[HN Gopher] Amazon Signs 141,000 Square Foot Silicon Valley We W...
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Amazon Signs 141,000 Square Foot Silicon Valley We Work Lease Amid
RTO Mandate
Author : randycupertino
Score : 11 points
Date : 2025-06-16 16:51 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (finance.yahoo.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (finance.yahoo.com)
| nopelynopington wrote:
| Why though. Are all these companies doing RTO because they
| believe it's more productive?
| fred_is_fred wrote:
| Because people quitting is cheaper than a layoff. It's a tried
| and true method.
| pqtyw wrote:
| Except you can pick who to fire and the people leaving
| because they have better options might be slightly more
| valuable. Then again trusting or upper or middle management
| to get that right (outside of small/medium companies) is
| impossible.
| op00to wrote:
| Amazon doesn't need the best. They need the desperate, the
| good enough with no better options. Those you can abuse and
| squeeze.
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| They wouldn't be rushing to take back facilities and
| electricity costs that had been offloaded to employees if they
| didn't think it was a net benefit.
|
| Local commercial real estate markets aren't holding the reins
| of the tech industry.
| skyyler wrote:
| It seems like RTO isn't specific to the tech industry.
|
| It also seems like most publicly traded companies have
| instituted some form of RTO by now.
|
| I'm fairly certain that many entities that hold large amounts
| of commercial real estate also own large amounts of stock in
| companies that are doing RTO.
|
| It's not the most far-fetched conspiracy theory.
| sokoloff wrote:
| If Amazon (or some other company) thought they were going
| to be more profitable and more successful working remotely,
| I don't think the threat is credible of some commercial
| property owning shareholders deciding to further
| underperform the market by dumping shares unless that
| company made the decision to underperform by forcing RTO.
|
| "If you want to threaten me that you'll underperform unless
| I do, be my guest..."
|
| I suspect that different companies could have different
| motivations (including potentially forcing resignations),
| but it strains credibility for me that it's to answer to
| shareholders in conflict with what they think will make
| them successful.
| skyyler wrote:
| >it strains credibility for me that it's to answer to
| shareholders in conflict with what they think will make
| them successful
|
| I'm not so sure. I don't think that it's exactly the most
| probably scenario, but I can absolutely see it being a
| factor. I don't think there's some commercial real estate
| mogul on every F500 board demanding RTO, reality is way
| more complicated than that.
| pqtyw wrote:
| Maybe not, but if you have signed a massively expensive
| long-term lease and end up keeping the offices empty your
| investor will start looking cross at you. Of course
| that's more of a Covid era thing.
| pqtyw wrote:
| > If Amazon (or some other company) thought they were
| going
|
| This presumes that the company is fully capable of
| measuring and comparing the utility between RTO and
| working from home. That might be the case or it might be
| mainly due to management culture and other indirect
| factors but neither is self evident.
|
| Major corporations are almost by definition have massive
| amounts of bloat and inefficiency to one degree or
| another and are carried (especially tech companies) by
| certain products/teams/departments the rest are often
| there only for the ride (short to medium term at least
| and who has time for any "long-term" development these
| days?). To be clear, I don't think this has that much to
| do with people who are "lazy" or hard workers (you can
| put in extreme amounts of effort into something that
| leads nowhere).
|
| Anyway, not particularly pro or anti-RTO but I just find
| it bizarre that we usually assume that decisions making
| in large companies are always logical, rational and
| quantifiable and are not made to benefit specific
| subgroups or individuals in one way or another.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I don't presume that they are fully capable of measuring
| and comparing the utility between RTO and WFH.
|
| I think they're basing the decision based on 5-15%
| data/measurement and 85-95% beliefs and judgment. I don't
| know how you'd possibly carefully and precisely measure
| something as multi-faceted as the difference between the
| two modes of working, especially when the one pre/post
| test you have data on was heavily influenced by COVID,
| ZIRP, massive stimulus, massive disruptions to economic
| consumption patterns and working patterns, but you still
| have to decide where to position yourself between
| "working the way we did in Dec 2019" and "working the way
| we did in April 2020 or June 2021".
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _It also seems like most publicly traded companies have
| instituted some form of RTO by now_
|
| So have plenty of private companies.
|
| > _It 's not the most far-fetched conspiracy theory_
|
| It really is. (With unusual prevalence in the San Francisco
| Bay Area.) You're talking about some of the most powerful
| and notoriously-independent companies on the planet
| kowtowing to invisible shareholder pressure.
| qq66 wrote:
| Yes, for the company's definition of productivity.
| rxtexit wrote:
| I am full remote for a very small, non-software business but I
| think even for us we are probably losing productivity vs the
| office.
|
| I think child care is a big driver but no one can come out and
| say this.
|
| I am more productive remote but I wouldn't be if I was also
| baby sitting a 5 year old while working. A big reason I am more
| productive is living alone and not being distracted.
|
| A company can't demand a remote worker pay for child care so
| the kid isn't at home like in an office.
|
| I also think my increase in productivity doesn't offset the
| office slackers who are doing basically nothing at home. I
| think the office can squeeze some productivity out of the
| slackers while it is a lost cause remote.
|
| In the aggregate, I think for most companies it has to be a net
| loss of productivity to be 100% remote.
|
| While it is a huge increase in my general well being and
| happiness, the highly productive workers are going to be highly
| productive either way and not that much more productive remote.
| It is everyone else that causes remote to not work as well at
| the margin. Then if a competitor does RTO, the company almost
| has to hedge and RTO as well.
| x0x0 wrote:
| Oh man. Wework is the worst office I've ever worked in.
|
| Those glass walls and hardwood floors are great to tour. Working
| in them though, w/o a single bit of sound-deadening anything
| gives you a new appreciation for cubicles and ugly carpet that
| actually absorbs sound.
|
| Just wait until a woman wears heels and you can hear "clack clack
| clack" echoing up the straight hallways for 500 feet.
| cyberpunk wrote:
| nah, it's great! we all get to sit at the same desk with noise
| cancelling headphones on in the same meeting, and for added
| bonus - if someone forgets to turn voice isolation mode on you
| get to hear yourself with a one second delay which makes it
| really hard to talk..
|
| and a nice commute either side of the workday because who
| really wants to spend time with their kids during the week
| anyway?
|
| right? right?
| unwind wrote:
| For the more metric-fluent among us, that's about 13,100 square
| meters. Didn't immediately see how many employees are affected,
| though.
| rkagerer wrote:
| Why WeWork? Why wouldn't they buy a building or lease from a
| traditional outfit?
| plun9 wrote:
| Frugality
| refulgentis wrote:
| I posit the desired first order effect isn't the nebulous
| benefits of RTO, but rather, induce another culling in the vein
| the bigs have been doing since 2023. This one's voluntary,
| doesn't need a buyout, and you net save on leasing if you get a
| temporary space that'll fit 100%.
|
| Then expect 10% leave due to RTO, another 10% are managed out,
| or leave of their own accord (FAmazonMG target these days is at
| least 5% / year perf firings)
|
| Now you can wait out a year and find out if the leaving due to
| RTO # is 5% or 30%, and defer a long term lease until you have
| enough info to rightsize it.
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(page generated 2025-06-16 23:02 UTC)