its not like an 'Ian' was a major contributor, after all 'what AI at Apple - lol.
It doesn't seem like Apple has much software that uses AI. They have dedicated silicon for the neural engine but the main use is for things like tagging images. Some apps have started using it with CoreML like Pixelmator.
This guy is credited as being one of the inventors of adversarial networks:
Everybody is replaceable to an extent but some people are harder to replace. Jony Ive's day-to-day role for example has been replaced at Apple but it's a better outcome that they are still involved on some level.
Hybrid working is a good enough compromise for most jobs. For high-level software/research jobs, fully remote should probably be an option too. He might have been offered fully remote while his team wasn't.
The problem is, it can't be applied universally because a lot of people will do hardly any work. There are people on reddit posting that they work remote with no manager and are just watching movies all day.
Maybe Apple showing some productivity measurements to the people complaining would clear up the complaints. For some people productivity is unaffected, for others it drops significantly. Apple has 150,000 employees, over half in retail that can't be remote and similarly a significant amount in hardware. They can't build and test iPhone camera hardware, battery tech, display quality etc at home. Software and possibly marketing can be done remote and it's probably an even split between who likes office or remote. Remote work appeals more to introverts like software developers but it's actually beneficial for them to counteract that, especially for new hires.
It'll take some time to figure things out, I don't think it's good for employees or managers to make rushed decisions about the best way forward. Maybe some new tech like AR glasses can make remote work more integrated with people in the office and would work for the likes of Jony Ive being at some design meetings virtually.
Another option is to have more ad-hoc satellite offices where people can arrange regular meetups that don't need long commutes and only do long commutes to HQ less frequently.
There seems to be a generational element to this too, this guy is 35-36 years old. A few comments online talk about 'back to the office' being a boomer preference. Millennial and lower are the screen generation who grew up with a screen everywhere and interact more with a screen than with people. Tim Cook has mentioned that he is quite introverted too but likes interacting with people. They can see how damaging screen life is and are trying to get people out of the habit. This is why they don't like VR as it closes people off from others.
If the commute is part of the problem, the suggestion about trying to house people nearby would help but it's not really feasible to house 50,000 people. There can be overnight cabins though. For people without families, that would be ok and they could probably fit a few hundred at Apple Park. Some could live there permanently and save $40k/year on rent.
The best way forward can't be a one-size-fits-all as people have different circumstances and preferences so they need to talk about what's going to work. One part of what makes working from home good is that it's usually the most comfortable space for people - personal bathroom, easy access to all the food they like, soft furnishings, peace and quiet. Offices can be improved by making them feel more like working from home, offices are still designed like sterile, easy to clean showrooms and they are pretty depressing places to be for 8 hours or more every day.
Excellent post. If people complaining about the return to work policies were open and honest about exactly why they want to work from home there is a much greater chance the two sides could work towards addressing specific ways to close the gaps, even if it involves compromises. Arguing about it at philosophical or cultural levels usually gets neither side closer to a compromise, and often leads the one in power exerting executive control and making take-it-or-leave-it demands.
I can address one specific thing about software. While I agree that software people tend to be more introverted and love having their own little coding cocoons, which are usually dark and run counter to the bright and cheerful open office aesthetic, there have also been a lot of changes in HOW software is developed at the team level that allows for remote participation.
Specifically, software development and progress toward the product goals are now much more aligned around hitting fine-grained incremental deliverables that have very short delivery time frames (i.e., sprints). Progress, status, and whether the project is hitting its goals is based on demonstrating the incremental and cumulative functionality of these deliverables to the whole team and product owner every week or two.
The effort that goes into meeting the deliverable requirements should not matter, the only thing that matters is delivering the required result on time, which is incremental and known to contribute towards the completion of the project.
From a software development perspective, at some level, I really don’t care if a developer is sitting at home playing with her gerbil 7 hours a day as long as she is hitting all of her deliverables to the team. Progress matters. Effort, not so much.
However, the software team leader (and team as a whole) is still responsible for understanding the productivity and capacity of the team, especially during planning sessions, so if there is significant sandbagging going on, it will be readily apparent when comparing the delivery rates between teams.
There’s still a need for people managers/coaches who truly understand their teams and the individual team members and to address issues, but these teams tend to become much more self regulating when everyone is actively engaged in the process and honest about their own ability and capacity to deliver. If you’re the slacker on your team, your teammates will let you know about it before the boss does.
