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Good satire. I find the "RTO is because of RE valuations" to be the most bizarre thing about the post pandemic work discourse. Office leases are a rounding erro

Good satire. I find the "RTO is because of RE valuations" to be the most bizarre thing about the post pandemic work discourse. Office leases are a rounding error to large employers. They are not coercing employees back to the office because their worried about the value of a single portfolio asset falling (assuming they even own it). They are doing it because it's about power. Middle managers do not trust their staff. They need to surveil and police them to feel productive and powerful. The rank-and-file love remote work because we have lives and benefit enormously from the flexibility. The managerial class desperately needs bodies in office to feel like their jobs are worthwhile.

gmadsen 2mo ago
Is your opinion that groups of 1000+ naturally align and deliver business value lock step with company needs? Is coordination not needed? Is leadership not needed?
- Lord-Jobo 2mo ago
  Why does coordination and leadership require my boss to be 15 feet from me, locked in his office 95% of the day, instead of tethered much the same through Teams?
iterateoften 2mo ago
It’s not just commercial real estate but selfishly on a personal level too. Like a family home in Bay Area is 2-3M. Lots of other places in California with better weather and houses closer to 1M. The primary reason the area supports such high housing costs is the density of high paying jobs that require in office somewhere in the bay. Without RTO, all the managers with property in the bay get skittish that a great exodus will happen from the Bay Area like SF in covid and their house won’t appreciate 10-20% a year
cjbgkagh 2mo ago
I think it’s a socially acceptable costly signal for communicating that power, less about the power itself. Perhaps a different culture could have settled on a humiliation ritual. Either way it has to be costly otherwise it won’t be seen as a true signal though it is likely possible to find a more efficient costly signal.
- LearnYouALisp 2mo ago
  Could learn from Japanese CEOs to an extent right?
ratelimitsteve 2mo ago
in Pittsburgh the local government tied RTO to RE valuations for the entire city by way of offering tax benefits to large employers for pushing RTO. I won't debate you on middle managers wanting power, the two aren't mutually exclusive. But WFH costs business districts a ton of money and that pressure isn't just being absorbed. Cities offer employers subsidies in exchange for RTO and get their money back in collecting taxes on parking, lunches, rideshares, after work drinks, quick shopping on the way home and all the other costs that employees bear. It's a direct wealth transfer from the working class to local governments, which then pass some of that wealth onto the business owners.
goldbaronyx 2mo ago
> Middle managers do not trust their staff. They need to surveil and police 2010-2016 in SF there was no such thing as a manager except PM who had no power (they were mostly just happy to be there). Over time middle management and HR got insane - became the entire show. The whole point of a tech job. Then it was 1:1s and backstabbing all the sudden you could get someone fired. Hilarious, a few years prior if you complained about someone it was your problem - if you don’t like the culture you can leave. And some did because there were many opportunities. Same thing happened with the web. Turned into banning and blacklisting and all the bullshit authority surrounding the activity taking over the activity itself - ruining it. It’s not needed, we did better without these things.
- doctorpangloss 2mo ago
  i appreciate this kind of funny commentary but on the flip side, compare the top software list in 2026 - facebook, instagram, tiktok, gmail, youtube, chatgpt, ios camera, google docs, office on ios, android and windows - and two of those were created during 2010-2016, music.ly (tiktok) and instagram. perhaps the environment you describe is really good at creating social media phenomena. i don't know if i'd call it "innovation" but i'm not that judgemental. nonetheless most of the reason things were "good" in 2010-2016 is that the period contains most of the growth of iphone and android adoption (the inflection was in 2013). you are looking at cultural stuff that could be the exact opposite - it could be heavily burdened with management, Apple and Microsoft and their little ecosystem of partners certainly were - and still find success. so another takeaway is, none of that stuff really matters now does it?
conductr 2mo ago
I’ve been on Csuite of 3 orgs since the pandemic forced wfh normalization. Your correct the RE thing has always been a false narrative. I’ve never seen or read of it coming from an executive. To my knowledge, it was dreamt up by pundits, speculators, and is just a lazy attempt to understand what goes on in boardrooms driving these decisions. What I have witnessed, with empirical evidence, is that productivity and/or output across the organization slows down. It is great at first as everyone can catch up on their work and existing projects but then the longer term implications is the teams are disconnected, decisions are more difficult, coordination of simple tasks more difficult, onboarding and actually integrating new employees is difficult, curating the culture is difficult, and it goes on. If you’re a very disciplined individual contributor focusing on low collaboration units of work, then it’s likely you did see a productivity boost. It’s unlikely you could maintain it over long periods of time. But even if you did, you’re probably an outlier. So it’s not about anyone’s need to feel worthwhile it’s literally about doing what is probably the best for the company even if it upsets some people. Even if some people will be less productive, the organization as a whole will function better. When productivity goes up, it’s only a good thing if output and all the other tangibles aren’t sacrificed in the process. The leaders of organizations initiating RTO usually have done so by avoiding this true talk type conversation with the employees. This is what has led to people filling in the gaps with BS about real estate evaluations. It’s been poor communication and I think a dose of honestly and openness would be beneficial. Sometimes it’s a feeling and they don’t have the means to really collect data and lay it out in an empirical way, so I think that’s part of the reason they avoid it.
- whaleofatw2022 2mo ago
  The RE thing may have been a false narrative, but tax abatements were a factor in at least one local company doing RTO; their business tax breaks were partially based on employees working in the city and then paying city payroll tax.
- karagenit 2mo ago
  Can I ask how your orgs measured productivity before and after remote work/RTO? I agree that employees would have a much easier time accepting RTO if they were given hard evidence it makes the business more productive, but it seems like almost all companies don’t do this and simply justify RTO “because we know best” which frustrates ICs.
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]

gmadsen 2mo ago

Is your opinion that groups of 1000+ naturally align and deliver business value lock step with company needs? Is coordination not needed? Is leadership not needed?

