Am I misremembering or isn’t this the jerk who also forced the previous company he was CEO of to move to near the same location?

Edit: I am remembering correctly.

Like it's not like seattle isn't a lovely city

"Starbucks has said Niccol purchased a home in Seattle after starting in September. "

I'm not sure he understands how houses work.

at least he exposed to higher amounts cosmic radiation high up in the atmosphere by constantly doing this.

I've met quite a few aspiring managers for whom the goal of life is to have other people working for they and bringing in the money while they do as little work as possible. I once partnered with a guy on a small business, only to find out he was like this. He kept talking about how his goal was to hire the most junior developers and pay them as little as possible while he only worked 1 hour per week and got to spend time with his family. I'd argue with him that this was exploitation but he called it "working smart". Then he swindled me out of $20,000, which I guess was also "working smart", and we parted ways, leaving him richer and me poorer. Lots of people seem to have the weird idea that morals don't apply to business.

I'm watching The Walking Dead right now and it's largely about how living under constant threat and competition causes people to become brutal to one another, and some go completely off the rails and become exploitative and cruel, while others hold on to some kind of ethics even after they are forced to do brutal things. Capitalism does something similar to people. Some resist exploiting others, but many have such weak ethics that their instinct for self-preservation and self-advancement crushes the good out of them.

It's not that it's not allowed but it's not required. Labor market is very unequal in information on one hand, where it's much harder for individuals to know what is their value for the business and how are they doing versus the peers. Then there is strong arming through credit obligations and work + commute time that effectively makes it very prohibitive for people to object.

And so since you can exploit the people, most businesses will. That's a very easy way to improve your business results.

Which makes sense because home offices aren’t a tax deduction anymore, but a small remote office is a business expense.

CEOs are there to be the lighting rod of our anger. We focus on them and blame them. They get a big fat paycheck or bonus for implementing majorly unpopular policies, because the board that appointed them wants to extract more money out the company.

Yes. Can't spend the five minutes in traffic with us plebs.

A jet. He was flying a jet into work.

Because then they’ll be called a hypocrite for forcing RTO on employees. By having an office built outside his house, he can say he still goes to the office to work.

Because one of the best parts about being a CEO is seeing your underlings and knowing you are better then them. Not as satisfying over a zoom meeting.