If working from home becomes a permanent fixture for more workers we really need to make sure the processes and methods for how the work is done is a good match for the new work environment. Perhaps some of the modern software development models provide some clues?
A few days a week actually at the building is a deal breaker? Culling the workforce of the losers.
I'm seeing the same thing in my company. We call them the "trophy employees." Through high school, they were rarely rank ordered and 'everyone' got a participation trophy. Then to college, in some cases, nothing more rigorous than Pass/Fail classes.
So then they show up on our doorstep expecting to work 6-1/2 hour days, never being asked to work overtime or weekends to complete time-sensitive tasks, and horrified that their supervisors might actually criticize their work even after we've spent three to six months training them to do things the older generations learned in college and came prepared to immediately integrate into the workforce.
And you're right, JFC, we are culling 'em out during their early probationary period.
What would be interesting to hear would be Apple’s detailed rationale for their decision. I’m sure it will disappoint since I’ve been disappointed by all decision makers during this pandemic. Not that their decisions were wrong, though some certainly were, but there seemingly was a lack full coherent discussion regarding the decisions.
I would expect Apple to be no different. First, they really don’t have coherent guidance from the CDC or from state health officials, or WHO, or similar agencies in other countries. Collectively, there were many good guidances and some poorer ones which should have made it into the mix balancing risks. It’s all about making decisions in the presence of uncertainty.
One thing I feel certain about is Cook is not giving the orders. It’s something like “we need to bring people back into the office. Tell HR to put a plan into place.”
No one knows what they’re doing — it’s all seat-of-the-pants — if you have an opinion and the authority, exercise it,
I do know some important factors. First the omicron mutation taking over is B.2.12.1. It’s not more infectious, it’s simply able to evade our immune systems better, making the vaccines and prior infections less effective. While it’s far less likely to cause serious illness than previous mutations, now may be the time to help it spread a little by bringing people to the office. But, it’s not a return to normal.
While the pace at which Apple is returning to work seems too fast given the uptick in covid*, Goodfellow certainly had another job offer that he liked better and where he negotiated for more WFH. Any company trying to recruit top talent can use WFH as an enticement. For anyone who cares heavily about their work and legacy, though, the decision will almost always come down to the nature of the work itself.
*I believe Apple will soon need to respond more fluidly/pragmatically to the rise in covid. In just a few days perhaps, Goodfellow's WFH rationale may be moot.
COVID is here to stay. Fortunately it’s not March 2020, and there are things people can do, such as get vaccinated and wear a mask. Unless he is immunocompromised, the logic falls flat.
its not like an 'Ian' was a major contributor, after all 'what AI at Apple - lol.
It doesn't seem like Apple has much software that uses AI.
Seriously? Not sure how you can write that with a straight face, as almost every aspect of the iPhone is impacted by AI and Machine Learning routines. Touch ID, Face ID, the camera system uses it in dozens of ways, palm rejection on the screen, on device NLP for Siri and dictation, predictive text, photo search and tagging, Siri and recommended app suggestions...
Get over yourself, dude. We’ve all been working in the office at least 5 days a week for 200 years. Now all of a sudden, 3 days in/2 out you can’t handle? Loser. I’d fire his ass and find someone who actually wanted to work. This is a huge problem with America today. Lazy ass people want to get paid to sit at home.
What a great time for apple to turn this into a win for itself, it’s employees and the general workforce. Apple should say, “hey, losing all these good employees bcoz we can’t budge on our RTW Policy isn’t worth it, so maybe we can compromise…”
seems to me perhaps apple (and business in general) doesn’t trust their employees integrity much. Maybe it’s time to let go of that extremely outdated work ethic. I think we’re seeing the American workforce has had a taste of what a real “work/life balance,” actually looks like and they really like it. Good for company moral and good for employee production and ultimately good for the company.
Or better yet promote one of his Lieutenants to his position with a healthy bonus and swiftly move them into his office. Have someone box his stuff for pickup the same day of his letter, lockout and check his accounts for unusual downloads and data access over the previous few months.
Dude sounds like he was a spy anyway.
Who cares? He'll be much happier outside of Apple. Apple's loss, not his.
A few days a week actually at the building is a deal breaker? Culling the workforce of the losers.
I'm seeing the same thing in my company. We call them the "trophy employees." Through high school, they were rarely rank ordered and 'everyone' got a participation trophy. Then to college, in some cases, nothing more rigorous than Pass/Fail classes.
