by Peter A. Arthur-Smith

“Amazon.com told hundreds of thousands of workers to be back at their desks full-time or look for another job. One hitch: In many offices there weren’t enough desks to go around.” Katherine Bindley and Preetika Rana wrote in Wall Street Journal’s-Review article ‘Amazon’s Messy Return to The Office,’ February 2025.

That article was followed shortly thereafter by an announcement by JP Morgan Chase Chairman, Jamie Diamond, that all his staff would be required to return to their offices within the next two months. As it happens, not only did Chase have the same office space issues as Amazon, but many of its New York staff will face extra challenges by the city’s $9 congestion pricing. Their alternative is a less than stellar public transport system and its ever escalating passenger charges. No doubt Chase bank won’t be covering these increased fees!

This second announcement came as a surprise to me, as all indications until that time indicated that Diamond was a pretty savvy leader. Not that I’ve ever met him, although regular articles about him and his thinking reflected a different picture. Maybe many real estate interests are holding his feet to the fire – it’s more than possible as many are likely bank shareholders and also have their business accounts with Chase? Additionally, according to newspaper reports, he was getting pretty fed-up as being among the few who would show up at the bank’s Manhattan home office every work day. Furthermore, it’s probable that many of his numbers-oriented senior executives, who place Wall Street’s interests above those of their people, were also pressuring him to make the call. Is this a step backwards?

As those back to office announcements begin to shake out at Chase and Amazon, and as staff members refamiliarize themselves with their latest circumstances, it will be interesting to gauge the fall out. To what extent will commuter blues and chasing limited numbers of desks have an impact on daily morale? Will some of their most talented people pursue other opportunities? Once the initial possible “welcoming mat” wears off, will staff fall back into relatively average productivity routines? Will others be pushed out anyway as AI and virtual staff begins to take over to offset the usual administrative malaise?

At the end of the day, these two announcements, with other copycats likely to follow soon, are a clear signal that neither company has stellar leadership. With effective leadership, where people-motivation is paramount, there’s absolutely no reason to expect inferior performance from hybrid workers. Many major companies have had sales forces that worked productively from home for years. It’s likely that genuine people-leaders, rather than numbers-managers, have not found hybrid working a major issue at all.

Let’s for a moment begin to consider two of the key arguments by Andy Jassy at Amazon and Jamie Diamond at Chase Bank to have staff back in the office:

» It Encourages Intra-team/Staff Communication – In theory that’s clearly possible, although with the competitive, hierarchical and bureaucratic cultures fostered by both these firms, much of their re-installed staff will end up ignoring each other much of the time; especially after having become used to working from home. Staff will likely re-erect Chinese Walls – invisible communication barriers – and endure the psychological pain of working with others they dislike or have nothing in common with. Painful, bureaucratic forums will re-emerge where people find that they’re being “talked at” rather than “listened-to.”

» It Encourages Greater Innovation – Once the initial fresh-apple shine wears off, so many executives will unwittingly suppress innovation due to the five curses associated with conventional management – ever present bureaucracy kills innovation, so does, hierarchy, efficiency-think, negative-messaging, and different forms of corruption.

       Enlightened leaders, on the other hand, know how to encourage innovation through two-way communication (listening as well as directing) and team-play through non-hierarchical interaction. They also draw upon effectiveness-think (to spawn breakthroughs and fresh ideas) and positive-messaging (by focusing on what’s going right rather than wrong). Beyond that, they will foster integrity and trust with their teams. All five of these antidotes together – not four, or three, or two – will stimulate optimum innovation. With effective leadership, creativity can occur just as much through hybrid as through full-time office working. Top inventors, through their remote style “skunk works,” do it all the time.

These are two key arguments made by numbers-managers, as return-to-the-office instigators, weigh in…no doubt encouraged by their real estate industry masters! When it likely backfires, once the renewed novelty wears off, it will probably speed up momentum to institute AI everywhere with the intention of displacing many discouraged people that they lured back to the office. There will be no going back to our pre-pandemic world and its predominant five curses, but, with AI that has no human feelings, who cares?

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Reid Hoffman-Co-Founder LinkedIn: his contribution -01.10.25

Response to Bloomberg Article –AI Could Kill 200K Wall Street Jobs

As AI drives massive productivity gains, businesses may consider cutting back on their human workforce to boost efficiency—but I don’t believe that’s the right choice. The real promise of AI isn’t in replacing humans—it’s in amplifying their potential.

For centuries, humanity’s greatest leaps forward were not achieved by replacing humans completely with new tools we’ve built but instead by using the tools to accelerate human agency and potential. The automobile amplified human movement. The computer amplified human creation.  And today, AI is amplifying human intelligence.

There are certain jobs—especially those involving repetitive, robot-like tasks—that AI will transform. After all, robots will always be better robots than humans. But humans thrive when they’re empowered to be better humans. With AI, people will unlock new skills and deepen natural talents –– achieving what I call “superagency.”

Ultimately, the surge in productivity will guide business leaders to a realization: the right move isn’t to do the same work with fewer people but to create even greater value by leveraging more employees with new AI-driven superpowers.

Our goal should be clear. Build technology that works with us, not for us—tools that extend what it means to be human, not replace it. Because when we amplify human ingenuity, the possibilities are infinite.