Sacks @ 00:45:44Right
In the post‑COVID period (starting roughly 2021 onward), office usage patterns will shift in a lasting way: many companies will treat offices more like co‑working hubs where employees come in around three days per week and work from home the remaining days, establishing permanent flexibility rather than a full, permanent work‑from‑home model.
I think offices will become a little bit more like co-working spaces for a single company, where people come in three days a week and work from home a couple days a week. I think there'll be a permanent flexibility, but but I also think that people want to get back to work and they want back to offices and they want to interact with people. And I think everyone's going to be excited to do that again. It's not like everyone's just going to be working from home forever.View on YouTube
Explanation
Assessment Available data on post‑COVID work patterns through 2024–2025 matches the core of Sacks’ prediction for office workers:
- Hybrid as the dominant model for remote‑capable jobs. Gallup and related analyses find that, among employees whose jobs can be done remotely, roughly half work hybrid and around a quarter to a third are fully remote, with the remaining minority fully on‑site. This is a complete reversal of 2019 patterns and has stabilized rather than reverting to pre‑COVID norms.【0search3】【0search9】
- Typical cadence ~2–3 days in the office. Gallup reports hybrid workers now average about 2.6 days per week on‑site, with the biggest growth in workers coming in three days per week. Most hybrid employees cluster at two to three office days, not one extreme or the other, aligning closely with “come in three days a week and work from home a couple days a week.”【0search4】【0news17】
- Offices functioning more like hubs than full‑time desks. Badge‑swipe and occupancy data show U.S. office use has plateaued well below 2019 levels (national occupancy around the 50% range; San Francisco ~45%), indicating offices are no longer filled five days a week but used more as periodic collaboration hubs.【0search2】【0news14】
- Flexibility is now structurally embedded. Surveys of employers and job postings show that hybrid/remote options are widely offered and persist across years: by 2025, about a quarter of new U.S. job ads are hybrid and ~12% fully remote, while fully in‑office postings have dropped significantly compared with early 2023. Employers and researchers describe hybrid as the “new normal,” with executives expecting even more hybrid/remote by 2028, not a return to 2019.【0search1】【0search7】【0search9】
- Not “everyone working from home forever.” Across the entire U.S. workforce (including non‑office jobs), early‑2025 data show roughly 61% fully on‑site, 26% hybrid, 13% fully remote. Even for remote‑capable roles, fully remote workers remain a minority. This supports Sacks’ point that the outcome would not be universal permanent work‑from‑home.【0search0】【0search2】
There are countertrends—some employers and especially the federal government have pushed back toward more in‑office mandates—but nationally, hybrid remains the prevailing pattern for remote‑capable office work, with 2–3 in‑office days and durable flexibility.【0search5】【0news12】
Conclusion The central components of Sacks’ prediction—lasting, structural hybrid work with ~three office days per week, offices used more like co‑working hubs, and no universal permanent WFH regime—are well supported by post‑2021 data. On balance, the prediction is right.