[throwaway9191aa]

This is something my company's internal RTO channels seem to have missed. What if large corporations really *did* collect enough data during covid to justify working from home? Now faang can justify outsourcing the rest of US based jobs.

Force RTO in the US, replace those who leave with less expensive resources.

[q7xvh97o2pDhNrh]

This is actually a brilliant bit of insight/tinfoil that I'd totally missed, largely because all the things that FAANGs have been saying to justify RTO have been so daft.

You're totally right, though. If the data shows that RTO has negligible benefit — or even, say, just a marginal 5-10% benefit — then the logical move is to force RTO for the most expensive headcount (since a 5% boost there will be the most valuable) and then hire globally-remote headcount for all the rest.

That... really feels quite grim, the more I think about it. Time to go stare at my early-retirement spreadsheets and see where I can squeeze out some more velocity for myself, I suppose.