I've been wondering for some time if business success for in-person companies is based on leadership's "better" control of the workforce vs. employees actually

I've been wondering for some time if business success for in-person companies is based on leadership's "better" control of the workforce vs. employees actually being more productive in the office. Are there strong success stories for remote-first tech firms that operated this way before the pandemic? The best-case situation from the employee side, IMO, is to have maximum flexibility, where folks can work from home as needed but have a desk available if they want to work in the office regularly, with regular "offsites" where people meet face to face. Yet every company seems convinced that "hybrid" where larger tech companies conveniently get to keep their real estate holdings (AMZN, GOOG, etc.) is the better bet. In the case of Grindr and Zoom, I can't believe they're requiring RTO. If it truly seems "unsustainable" to companies Grindr's size, then probably every tech company is doomed to forced RTO. Granted, Grindr's case might be more related to unionization efforts (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/12/business/grindr-rto-union.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/12/business/grindr-rto-union...) than actually deciding on required RTO for its own sake.