The Elite's War on Remote Work Has Nothing to Do with Productivity

I’ve heard this argument before and I don’t buy it. By that, I mean it may be true (that people want to prop up real estate prices), but I don’t think that this is enough of an explanation.

If it were just about real estate, then Amazon would not be calling for 5 days a week return-to-office. I don’t think real estate interests are powerful enough to push Amazon around and I don’t think they’re entrenched enough in Amazon leadership to make it happen. As an alternative contributing factor, I suggest that Amazon wants employee attrition, and five day return-to-office is a convenient tool for that. One of the things that makes return-to-office such a convenient tool for employee attrition is that it’s a deniable tool.

In cities like New York, it’s pretty clear that commercial real estate interests are in bed with the city government. I just don’t think that real estate has enough power to push through a return-to-office agenda at the scale that we’re seeing. Don’t get me wrong, I think commercial real estate interests have a ton of influence. I just don’t think it’s enough influence to explain RTO at this scale (but it can explain RTO policies in some specific cases).

Ok, so which “elites” are holding real estate portfolios and creating these stories in the media bashing remote work? Who are they?

I don’t think the world is so coordinated. Some people made a bad bet on real estate. Some other people want to write click bait pieces about lazy workers. Some other corporate leaders are scared that employees are goofing off outside the office (because productivity can’t be measured for most work).

I didn't think of Jeff Bezos as a benevolent community member of "the elites", doing everything he can, for free, to save the real estate portfolio of his unlucky landlord friends.

The truth is that after the initial movement toward remote work, we are starting to see the secondary effects.

For instance, starting as a junior in a remote job can be really daunting, and you're sure to never make any personal connection with anyone. Being stonewalled by a non-cooperative senior coworker in a slack chat while you start your job is a very stressful experience, I can tell you.

Remote also allows some slack if you don't enforce a very tight and intrusive management. See the countless stories about people holding two jobs at the same time.

The idea that there's a global cabal of ultra-wealthy real-estate owners who have globally conspired to control people to go back to the office holds about as much weight in my mind as the idea that there's a global cabal of ultra-wealthy who have globally conspired to create a virus to control the population.

Covid was an outlier event, and the outcomes that occurred as a result of it will revert to the mean over time.

This is backwards. When covid started, the executives were saying that working from home will not affect productivity. They said zoom and slack are the new way to work. Some even said that productivity increased when people didn't have to commute. Some said people were working longer hours than earlier.

Now, all of a sudden, they realize their blunder. While the workers are happy, they are not. So now they will try to convince us that we are not productive enough, or that some of us are slacking, or that we have stopped innovating, or another 50 reasons for which going to the office will help us.

More recently, they have realized that they are not fooling anyone. So now they are threatening lower pay or layoffs for those who refuse to come back.

The whole “remote work kills productivity” argument is outdated. Studies and real-world examples show the opposite: many people are more productive at home without the daily commute and office distractions. Plus, companies have tools and strategies to keep teams connected and engaged, so the idea that culture just dissolves over time isn’t based on reality. Culture isn’t about being in the same room; it’s about values, leadership, and communication. And remote companies are proving you can have a strong, action-driven culture without a traditional office. Also, let’s talk about this idea that employees’ good intentions aren't enough and that without the office, everything falls apart. This screams of a lack of trust in workers, which is not how modern businesses run. Successful companies trust their people, set clear expectations, and hold them accountable—whether they’re in the office or working from a coffee shop. It’s not about babysitting; it’s about outcomes. And this notion that computer science professionals won’t have bargaining power because of some glut is just not accurate. Sure, there are more CS grads, but the demand for skilled talent is still high, especially for top performers. Companies offering WFH flexibility are not just doing it out of kindness; it’s a strategic move to attract and retain talent in a competitive market. Restricting WFH options actually puts companies at a disadvantage. Bottom line: dismissing WFH as some kind of fad or liability ignores the reality that a ton of companies are making it work and even excelling. If anything, leaders worth their salt are those who adapt, trust their teams, and leverage the benefits of remote work, not those who cling to outdated office norms.

Here's the thing:

The reasoning behind the work from office mandate does not concern me; nor I will attempt to rationalize it.

I will not return to office, and I will organize with colleagues to make sure our interests are protected.

See you in the strike.

I don't understand the logic behind this argument.

Yes, some people made a bet on office real estate, and they're in a bad position right now.

But those aren't the same people who are running businesses that use those offices. Why would most businesses care if real estate is propped up or not? How would increasing utilization of their buildings actually help them?

