into office buildings.

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I think there's also a pretty big issue where CEOs can get to an office in 15 minutes, due to probably living in a fancy neighborhood nearby. They may not quite understand how expensive it is to commute or live anywhere near an office.

I'd RTO if somehow I could guarantee being at an office 10-15 minutes.

and don’t forget about that weird mix of paranoia and loneliness.

Many if not most managers believe people aren’t working if they can’t see them. Others just like the lifestyle of coming into the office and saying hello to the lackeys.

They understand. HR has everyone’s addresses. They don’t care.

I wouldn't RTO even if I could instantly teleport to the office.

I'd lose literally dozens of hours of free time per month I currently use on chores, hobbies, naps, and quality time with loved ones.

My effective hourly rate (salary / active hours) would plummet. Going remote many years ago has skyrocketed my wealth when you account for time.

I used to think this, but I’ve recently learned that my entire management chain (for a San Francisco based company) lives in the Tri-Valley. The view is just that commuting 2.5+ hours per day is a normal and inevitable fact of life once you have kids.

Why live in a fancy neighbourhood nearby when you can afford a Bell 429 GlobalRanger and a pilot on permanent standby?

https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/mining...

3. Prevent overemployment. We can't manage people as easily without the leverage / deterrent of being able to make them homeless or at least put them in financial shock.

> A desperate attempt by investors higher up the food chain to salvage the commercial real-estate market.

So how does that work - CEOs are being pressured by, not their VCs I assume, but like... hedge fund managers?

Pretty sure rich people network is pretty strong.

I think in some places companies got tax breaks predicated on having so many people commute and spend money in a city or etc?

Basically this... though generally the tax breaks just require local hires within a city or county. Most of them don't have office mandates attached.

It seems like they didn't do a comprehensive risk analysis. So why must the employees who had no say in the matter directly pay for the incompetence?

Why not VCs?

Every startup I've known that's attempting RTO is definitely doing so from VC pressure. Of course the announcement from the leadership will never phrase it that way, but when leadership suddenly has some inspiration about the value of working in proximity immediately after a board/investor meeting you can be sure where that inspiration comes from.

Most recently IPO'd startups are also strongly influenced by small numbers of institutional investors that have major sway in decision making. All of those investors have broad portfolios and have a keen interest in keeping commercial real-estate healthy.

At a certain level that pressure comes from the CEOs themselves since they likely have a large number of assets (and/or the company itself does) tied up in commercial real estate. All of those mega-campuses are real estate investments and have a certain value on the books. If the commercial real estate market crashes, the value of those assets does as well.

That doesn't make sense unless investors own the same building that the company in question is renting office space in.

Not necessarily. More people downtown means more people going out for lunch

Tech VCs don’t invest in restaurants. Actually one of the major sources of tension between tech and “communities” is that tech offices usually have onsite amenities, including lunch, so that employees don’t patronize local businesses much.

come on, I just listed one second order effect, if restaurants in area succeed that increases property values of entire area

For this to be a tangible benefit for any particular investor, a lot of unlikely conditions must be met.

People working from home also go out (or order in) for lunch

Theres a lot of incest with capital and property ownerahip. Id bet plenty of VCs park money in real estate and consequentially lease it back. Similar to how movie productions "lose" money

Point 1 has always been absurd. You think there are some powerful cabal controlling Amazon and Google management, forcing them to put workers back in the office? All so they can try to pump real estate valuations?

Amazon and its shareholders do own a lot of commercial real estate...

None of which is made more valuable by sending SWEs back to the office. The reasons companies are doing RTO is the most obvious one: they believe it will produce better results.

You realize that those two reasons are contradictory, right? Because if you do the work force reduction, you don't need as much office space.

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