Lord-Jobo 2mo ago
Why does coordination and leadership require my boss to be 15 feet from me, locked in his office 95% of the day, instead of tethered much the same through Teams?

iterateoften 2mo ago

It’s not just commercial real estate but selfishly on a personal level too. Like a family home in Bay Area is 2-3M. Lots of other places in California with better weather and houses closer to 1M. The primary reason the area supports such high housing costs is the density of high paying jobs that require in office somewhere in the bay. Without RTO, all the managers with property in the bay get skittish that a great exodus will happen from the Bay Area like SF in covid and their house won’t appreciate 10-20% a year

cjbgkagh 2mo ago

I think it’s a socially acceptable costly signal for communicating that power, less about the power itself. Perhaps a different culture could have settled on a humiliation ritual. Either way it has to be costly otherwise it won’t be seen as a true signal though it is likely possible to find a more efficient costly signal.

LearnYouALisp 2mo ago
Could learn from Japanese CEOs to an extent right?

ratelimitsteve 2mo ago

in Pittsburgh the local government tied RTO to RE valuations for the entire city by way of offering tax benefits to large employers for pushing RTO. I won't debate you on middle managers wanting power, the two aren't mutually exclusive. But WFH costs business districts a ton of money and that pressure isn't just being absorbed. Cities offer employers subsidies in exchange for RTO and get their money back in collecting taxes on parking, lunches, rideshares, after work drinks, quick shopping on the way home and all the other costs that employees bear. It's a direct wealth transfer from the working class to local governments, which then pass some of that wealth onto the business owners.

goldbaronyx 2mo ago

> Middle managers do not trust their staff. They need to surveil and police 2010-2016 in SF there was no such thing as a manager except PM who had no power (they were mostly just happy to be there). Over time middle management and HR got insane - became the entire show. The whole point of a tech job. Then it was 1:1s and backstabbing all the sudden you could get someone fired. Hilarious, a few years prior if you complained about someone it was your problem - if you don’t like the culture you can leave. And some did because there were many opportunities. Same thing happened with the web. Turned into banning and blacklisting and all the bullshit authority surrounding the activity taking over the activity itself - ruining it. It’s not needed, we did better without these things.

doctorpangloss 2mo ago
i appreciate this kind of funny commentary but on the flip side, compare the top software list in 2026 - facebook, instagram, tiktok, gmail, youtube, chatgpt, ios camera, google docs, office on ios, android and windows - and two of those were created during 2010-2016, music.ly (tiktok) and instagram. perhaps the environment you describe is really good at creating social media phenomena. i don't know if i'd call it "innovation" but i'm not that judgemental. nonetheless most of the reason things were "good" in 2010-2016 is that the period contains most of the growth of iphone and android adoption (the inflection was in 2013). you are looking at cultural stuff that could be the exact opposite - it could be heavily burdened with management, Apple and Microsoft and their little ecosystem of partners certainly were - and still find success. so another takeaway is, none of that stuff really matters now does it?

conductr 2mo ago

I’ve been on Csuite of 3 orgs since the pandemic forced wfh normalization. Your correct the RE thing has always been a false narrative. I’ve never seen or read of it coming from an executive. To my knowledge, it was dreamt up by pundits, speculators, and is just a lazy attempt to understand what goes on in boardrooms driving these decisions. What I have witnessed, with empirical evidence, is that productivity and/or output across the organization slows down. It is great at first as everyone can catch up on their work and existing projects but then the longer term implications is the teams are disconnected, decisions are more difficult, coordination of simple tasks more difficult, onboarding and actually integrating new employees is difficult, curating the culture is difficult, and it goes on. If you’re a very disciplined individual contributor focusing on low collaboration units of work, then it’s likely you did see a productivity boost. It’s unlikely you could maintain it over long periods of time. But even if you did, you’re probably an outlier. So it’s not about anyone’s need to feel worthwhile it’s literally about doing what is probably the best for the company even if it upsets some people. Even if some people will be less productive, the organization as a whole will function better. When productivity goes up, it’s only a good thing if output and all the other tangibles aren’t sacrificed in the process. The leaders of organizations initiating RTO usually have done so by avoiding this true talk type conversation with the employees. This is what has led to people filling in the gaps with BS about real estate evaluations. It’s been poor communication and I think a dose of honestly and openness would be beneficial. Sometimes it’s a feeling and they don’t have the means to really collect data and lay it out in an empirical way, so I think that’s part of the reason they avoid it.

whaleofatw2022 2mo ago
The RE thing may have been a false narrative, but tax abatements were a factor in at least one local company doing RTO; their business tax breaks were partially based on employees working in the city and then paying city payroll tax.
karagenit 2mo ago
Can I ask how your orgs measured productivity before and after remote work/RTO? I agree that employees would have a much easier time accepting RTO if they were given hard evidence it makes the business more productive, but it seems like almost all companies don’t do this and simply justify RTO “because we know best” which frustrates ICs.

deleted 2mo ago

[deleted]