[ajkjk]

I imagine the actual reason is the complete opposite of everything you said except for 'vibes'.

Just cause you can't imagine why anyone would care about being in person doesn't mean the only remaining reason is a greedy powertrip. You're just not being sufficiently imaginative.

[steveBK123]

Sure for a bootcamp or intensive project or whatever, in-person can have benefits. For juniors and mentorship and whatever, sure helps there too.

But the lingering question is... Why is it that everyone was super cool with hybrid & remote, even past COVID danger, but as soon as FAANG had massive layoffs we went from 2days to 3days to majority back in office at many tech companies?

And the east coast bank/fund/finance tech companies quickly dragged everyone else back to the office as soon as we all stopped quitting for FAANG jobs?

Hard to tell what the cause could possibly be.

Correlation, causation.. who knows!

[ajkjk]

I can think of plenty of decent reasons that might be true? For instance perhaps over time a fully remote company, unless it employs mostly a certain type of very driven self motivated person, slows down and loses any semblance of a culture the longer it works remotely? That was certainly my experience.

Or perhaps all the managers, typically fairly extroverted people, get more depressed over time the longer their daily social interactions are just on video calls.

Or perhaps over time it's found that new hires do worse and worse without an office to bond with others in and a culture to absorb.

Etc. No shortage of plausible reasons.

Perhaps these companies were remote for a while because a lot of people were loud and annoying about it, and now a lot of them are quietly backpedaling to avoid offending the people who love it while reclaiming the benefits of an office?

Perhaps! I don't know. You'd have to ask them. One thing is for sure: there are a lot of plausible reasons besides 'evil'.

[steveBK123]

I didn’t use the word evil though you may have read it that way.

Simply stating that tech employers have the power back and now they are using it.

[dilyevsky]

Because zirp was over

[ajkjk]

What is zirp?

[jdougan]

Zero Interest Rate Policy. Describes the US Federal Reserve interest rates for much of the last 20 years or so. Since interest rate to borrow is near zero, investing in very marginal businesses can be profitable.

[ajkjk]

Oh right. I just didn't know the acronym (and for some reason felt like asking instead of looking it up. Weird.)

[steveBK123]

The end of ZIRP is the reason tech has suddenly found religion on actually needing to make a profit...