Comment by bartchamdo

Sadly, the biggest employer motivation is some have very long leases and don’t want to look stupid to the board for having signed up for useless office space with a decade still on their lease. Others are motivated by ego, being able to walk down isles watching their minions tools away. However, never meeting people IRL definitely reduces collaboration and performance on highly iterative and collaborative projects compared to everyone going and meeting IRL. Meeting at least quarterly for 3-4 days can make things work, but time in an office is better. Again, if you work on a team. If you are and IC, quarterly if probably fine or entirely remote might be fine too.