There are a lot of arguments in this post about what does or does not constitute an “elite”.

I don’t have an answer to that question but I am curious as to why my company and multiple companies my friends work at, are having events where they direct us to command our entire team to come into the office and then tell us the next day that there aren’t enough seats and some people should be told to stay home.

It seems like a lot of companies want to eat their cake and have it too. I mean that in the sense that they want all their employees in the office but don’t want to pay for enough office space to make that possible.

Hell, even the “golden path” schedule for my team or any other in the company doesn’t have set desks. Where we sit in office changes depending on the day because we have the seating capacity for 75% of the employees mandated to be in office, and hr is doing their best at accommodating this. I don’t think as many real estate firms would be looking at their offices sitting unused if corporations actually put their money where their mouth is when it comes to the return to office push

> It especially benefits those of us on the spectrum, who need a quiet place where we can focus.

I'm not on the spectrum (at least I've never been diagnosed, but many software developers have autistic tendencies, so who knows), but I also need a quiet place where I can focus. Funnily enough, many people who prefer working from the office also want all others to see how hard they are working, so they sit in the biggest open plan office and do calls all day long. Which is kind of at odds with other people's need to focus...

I run my own business. I have zero motivation or incentive to help out people who own office blocks.

The author keeps mentioning capital-E “Elites” and never names one or even defines what that means.

My Spidey senses go off whenever someone uses an undefined label to describe a sweeping societal change.

And, yes, it is all about real estate.

Here is a low hanging fruit for governments around the world fighting low birth rates. Allow your people to work from home and they will start having more babies, simplle as that. I am my wife had to switch jobs just so we could work more from home, an unnecessary annoyance.

Yes, commercial real estate is hurting but that is only one component of the bigger picture.

Everyone in the surrounding area finds it desperately hard to make ends meet.

The restaurants and cafes, the minimarts, the cleaners, janitors, security, various stores: clothing, bookshops, bakeries etc.

All these people lose their jobs and for the small independent Stores where the owners have poured in their savings they lose all that,

There are a lot of positives with working from home but dont forget about the wider repercussions,

My belief is that return to office is simply a tool to combat "overemployment" scam. They can't say that because "overemployment" is a crime, and claiming someone to be a criminal without proof can be a crime in itself, but this is what hangs in the air: they want people to work from the office to make sure they don't work full time in several places at same time.

I just don't see a compelling argument here.

So either

a) The company that is ordering workers back to office owns the property - then they get absolutely no financial gains from it, because they need to pay for the office space in any case.

or

b) They rent the office. In this case, they get financial gains from renting less space and keeping workers at home.

Definitely soft layoffs when it comes to Amazon.

In their last earnings call, their AWS operating income increased $4billion to $9.3 billion, they said it's driven by "our continued focus on cost control, including a measured pace of hiring."

That is a dramatic jump in returns, they will squeeze that until the gains from doing so are minimal, implying that specific cost base is then efficient.

I prefer...both? I like having regular interactions with colleagues, I also like being able to have the time to be by myself at home and think. Perhaps there might be a 9 months on, 3 months off rotation, similarly to when you're in school. Spend the summer at home, working, thinking, reporting, maybe not as intensely as during the rest of the year, and then the colder months at the office collaborating, socializing. It would offer a nice break and a different kind of rhythm to life. Just a thought.

In America it's more like the wealthy people (typically older people who purchased homes when they were less expensive) disliking the idea of people spending time alone at home possibly deteriorating their mental health and providing mandated "normalization time" to socially adjust to what the office space defines as "normal".

Case example: The weird YouTube parents who likely never spent time with other parents and got into child abuse scandals.

The problem with remote work is lack of accountability. Every worker bee buzzes that "just let me finish my work and be on my way", but that's just not how business works. Employers require either bossware to watch employees at home or they will watch them physically in the workplace. Take your pick.

It really isn't that complicated. "Elites" pay their house slaves house slave wages because they want them in the house, not out in the field, shucking and jiving with the field slaves. If the house slaves manage to preserve their incomes under "field" costs of living, it won't be long before they have enough savings to buy their freedom. That simply won't do.

Real estate is just a small piece of the puzzle. The larger issue is that millions of people commuting daily is big business.

It drives a large piece of demand for the auto industry and causes literally and figuratively tons of fuel to be consumed, just to take some obvious examples, but there are many many many more when you consider the chain reactions.

Fuel is heavily taxed in most countries as well, so reducing the demand is a major hit to the core economy of many nations. This is a problem for everyone, not just the 1%. It might actually be a smaller problem for them than for most.

