Despite letting some employees permanently work from home, tech companies are spending billions of dollars expanding their office spaces across the US
Even as they allow some employees to change how often they come into the office, tech companies are rapidly buying and leasing properties around the country. Tweets: @paulg , @anitakissee , @janetheeesq , @annehelen , @jen_keesmaat , @polotek , @badgal_ari , @richard_florida , @margaretomara , @kellen_browning , @kellen_browning , @carnage4life , @margaretomara , @ldignan , and @taylorlorenz Tweets: Paul Graham / @paulg : In the most effective organizations, working from home lets people be more productive. In the least effective, it's a synonym for not working. So the shift away from the office will magnify the spread between the most and least effective organizations. @anitakissee : Would you want to go back, pay for gas/parking? This is bad for the environment & for some workers. Feels tone deaf to all we've been through in 2 years & what many of us have come to want out of our work lives. I want to pick up my kid from school, not sit in traffic. https://twitter.com/... @janetheeesq : imagine spending the billions on employee salaries.. maybe employees would be able to afford to live close to the office & wouldn't mind coming in.. taking the money you have & buying soda streams to convince people to commute an hour each way isn't the best use of your surplus https://twitter.com/... Anne Helen Petersen / @annehelen : Talked to @Kellen_Browning a bit about why tech companies with hybrid plans are still buying up office space — they have so much money, they're basically putting eggs in every basket https://twitter.com/... Jennifer Keesmaat / @jen_keesmaat : Doubling down on offices may seem counterintuitive given the remote work shift. But a hiring boom, a race to attract top talent and a belief that offices will play a key role in the future of work are driving a boom. https://www.nytimes.com/... Marco Rogers / @polotek : I'm gonna keep saying this in the gentlest way possible. A lot of people want to return to the office. A lot. Yes there are many many people who prefer full time remote work. But it's not all or even close to all. The question of why companies also want this is a separate one. https://twitter.com/... @badgal_ari : Are real estate developers and these other companies in cahoots of some sort? Why are they so adamant about not only returning to the office and paying office rent, but spending a bunch of extra $$ to lure employees who have made it clear they don't want to return? https://twitter.com/... Richard Florida / @richard_florida : Offices are useful when you need young talent ... https://www.nytimes.com/... Margaret O'Mara / @margaretomara : Mountain of cash dimension perfectly captured by @annehelen here https://twitter.com/... Kellen Browning / @kellen_browning : One explanation, from @annehelen: These companies “have so much money that it doesn't matter.” In other words, even if a new office that Google or Facebook builds ends up sitting empty, it's not a big deal to them. “They're hedging their bets,” she said. https://www.nytimes.com/... Kellen Browning / @kellen_browning : Big tech companies promised flexible, remote work options for employees. But they have also spent billions of dollars building giant offices during the pandemic. How do those two strategies align? I went to Arizona to find out. My latest: https://www.nytimes.com/... @carnage4life : This the essence of the return to office debate. In a well run organization, giving people 1.5-2 hours a day back instead of commuting is an obvious win. In a poorly run one, it means it's harder for managers to micro-manage & easier employees to goof off. WFH stance is a tell https://twitter.com/... Margaret O'Mara / @margaretomara : Fascinating. Of note: 1/offices not necessarily in tech hubs nor CBDs 2/hybridity a common assumption 3/when sitting on a mountain of cash, might as well spend it 4/ as tech has been an office/org culture trendsetter, watch this space Thx @Kellen_Browning https://www.nytimes.com/... Larry Dignan / @ldignan : Another way to look at tech companies gobbling up commercial real estate is through an investment lens. Real estate works amid inflationary times and these companies have billions of dollars sitting around. https://www.techmeme.com/... Taylor Lorenz / @taylorlorenz : @Kellen_Browning If companies really want employees back they should be touting things like upgraded ventilation and other measures to curb the spread of airborne viruses! otherwise it's hard to see how millions of at risk adults would able to return w/ COVID in the air https://www.nytimes.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
The remote-work wave of 2020 set explicit ceilings on office life: [[a:953933|Zuckerberg said Facebook could reach roughly half its staff working remotely within 5-10 years]], and Twitter's two-years-in-the-making work-from-home policy spawned a wave of copycats across the industry.
Two years later, the same companies are buying and leasing billions of dollars of US office space anyway — a hedge that treats the employee exodus from Silicon Valley and the salary-adjustment debate as real, but bets that physical hubs still anchor hiring, culture, and the multi-city footprints like New York's 22K-person tech hub they have already built.
First-order effects
- Facebook, Google, and peers are locking into long-term leases and purchases sized for pre-pandemic-style presence even while their own policies let employees stay home permanently — committing capital against their own stated headcount distribution.
- Employees holding permanent or hybrid remote offers gain leverage over where they live, pressuring the location-based pay adjustments companies floated back in 2020.
Second-order effects
- Office expansion outside the Bay Area accelerates the multi-hub pattern already visible in New York, shifting landlord demand and local talent competition toward secondary cities rather than a single Silicon Valley core.
- Startups exploit the gap: as 81% of companies under 5K employees offer remote work versus 26% of those above 25K, small firms can recruit nationally without carrying the real estate bill the giants just signed.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, big tech settles into a dual-track structure — massive owned campuses plus formally distributed staff — while remote-first flexibility migrates down-market to smaller firms as a recruiting weapon against incumbents' fixed costs.
The trend: Tech's workplace model is splitting into a dual track: giants keep expanding physical hubs as strategic anchors while formalizing remote work, ceding pure remote-first positioning to smaller competitors.