I can see how a CEO would look at a long term lease and regret the financial commitment and then see in person as more compelling to not have as much regret. Th

I can see how a CEO would look at a long term lease and regret the financial commitment and then see in person as more compelling to not have as much regret. That seems plausible, but foolish, because of the sunk cost fallacy. I can't see how commercial real estate companies losing money would compel most businesses to take this approach. I can see how JP Morgan would promote this, hoping it would help other companies make the same decision, and therefore avoid a commercial real estate (and related loans for JP Morgan) collapse. But the average company has no potential tax breaks, has the potential to save money by getting rid of their office space, and doesn't care about the financial outcomes of large real estate investors or lenders. I think they believe returning to the office is good. I would agree with them that some things are hard to replicate in a remote environment. It's hard to brainstorm a new project in a Zoom call. But I think many prefer an in person work setup because they are bad managers. Bad managers are not good at setting a vision for a company or building in organic, helpful checkpoints for progress and accountability. They don't actually state what anyone at the company should be doing. Expectations are often unclear. These bad managers have very little way of knowing if their employees are working. So they go the lazy route and use presence and the appearance of busyness, in the office, as a poor stand in for good management. There are benefits of being in-person. But whenever I see a decree for in person work, I think it's usually just poor leadership. I would say the best dynamic for most, not all, companies is a remote work environment where people can get together as needed. Well before the pandemic I worked at GitHub. At GitHub we worked remotely but we got together often to have a hack house where we worked together solving a problem that needed brainstorming or deep thinking. I saw my fellow employees often. It was the best of both worlds. A remote first company with opportunities to get together as needed is the gold standard. A fully in person is too extreme. A fully remote company without the chance to get together is also a poor experience and is very isolating. Both too far on either side of the spectrum.