Don't want to be the cynical guy, but having talked to just such a ceo who gets-off by being hired to fire people. RTO is literally a badge, or at least an excuse to exercise authority. Often yes, to get rid of free loaders, but more specifically to shove it in the face of a lot of engineers that they are subservient. This guy actually would put it that they saw a gig as, and I'm recalling, a place to 'eat shit', until he moved on.
Quite a different perspective than what I'd think most devs here would see their field as, something they love.
There's also alot of pent-up indignation about how executives see engineering in general. They. Don't. Understand. It.
and so they marginalize it.
Its not at all surprising behavior , that of executives, from what you'd expect to come from a group more likely that most to be represented by those doing nothing more than winning a personality contest.
I think a lot of executives see engineers as uppity, well-paid factory workers, and absolutely hate that the gap between their own pay and engineering's pay is so small. In order to maintain their world view that they are better, higher-class people, they need to be making 10X-100X what their median worker makes and they need their median worker to be afraid for their jobs and subservient to them. Current software engineering comp. (and until recently, the ease of engineers to job hop) contradicts this world view. The last thing they want is to be seen as [ugh] PEERS to regular workers. That won't do at all. Workers need to be taken down a notch and shown their place on the totem pole.
