[offbyone]

If you want my cynical take, here's the real reason that Amazon and other big companies are all-in on RTO: the commercial real estate collapse that may (will?) happen if downtown office districts don't repopulate: https://wapo.st/3QXHpFT

I think the reason that Amazon leadership isn't bringing data to support RTO is that not only are they aware of the "Urban Doom Loop” that this article is referring to, but I'd bet you a lot of money that the C-suite (S-team) has a significant investment in commercial real estate.

[rco8786]

> C-suite (S-team) has a significant investment in commercial real estate.

Amazon itself is holding ~$92B worth of buildings on its balance sheet, you can imagine a large chunk of that is commercial.

[claudiulodro]

FWIW I imagine 95%+ of it is warehouses and fulfillment centers, not necessarily office space.

[dangerlibrary]

Maybe 95% by square footage - probably not by $$$.

[Detrytus]

Why would they invest in the office space for rent? It's not their core business, just a distraction. They might own their own offices, but that should be really tiny, by square footage and by $$.

[martinald]

But Amazon could liquidate it all and make enormous cost savings going remote only if they wanted to. I'm sure any loss they would take would be recouped by reduction in office costs and access to cheaper workforces outside of Seattle etc very quickly. It doesn't make sense.

[AnimalMuppet]

So? Is Amazon in the real estate business, or in the software business? Which is more important, the physical assets or the assets that walk out the door every night?

If Amazon is really making decisions for this reason, they have lost the plot.

[GingerBoats]

This.

It's the only major reason to bring people back to Urban centers. Real estate, both commercial and residential, would take a hit in every high cost of living urban center. City centers, like Seattle, have been begging Amazon to bring workers back into the city.

This may be a bit bias on my part from what I've seen, but businesses are finding that remote workers just do their job - nothing more. No white-boarding sessions. No coffee chats on cool ideas. No being pressured into doing some weird prototype.

I work for a MAANG company and get nasty emails monthly about my "attendance". Yet, I have in my contract that I work a week in the office and a week out of the office.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[UncleMeat]

> I'd bet you a lot of money that the C-suite (S-team) has a significant investment in commercial real estate.

This doesn't make any sense.

Amazon C-suite are paid largely in amazon stock, hold a large part of their wealth in amazon stock, and have stock price incentives that change their compensation. There is no way that they personally have anywhere near as much exposure to commercial real estate such that they'd look at stats that say "productivity will go down if we force RTO" and go through with it anyway because their commercial real estate investments depend on it.

[hunson_abadeer]

Facilities and real estate are among the most significant expenses for any tech company in a prime location such as Seattle or SFBA. If remote work turned out to work flawlessly, there would be a huge financial incentive to shed all that.

I find it frustrating that we always need to come up with some sinister explanation for any decision we don't like. It's always the corporate profit motive, and when it doesn't fit, we try to invent some personal profit motive for execs to act against the best interest of the company, without a shred of evidence.

I know several execs involved in RTO decisions for a public company. They have sincere convictions and some arguably flawed data to back it all. I don't agree with it, but this way of thinking that everybody up to and including my pay level is a good and smart person, and everybody above is clueless and evil... it's just juvenile.

[martinald]

This doesn't make sense to me. Firstly I'd be surprised if Amazon execs thought it was a good idea to get massively into CRE even pre pandemic given that Amazon/ecom was really starting to bite into CRE values with the shift to online shopping. A lot of retail space was starting to tank well before the pandemic hit.

Secondly, even if you did have a load of CRE investments, you are likely to have more in AMZN stock itself. Surely you'd prioritise AMZN over one of your investments if you were an exec?

Finally, commercial real estate is a large but niche asset class, typically held by pension funds wanting very long term income sources. I believe in the US there are lot of tax advantages you can take too, but they only apply to people that are primarily active in real estate, which would be a pretty hard push with the IRS if you were a c-suite amazon exec.

My view (being remote first/only for many many years) is that WFH can work really well with the right team and culture, but hybrid doesn't. It's hard to get everyone on the same page when some are remote and some are WFH, plus it means doing loads of calls in the office when you are there with WFH people - which there aren't enough meeting rooms for. It's a mess.

So, given most CEOs of large companies aren't going to commit to remote-only, which is too scary for them, in office will continue. I personally expect 4 days to become the norm in most companies (it was already moving that way pre covid, at least in London, with a lot of people WFH on Fridays).

[vb6sp6]

its even more cynical than that. They aren't doing this for the greater good of preserving downtown areas, they are losing their tax breaks: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-02-21/tax-br...