So then they show up on our doorstep expecting to work 6-1/2 hour days, never being asked to work overtime or weekends to complete time-sensitive tasks, and horrified that their supervisors might actually criticize their work even after we've spent three to six months training them to do things the older generations learned in college and came prepared to immediately integrate into the workforce.
And you're right, JFC, we are culling 'em out during their early probationary period.
While I agree with your sentiment, I have never seen a (fresh) college graduate who was "prepared to immediately" do anything. Companies have their own methodologies and processes which generally require a multi-month integration time before there is sufficient productivity to offset the employees cost to the company. Funny enough, but that integration time is frequently in the six month range.
Get over yourself, dude. We’ve all been working in the office at least 5 days a week for 200 years. Now all of a sudden, 3 days in/2 out you can’t handle? Loser. I’d fire his ass and find someone who actually wanted to work. This is a huge problem with America today. Lazy ass people want to get paid to sit at home.
China isn’t taking a siesta, what the F…..I knew it was bad but not this bad.
Record profits across the spectrum of American business (incl. Apple) during Covid.
Work From Home Works!
Software/Hardware combo is bringing home the bacon, along with TSMC, Foxconn/China, and the Apple pipeline….I doubt most of them are a taking time off at home.
My guess is that much of this guy's disgruntlement comes from his particular rank in the management chain.
He's a director. It is well accepted in Silicon Valley that this rank (particularly in large organizations) contributes the least. He's not an individual contributor as he was when he was an engineer. Even first-level engineering managers need to roll up their sleeves sometimes even though their primary job is to manage engineers. In fact, when you leave an engineering position (individual contributor) to manage it is said that your engineering career is over because your primary responsibility isn't engineering: it's managing.
Directors manage other managers but not the line level employees fighting in the trenches. Yet they don't have enough authority to make decisions on their own. In a large organization like Apple, that really happens at the SVP level. Apple probably has hundreds of people at the VP level and most of them don't have the broad authority to make major decisions on their own. Worse, Apple has an EVP level above SVP. The operative adjective/word is Executive. It's really at the EVP level where a person has authority to make mission critical decisions and execute for a large organization.
This guy is a middle manager, passing status reports up and orders down.
I've seen people like this regret their jump to management. There are fewer VP positions than Director positions. There are more entry-level manager positions than Director positions. There are very few who make it up through the ranks to a senior management position in the way that not every aspiring ballet dancer will end up being prima ballerina at the Bolshoi or American Ballet Theater.
The big tell will be his next position. He's around that age where he has to figure out whether he has what it takes to be a senior manager at a Fortune 100 corporation.
For those of us who never had, or never will have, the chance to work from home, and who went to work ever single day throughout the pandemic, these kids whining about going to an office three whole days a week is stomach turning. Good riddance. The next place they apply at should take note of the lack of fortitude and work ethic displayed. “So, you quit a great job because you didn’t want to come to work.? Got it. NEXT!”
My guess is that much of this guy's disgruntlement comes from his particular rank in the management chain.
He's a director. It is well accepted in Silicon Valley that this rank (particularly in large organizations) contributes the least. He's not an individual contributor as he was when he was an engineer. Even first-level engineering managers need to roll up their sleeves sometimes even though their primary job is to manage engineers. In fact, when you leave an engineering position (individual contributor) to manage it is said that your engineering career is over because your primary responsibility isn't engineering: it's managing.
Directors manage other managers but not the line level employees fighting in the trenches. Yet they don't have enough authority to make decisions on their own. In a large organization like Apple, that really happens at the SVP level. Apple probably has hundreds of people at the VP level and most of them don't have the broad authority to make major decisions on their own. Worse, Apple has an EVP level above SVP. The operative adjective/word is Executive. It's really at the EVP level where a person has authority to make mission critical decisions and execute for a large organization.
This guy is a middle manager, passing status reports up and orders down.
I've seen people like this regret their jump to management. There are fewer VP positions than Director positions. There are more entry-level manager positions than Director positions. There are very few who make it up through the ranks to a senior management position in the way that not every aspiring ballet dancer will end up being prima ballerina at the Bolshoi or American Ballet Theater.
The big tell will be his next position. He's around that age where he has to figure out whether he has what it takes to be a senior manager at a Fortune 100 corporation.
Spot on. Directors are typically purely execution focused and are by-default the designated scapegoats to take the blame when the engineering teams they are supposed to be driving don’t deliver as senior management expects. I’ve seen two directors in a row, both of whom had stellar engineering credentials that culminated in them being recognized across the industry for their innovative approaches to engineering and architecture take on the engineering director role - only to be ground up and fired in less than 2 years.
