> WFH is nothing but a cost savings for companies.

WFH is a loss of control. For some leaders, being a "boss" is more important than what's good for the business.

WFH also requires the right culture. I've seen it abused when I worked at Intel, and when Yahoo cracked down on it, the abuses were similar.

I should point out that I've predominately WFH for almost a decade; but it works because I'm trustworthy and I work for people who are managers instead of "bosses." In an environment where the workers aren't trustworthy, or the management structure is more about being a "boss," it won't work.

Not if they own the buildings and a WFH culture is massively devaluing them. Their balance sheets will start to look terrible then.

So un-own the buildings?

Unfortunately, some of them are buying even more. I know Google spent at least 4B on purchasing office real estate in 2022, probably more

Sell at a loss, you mean? Why do that when you can just force employees to come back into the office?

Corporate buildings are usually leased, even if it is just one occupant. These lease terms are also usually 10 years.

Seems like a sunk cost fallacy to keep these buildings at this point. For those buildings their heating/cooling/upkeep costs have to be huge. Honestly we should probably have government intervention at this point. Government buys the houses at market values and turns them into affordable housing to counter the housing crisis.

That also doesn't work. It costs more to convert an office building to housing than it does to tear it down and build new condos in its place, which in turn costs more than just building new condos in a different location. All the plumbing/HVAC/electrical systems need to be redone, you need ventilation isolation, there are different load capacities, etc.

Plus if remote work really takes off, there's no need to crowd all those people into the downtown cores of a few cities anyway. It'd shift housing demand to cheaper, more naturally desirable locations.

What'll happen is that a few firms with ineffective cost structures will go bankrupt, a few major cities will become hollowed-out wastelands the way NYC was in the 1970s or Boston was in the 1950s, and economic growth will pick up in other areas, with new startups and new desirable hubs.

> It costs more to convert an office building to housing than it does to tear it down and build new condos in its place, which in turn costs more than just building new condos in a different location.

Except in SF or NYC, there aren't that many desirable "different locations" left. Which is why freeing up the poorly used space in city centers can be a net positive for society rather than keeping to maintain these white elephants.

How does that improve anyone's financial position?

Have you heard of sunk cost fallacy?

I'm suggesting that the execs in charge of these decisions are perhaps not approaching the issue rationally.

Yes, but the existence of a fallacy doesn't mean it applies here. If people can be convinced to go back to the office the company won't lose millions of dollars. Is that a sunk cost then?

Is this true when we include tax cuts given to companies in exchange for having offices / operate in the city?

As evidenced here by the vast increases in productivity provided by WFH, it is only natural companies need fewer workers.

I'm perplexed by postings like this, HN should be rejoicing in these right-sizings and the maximization of opportunities for those no longer bound to such inefficiencies.

What maximization of opportunities? Layoffs seem like a minimization of opportunities if anything else.

For workers, WFH gives immense flexibility and opportunity. You are no longer tethered to work in the same vicinity where you live. This gives you both personal (e.g. be close to family, be close to a beach, etc.) and professional (e.g. work for company in another city, on the other side of the country, etc.) opportunity.

Remember too that WFH opens one to increased competition from others who could do one's job who live in a much lower COL area

Right, so it is a tradeoff that a worker can choose to make: work for a company that doesn't have WFH/remote work or one that does. Each has their benefits and drawbacks.

PG has all the answers:

http://www.paulgraham.com/badeconomy.html

I see your argument that it can result in LONG TERM gains from which everyone will benefit but there are short term losers and the people on this sub are more than likely the short term losers from these layoffs.

These companies have boards, and these boards are incredibly "inbred" so that the vested interests coincide and reinforce. You'd be surprised how many of your C-suite sit on boards of REITs or have invested huge amounts of company "cash" into them.

It's most definitely about money, all the way.

You have eloquently summarized what I have been trying to say about the "return to the office" battle that is currently underway.

The "executive class" stand to lose a lot more than the "laptop class" if staff don't return to the office.

I remember finding out about this early in my career. The office building that my company used was own by the company director but under a different company.

He tied the company into a 3 year lease and then sold our company to a multi-national company. Not the company that owned the office just the company using it nice extra little earner for him considering he also set the rent amount as well.

I 100% agree w/ this and have been making that argument in the anti return to work subreddits. People on the board may also be heavily invested in the auto or gas industry who also strongly wish to see a return to the office.

> People on the board may also be heavily invested in the auto or gas industry who also strongly wish to see a return to the office.

Musk has be expressing concern even though it reduces emission, nominally his primary goal, far more than eletric commuting, and he himself heads so many companies that he mostly works remotely at all of them.

> You'd be surprised how many of your C-suite sit on boards of REITs or have invested huge amounts of company "cash" into them.

Do you have stats? Or do you even have one good and compelling example?

This feels like a startup idea.

Unless you can prove it with specifics for each company, this is patently false and a sweeping generalization.

Companies like Meta were all gung ho about remote work in 2021, when they hadn't seen the long term impact of it. The push inside Meta for WFH not being as effective for new employees started coming up in 2023 after the performance evaluations were done and they noticed a trend. You might argue that the data analysis might have been incorrect, but that's another question. The same company is also heavily cutting on office space.

I know people in tech are pro remote but let us not come up with these wild unsubstantiated theories to support what we like.

Remote work might not be as effective for every company on the same level, maybe it is the culture, maybe it is role dependent, but it is simplistically not just about some shadowy real estate moguls.

Do not attribute to malice what can easily be explained by stupidity.