This is not a conspiracy so much as it is a real problem that might cause problems for all of society unless its handled well.

I think we need to elevate the discussion from the tiresome "It's all $category's fault because they're evil" to stand any chance. In this case as in so many others.

I tend to dismiss automatically anything said by someone when the include the word 'elites' in a sentence.

I've been hearing about this for a while and many of the entities holding the bag are publicly traded, given there's plenty of mercenary firms out there able and willing to make a buck off of a catastrophe is there any reason to believe this isn't already priced in?

I think it's about productivity. Maybe not for you or me but if you're on TikTok you've probably seen the 'quiet vacations' trend, where kids learn how to fake working in their remote jobs. This is why we can't have nice things.

This is maybe the stupidest article I've yet to see discussed on HN.

This person thinks that multibillion dollar companies would be willing to sacrifice productivity to prop up the minor real estate assets they hold at the expense of their revenue and market cap?

While I believe the real estate issue to be part of the reason, I think there's also an aspect of control involved. WFH leads to increased personal autonomy and agency. Having too many high agency individuals is bad for the existing hegemony.

It kind of makes sense, if you consider real-estate. When remote is possible, people will no longer flock to expensive city centers or highly populated areas(except rich young singles with big pay grades seeking entertainment), which means less rent revenue for expensive commercial residential properties in such areas. Additionally, it also means less human traffic causing a ripple effect on the nearby businesses(less people at coffee shops, restaurants, bars, grocers etc).

Also, as a self-preferred hybrid, I often go to office 3-4 days weekly and I see more goofing off and also get pulled into goofing off by peer pressure(c'mon, lets have a cup of coffee, you such work-a-holic, there is tomorrow blah blah), because people will definitely take a 30-60mt coffee break after each meeting, compounding to around ~1.5-2h (if we do not consider meetings as work) effective productivity.

Lets take lunch break at office, first grouping with peers starts 15-20mt before everyone is ready and heading out to canteen or restaurant depending on the mood and then taking a long walk afterwards because everyone is sleepy after meal. Coming back, some will still feel sleepy and spend another 30mt on coffee sipping and gossips and then walk to a meeting.

Compared to my work at home, I get decent min. 4h concentrated work. Additionally, I can focus on other stuff(debugging, reviews, experiments) in background without coming off as rude, while a meeting takes place that does not directly need my input immediately. Same meeting at office means I am either super bored and sleepy and others are mostly scrolling their FB/TikTok under the table while some random people get into nerdy arguments with another someone who suggested a bad design or a manager gets at the neck of another team's manager because they can't align on the coordination or responsibility distribution correctly.

One benefit of in-person office days is, when I have a problem, I can walk up to my peer and get a clarification immeidately, while at home, they might set their status to do-not-disturb or would cite some other meetings where they are just sitting around listening to blah blah and tell me to come back later. Other than that, I do not see any immense benefits. The bonding/cultural stuff are anyways enforced by corporate team events and parties and what not and in EU, people do not often socialize personally with colleages outside work unless they were childhood friends or live in same house.

I understand how one can talk about the "elite" or capitalist class as a single entity, but employers pay corporate leases and landlords are two different entities (although not always, of course), thus the motivation for employers to issue RTO is not as clear. I can imagine other scenarios though (like sunk-cost for the employer in the middle of a lease, or not being able to break a lease without huge expense), but barring that, the "control" explanation makes more sense here for these employers. Sure, city governments and landlords want the employees to return, but occupying corporate offices downtown doesn't make as much sense as a reason for employers beyond them wanting to control their workers more closely.

Is a split appearing between companies which are saving money as their office leases expire and those who own property?

How does leased buildings being empty or full in any way affect the financial burden on the lessees (companies mandating RTO)?

If anything, those companies could sublet and/or negotiate the cost, lowering the downside, instead of doing something they know (according to the article) won't move the needle.

The math doesn't add up.

> It's about debt on zombie office towers.

No. It's about total loss of the control of the one of the most effective productivity measurements those 'elites' ever had: BiC/h.

Zombie towers too, but the middle management don't (and won't ever) get any profit from the sqaure meters, so they eagerly support their top-level executives specifically because they no longer can imitate the vigorous activity of managing people and projects and with WFH it's became way too obvious. They literally don't know what they subordinates do.

PS: Butt-in-Chair, of course.