It wasn’t anything personal, it was simply that they didn’t recognize what they were being graded on. They both tried to keep expanding on their prior areas of technical and architectural influence and got too involved in technical decisions and approaches rather than cracking the whip and making sure the delivery commitments from their teams were hitting the dates. Their immediate predecessor also came from a senior technical role but understood the director’s role, kept the deliverables on-track, and was promoted to VP in the same time frame. It does seem a bit harsh that missteps at that level have zero tolerance, but I suppose it’s because the ones who are giving them the boot are those same VPs who made the cut as directors and want to be seen as viable SVP candidates.
Get over yourself, dude. We’ve all been working in the office at least 5 days a week for 200 years. Now all of a sudden, 3 days in/2 out you can’t handle? Loser. I’d fire his ass and find someone who actually wanted to work. This is a huge problem with America today. Lazy ass people want to get paid to sit at home.
How is working 40 hrs from home lazy but working from an office doing the exact same job for 40 hrs not? Seems you have an issue with people working from home and may need to get over yourself because of that issue? Sheesh... These aren't warehouse employees or dishwashers where you just toss them and grab someone that "Wants to work" as you put it.
I have been working from home 45-50hrs a week since March 2020. My team and I have hit our #'s every month without a hitch since we have been fully WFH. I am also not a kid who expects to be paid for sitting at home and not working... Which seems to be the idea that you have with people who are wanting to continue to WFH. I would imagine a large # of folks wanting to stay home fall in the same category as me and aren't looking to be lazy and do less work by staying home.
Get over yourself, dude. We’ve all been working in the office at least 5 days a week for 200 years. Now all of a sudden, 3 days in/2 out you can’t handle? Loser. I’d fire his ass and find someone who actually wanted to work. This is a huge problem with America today. Lazy ass people want to get paid to sit at home.
How is working 40 hrs from home lazy but working from an office doing the exact same job for 40 hrs not? Seems you have an issue with people working from home and may need to get over yourself because of that issue? Sheesh... These aren't warehouse employees or dishwashers where you just toss them and grab someone that "Wants to work" as you put it.
I have been working from home 45-50hrs a week since March 2020. My team and I have hit our #'s every month without a hitch since we have been fully WFH. I am also not a kid who expects to be paid for sitting at home and not working... Which seems to be the idea that you have with people who are wanting to continue to WFH. I would imagine a large # of folks wanting to stay home fall in the same category as me and aren't looking to be lazy and do less work by staying home.
I find the responses in this thread far more amusing than anything the story has to offer.
That said, I'd like to respond to a few points.
1. Those who suggest this isn't a loss for Apple are wrong. Full stop. It's not a big deal in the scheme of things and Apple will find others to do the work. However, if you're well known in the industry and even have a wikipedia page based on your accomplishments, you probably have something valuable to offer. The point being, taking a hard nosed approach to such working arrangements will result in a loss of very talented people that have choices to work elsewhere. What you end up with are less talented people who have fewer employment choices that accept such terms.
2. This is a complex problem. All jobs are not the same. Apple is trying to push a "1 size fits all" solution to something that really needs to be addressed at a department level, not a company-wide level. The job of any manager is to get the maximum work done by your team. If that is effectively accomplished from home and makes for happier employees, then that's the model companies should adopt.
3. A hybrid solution seems to work the best. Let's face it, life, especially work life, is not the same after COVID. Unless you're working in retail, you've had a taste of working from home. For most people in most jobs, that's preferable. OTOH, there is value in face to face meetings and collaborations. A hybrid solution really satisfies both. I'm going in once per week now. That's a nice balance. Our workgroup all agrees to be in on the same day and we schedule meetings for that purpose on that day.
4. WFH doesn't imply a work-life imbalance as some suggest. I occasionally get an e-mail later in the evening. I feel no obligation to answer it just because someone sent it after hours. If that's what works for them, great. As long as people are responsive during core business hours, that's all that should be required or expected. Similarly, if I choose to send an e-mail after hours, I don't expect anyone to respond to it until the next day.
Absolute insanity. Apple needs to wake up to the new reality that if a job can be done from home, it should be done from home.
And employees are no longer going to put up with corporations dictating horrible working conditions. They can and will leave for better jobs.
