Back-to-the-office moves leave tech uneasy – Axios

A lot of CEOs are itching to get workers back to the office, but tech CEOs who want that face an extra uphill battle: After all, theirs is the industry that made remote work possible.

Why it matters: The tech industry was built on "dogfooding" the idea that companies should use the products they push on the public and every effort by a tech leader to hound reluctant employees back to the office park seems to betray that ideal.

Driving the news: This week Apple, tech's most valuable company, began requiring its workers to report to the office at least three days a week.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has walked a careful line between acknowledging the appeal of remote work but praising in-person "serendipity" and "collaboration" and making clear that he and Apple would really like to see more of the troops at the company's $5 billion, beached-flying-saucer headquarters.

The big picture: Apple's stance is unusually uncompromising among tech's giants.

Between the lines: In tech, every fight boils down to numbers. But arguments over the relative levels of productivity workers can achieve remotely vs. in-office are tough to resolve with data.

Inevitably, managers who favor in-office work rely less on statistics and more on invocation of culture and creativity.

Also: COVID is still very much with us, frequently sending "back to the office" workers right home again.

Of note: Apple TV+ had a streaming hit this year with "Severance," which depicts a world of office workers profoundly alienated from themselves via a neural technology that ropes off their work experiences and memories from the rest of their lives.

Our thought bubble: Apple led the personal-computer revolution with an appealing pitch to personal empowerment. The company's reluctance to fully embrace remote work is not only likely to demoralize some of its employees it feels surprisingly off-brand.

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Back-to-the-office moves leave tech uneasy - Axios