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Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev is cracking down on the C-suite, ordering top executives back to the office five days a week. It’s a reversal from just three years ago, when Tenev declared the company fully remote. Other members of the “Magnificent Seven,” including Microsoft and Amazon, are also pressing employees to return—and keeping a close eye to ensure they’re not “coffee badging.”
The peaceful days of fielding emails from the couch are coming to an end—at least for executives at Robinhood.
The CEO of the $100 billion fintech company, Vlad Tenev, is bringing his C-suite back into the office five days a week. Managers will have to commute just four days, and individual contributors will report three days a week to the office.
While employees without direct reports have escaped stricter return-to-office measures, it could be a painful policy change for those in the corner office who’d prefer working from home. But that, Tenev says, is the whole point.
“If you’re an individual contributor and you’re doing work, it’s very nice to know that your manager is going through more pain than you,” Tenev said in an episode of the Cheeky Pint podcast published Wednesday.
This marks a shift in tone from Tenev, who in 2022 announced Robinhood would be a remote-first company. He admits, however, that’s a decision he regretted “pretty much immediately.”
“Everyone said it was a one-way door, but it turns out it’s a two-way door. You can reverse pretty much anything,” he said.
Despite being notably absent from the workplace themselves, bosses have spent the better part of three years cracking down on office attendance. In fact, 93% of CEOs say they don’t go into the office full-time and have instead adopted flexible working patterns. Namely, Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol joined the coffee chain last summer as a remote worker. He wasn’t required to move to Seattle at the time, and the company even said it would help him set up an office near his Newport Beach, Calif. home and just use the corporate jet to travel to headquarters. (Niccol has since moved to Seattle and reports to headquarters).
But that hasn’t stopped tech giants from tightening their RTO policies. Microsoft is reportedly planning a stricter RTO policy after letting most employees work remotely for as much as 50% of the time without approval. Other CEOs, like Amazon’s Andy Jassy, have emphasized the importance of in-person collaboration, arguing it’s essential for maintaining Amazon’s innovative culture.
“We’ve observed that it’s easier for our teammates to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture; collaborating, brainstorming, and inventing are simpler and more effective,” Jassy said in September 2024.