Sure, the spaceship is pretty from the outside. But it's a giant open-plan nightmare that's in no way conducive to actually getting any technical work done. Open plan offices are designed for schmoozing, not working. Meanwhile, my home office is a couple desks with a LOT of monitors and computers, and with a comfy spot to work while lying down if I want, and best of all a door to close out distractions. And my commute is about 20 feet. If I need to touch something, sure, I'll go to a client's site. But that's becoming less and less common.
Apple senior management (including Steve) were clearly very deliberate about acquiring the real estate for Apple Park and pouring in all that time and money into building it for a reason: they believe that in-person collaboration yields better results. Same with the open-plan layout.
Here's a recently published study about how video conferencing inhibits creativity:
This is not a tiny sample size. The same results were obtain both from corporate employees as well as university students.
My guess is that there are other studies out there, probably dating back years on the subject. After all video conferencing wasn't invented because of the pandemic, it has been around for 15+ years. Cisco acquired WebEx in 2007; corporate types have been using this technology for a looong time.
There have also been plenty of studies over the years about effective workgroups and the makeup of the most productive groups. Remember that these C-suite management types read these type of productivity books all the time.
Despite what some people here might think Tim, Jeff, Luca, Eddy, Craig, Johny and others did not write down a bunch of office decorating ideas on slips of paper, toss them in beer stein and picked out a few at random during happy hour at BJs.
Nor is Apple the first company to ask its employees to come back into the office. Much of corporate America in other major cities (Chicago, NYC, Boston, etc.) started this process weeks/months before slow-moving Santa Clara County. And Europe is farther along in their office return versus the USA.
Apple's same caution is reflected in the number of retail location shutdowns Apple enforced during the infection peaks.
Get over yourself, dude. We’ve all been working in the office at least 5 days a week for 200 years. Now all of a sudden, 3 days in/2 out you can’t handle? Loser. I’d fire his ass and find someone who actually wanted to work. This is a huge problem with America today. Lazy ass people want to get paid to sit at home.
How is working 40 hrs from home lazy but working from an office doing the exact same job for 40 hrs not? Seems you have an issue with people working from home and may need to get over yourself because of that issue? Sheesh... These aren't warehouse employees or dishwashers where you just toss them and grab someone that "Wants to work" as you put it.
I have been working from home 45-50hrs a week since March 2020. My team and I have hit our #'s every month without a hitch since we have been fully WFH. I am also not a kid who expects to be paid for sitting at home and not working... Which seems to be the idea that you have with people who are wanting to continue to WFH. I would imagine a large # of folks wanting to stay home fall in the same category as me and aren't looking to be lazy and do less work by staying home.
Imagination... it's a wonderful thing!
My imagination? I am not sure I follow your response?
Comments
I can address one specific thing about software. While I agree that software people tend to be more introverted and love having their own little coding cocoons, which are usually dark and run counter to the bright and cheerful open office aesthetic, there have also been a lot of changes in HOW software is developed at the team level that allows for remote participation.
From a software development perspective, at some level, I really don’t care if a developer is sitting at home playing with her gerbil 7 hours a day as long as she is hitting all of her deliverables to the team. Progress matters. Effort, not so much.
If working from home becomes a permanent fixture for more workers we really need to make sure the processes and methods for how the work is done is a good match for the new work environment. Perhaps some of the modern software development models provide some clues?
So then they show up on our doorstep expecting to work 6-1/2 hour days, never being asked to work overtime or weekends to complete time-sensitive tasks, and horrified that their supervisors might actually criticize their work even after we've spent three to six months training them to do things the older generations learned in college and came prepared to immediately integrate into the workforce.
And you're right, JFC, we are culling 'em out during their early probationary period.
One thing I feel certain about is Cook is not giving the orders. It’s something like “we need to bring people back into the office. Tell HR to put a plan into place.”
No one knows what they’re doing — it’s all seat-of-the-pants — if you have an opinion and the authority, exercise it,
I do know some important factors. First the omicron mutation taking over is B.2.12.1. It’s not more infectious, it’s simply able to evade our immune systems better, making the vaccines and prior infections less effective. While it’s far less likely to cause serious illness than previous mutations, now may be the time to help it spread a little by bringing people to the office. But, it’s not a return to normal.
It's everywhere.
Work From Home Works!
China isn’t taking a siesta, what the F…..I knew it was bad but not this bad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhXgVBbEHQg
He's a director. It is well accepted in Silicon Valley that this rank (particularly in large organizations) contributes the least. He's not an individual contributor as he was when he was an engineer. Even first-level engineering managers need to roll up their sleeves sometimes even though their primary job is to manage engineers. In fact, when you leave an engineering position (individual contributor) to manage it is said that your engineering career is over because your primary responsibility isn't engineering: it's managing.