Conspiracy theory - The reason why All In hosts and David Sacks is so negative on remote work is because he owns a ton of commercial real estate in SF :)

It’s kinda…interesting…to see the sort of people that think that this topic, and point of view, haven’t both been talked about to death. As with all things like this, the closer we get to the end of the line with this WFH discussion, the more utterly delusional (as to the originality of one’s POV) one has to be to choose to write yet another ‘think piece’ about it. As an effect of that, the more utterly braindead the opinions become. It also says a lot about modern online society. Instead of just being grumpy that something didn’t go your way, you need to form a worldview that makes The Other Guys out to be a cartoonishly villainous cabal, set to attack everything you hold dear.

I’m a manager that prefers an in-person team. My reasons are related to productivity. Any commercial real estate that happens to be in my portfolio is separated from me by enough intermediate aggregators that I don’t spend an iota thinking about it. I actually work for an organisation whose senior leadership prefer remote work, so I’m not just a kiss-ass or anything. What does OP’s POV say about me? Do I not exist? Am I a paid shill?

Honestly, and I say this as one, developers can be so bloody petulant.

The borderline conspiracy theories on this are odd. If you're a manager, having a remote team is just harder.

It can still work well with a certain type of people, people who are self directed and take pride in their work, but let's not fool ourselves into believing that's the only kind.

Thanks to the author and those who post here to have well written down what I say for some years!

I add a thing: giants NEED the city to keep their business, who use Uber in a spread area where parking is never an issue and we all have cars? Who use JustEat where there are few restaurants around? Who buy ready-made food if most WFH? Who buy shiny macrobugs also known as smartphones, smartwatches etc where we WFH and outside there is nature, not a big city? Who will implement the "in 2030 you'll own nothing", meaning that those who say that count to own anything and rent to anyone?

That's more then mere real estate, the neofeudal economy of few big and powerful will fail to a new dynamic economy of SMEs and a free market. And yes those who are so big do not want to loose their status.

This conspiracy theory needs to be substantiated either by 1. Showing that the "elites" are conspiring together or 2. That the same people who own the companies also do own the commercial real-estate.

The problem with the first point is that why would a certain elite support their commercial real estate elites. This would suggest a certain transaction that the real-estate elite are not able to uphold since all of their income is coming from the companies.

For the second point, it'll be much easier to point at the conflict of interest in corporations.

Cool conspiracy theory but no, remote workers are just less productive and companies that allow them are going to lose more

> They only care about one thing, forcing warm bodies back into office buildings to stop the commercial real estate apocalypse. If they can’t fill those zombie towers, they have to trim their budgets with stealth layoffs.

The problem with these evil capitalist conspiracy theories is evidence: there should be evidence of this motivation _somewhere_. If you're a captain of industry, your compensation is driven by equity, which is in turn driven by shareholders' forecast of future earnings. So CEOs should be shouting their evil plans from the rooftops --anything you do but don't tell shareholders about might as well not have happened! Yet it doesn't come up in earnings calls, shareholder reports or at industry analyst reports. Probably because commercial real estate has no bearing on most company's valuations, and the ones it does impact are usually lightly staffed anyways, or couldn't really work from home in the first place.

I don't think the "us" vs "elites" framing helps the analysis at all, as it's far too reductive and treats actors as monoliths. Instead it's probably better to use something like "us" versus "small businesses, politicians, tech CEOs, bankers, and real estate investors." (And maybe even split up "us": not every job can work from home!) Tech CEOs generally have no exposure to commercial real estate. But bankers do, and real estate investors definitely do. These firms tend to be local in scope, and more directly connected to local politicians.

In that network of actors, tech companies are the mark. Politicians come after them with taxes and rules while carving out small business exemptions without which they would otherwise be voted out. And unlike the 'Jeff Bezos is worried about the long term viability of REITs' theory, this one has evidence, from politicians telling us their plans[1][2]. They campaign on these in-all-but-name writ-of-attainder taxes. How any individual tech company reacts can vary.

So that's the causal path between commercial RE and tech as I see it and it doesn't look like a strong one. Maybe it's more prevalent in the east coast where the banking and legal sectors are more represented, but here on the west coast only one company is fully 5 days in office They are widely reputed to have the highest employee churn target among big tech, and WFH lowered churn across the board.

[1]: https://www.sanjoseinside.com/opinion/op-ed-cupertino-city-c... [2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/31/technology/san-francisco-...

TL;DR: "It’s about real estate."

Real.

this is purely and simply about boss power

Nobody is forcing people to return to the office. If your employer mandates or requests people to work at the office and you find it unacceptable just quit.

Then the market decide.