ALEXANDRA CANAL: We are in the office, in the studio.
And apparently, a lot more people
are going to be back in the office,
because we got Zoom telling employees
they need to come back.
We have Google actually offering a, quote
unquote, "summer special" for employees,
basically 99 bucks a month.
You can stay at the on-campus hotel
and just have an easy breezy walk to work.
I'm not sure who'd want to do that.
But apparently, that might be cheaper
than having your own apartment.
JOSH SCHAFER: It's-- well, it gets back to what the tech
benefits eventually people started realizing that they
were over the last 15 years, right,
which is benefits to make it so you
can work more and don't have to leave the office.
Like, there's a reason companies like Google in the past
have done places like where they have people walk your dog,
where they feed you multiple meals, where they
give you all these benefits.
So then you can essentially work 12 hours a day
without having to leave, right?
I think there's a little bit of that being
the underlying pitch here.
But also, just we headed back, Pras,
to like, OK, so we stopped doing all the tech benefits, right?
A lot of those companies cut back
on a lot of different things that were
happening within the office.
And now we're just going back to get
people to come in the office.
It doesn't quite make sense to me, right?
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Well, paying 99 bucks
to stay at a company-owned hotel doesn't sound
like a good deal to me, right?
I mean, I understand it's also-- it's unapproved.
ALEXANDRA CANAL: Yeah. It's your own money.
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: So you got to pay for this.
And they're saying, oh, it's like, $3,000 a month,
give or take, and it's better than
like San Francisco real estate.
OK.
But is this supposed to incentivize me to come to work?
I don't know.
I mean, especially when you talk about the fact
that companies are making so much profit.
Google are making a lot of billions of dollars,
and they still say we still want people in the seats.
Why?
Am I missing something?
Why do we need to be in the seats
from a Google point of view if they're doing so well
profitability, productivity?
ALEXANDRA CANAL: No, that's thing that's a good question.
I do have friends that pay out of pocket for hotels.
My one friend lives in Philadelphia.
And he comes into New York twice a week.
He pays for one hotel overnight to go to the office two times
a week.
Now, as companies starting to say,
we need you here three to four times a week,
he's trying to figure out what his next step
is if he's going to buy the apartment in Manhattan.
JOSH SCHAFER: It becomes the employees problem, right?
ALEXANDRA CANAL: Totally, but I'm saying--
JOSH SCHAFER: If you started working
a job over the pandemic in a place you didn't live,
you created--
ALEXANDRA CANAL: He did get remote approval, though.
This is what's happening.
JOSH SCHAFER: But they were always
going to come back on it.
You can't trust companies when it comes to that kind of stuff.
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: It doesn't make sense, though.
I don't think it makes sence.
ALEXANDRA CANAL: If you can do the bulk of the week remote--
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Yeah.
ALEXANDRA CANAL: I do get it now.
In Zoom's case, it's interesting.
If you live--
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Zoom, Zoom is saying, come in.
Zoom?
JOSH SCHAFER: Zoom basically saying--
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: It makes no sense.
ALEXANDRA CANAL: They're only saying two days a week
and if you live within a 50-mile radius.
But you're right.
Now, that I'm thinking about it--
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: They are Zoom, like--
JOSH SCHAFER: Yeah. ALEXANDRA CANAL: I know.
It's not a good business--
JOSH SCHAFER: From like a PR perspective,
you would think you just shouldn't even offer that.
ALEXANDRA CANAL: Yeah. Or don't say it.
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: So I know someone works at Amex.
And they brought them back.
And it's because, hey, we are busineses expense charges,
cards, that people traveling.
We want you to be in the office buying lunch, doing thos stuff.
So I get that.
It's like the MO of the company, like why do we exist.
ALEXANDRA CANAL: Yeah. We want you to spend.
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Zoom should be like, none of you guys
come into the office.