Directors manage other managers but not the line level employees fighting in the trenches. Yet they don't have enough authority to make decisions on their own. In a large organization like Apple, that really happens at the SVP level. Apple probably has hundreds of people at the VP level and most of them don't have the broad authority to make major decisions on their own. Worse, Apple has an EVP level above SVP. The operative adjective/word is Executive. It's really at the EVP level where a person has authority to make mission critical decisions and execute for a large organization.
This guy is a middle manager, passing status reports up and orders down.
I've seen people like this regret their jump to management. There are fewer VP positions than Director positions. There are more entry-level manager positions than Director positions. There are very few who make it up through the ranks to a senior management position in the way that not every aspiring ballet dancer will end up being prima ballerina at the Bolshoi or American Ballet Theater.
The big tell will be his next position. He's around that age where he has to figure out whether he has what it takes to be a senior manager at a Fortune 100 corporation.
“So, you quit a great job because you didn’t want to come to work.? Got it. NEXT!”
It wasn’t anything personal, it was simply that they didn’t recognize what they were being graded on. They both tried to keep expanding on their prior areas of technical and architectural influence and got too involved in technical decisions and approaches rather than cracking the whip and making sure the delivery commitments from their teams were hitting the dates. Their immediate predecessor also came from a senior technical role but understood the director’s role, kept the deliverables on-track, and was promoted to VP in the same time frame. It does seem a bit harsh that missteps at that level have zero tolerance, but I suppose it’s because the ones who are giving them the boot are those same VPs who made the cut as directors and want to be seen as viable SVP candidates.
That said, I'd like to respond to a few points.
1. Those who suggest this isn't a loss for Apple are wrong. Full stop. It's not a big deal in the scheme of things and Apple will find others to do the work. However, if you're well known in the industry and even have a wikipedia page based on your accomplishments, you probably have something valuable to offer. The point being, taking a hard nosed approach to such working arrangements will result in a loss of very talented people that have choices to work elsewhere. What you end up with are less talented people who have fewer employment choices that accept such terms.
2. This is a complex problem. All jobs are not the same. Apple is trying to push a "1 size fits all" solution to something that really needs to be addressed at a department level, not a company-wide level. The job of any manager is to get the maximum work done by your team. If that is effectively accomplished from home and makes for happier employees, then that's the model companies should adopt.
3. A hybrid solution seems to work the best. Let's face it, life, especially work life, is not the same after COVID. Unless you're working in retail, you've had a taste of working from home. For most people in most jobs, that's preferable. OTOH, there is value in face to face meetings and collaborations. A hybrid solution really satisfies both. I'm going in once per week now. That's a nice balance. Our workgroup all agrees to be in on the same day and we schedule meetings for that purpose on that day.
4. WFH doesn't imply a work-life imbalance as some suggest. I occasionally get an e-mail later in the evening. I feel no obligation to answer it just because someone sent it after hours. If that's what works for them, great. As long as people are responsive during core business hours, that's all that should be required or expected. Similarly, if I choose to send an e-mail after hours, I don't expect anyone to respond to it until the next day.
Here's a recently published study about how video conferencing inhibits creativity:
https://www.barrons.com/news/videoconferencing-hinders-creativity-study-finds-01651071907
This is not a tiny sample size. The same results were obtain both from corporate employees as well as university students.
My guess is that there are other studies out there, probably dating back years on the subject. After all video conferencing wasn't invented because of the pandemic, it has been around for 15+ years. Cisco acquired WebEx in 2007; corporate types have been using this technology for a looong time.
There have also been plenty of studies over the years about effective workgroups and the makeup of the most productive groups. Remember that these C-suite management types read these type of productivity books all the time.
Despite what some people here might think Tim, Jeff, Luca, Eddy, Craig, Johny and others did not write down a bunch of office decorating ideas on slips of paper, toss them in beer stein and picked out a few at random during happy hour at BJs.
Nor is Apple the first company to ask its employees to come back into the office. Much of corporate America in other major cities (Chicago, NYC, Boston, etc.) started this process weeks/months before slow-moving Santa Clara County. And Europe is farther along in their office return versus the USA.
Apple's same caution is reflected in the number of retail location shutdowns Apple enforced during the infection peaks.