I don't believe that any CEO/CFO with half a brain actually thought this. Sure, things wouldn't return to pre-pandemic levels necessarily, but the COVID-induced state was not going to permanently change human behavior.
> ROI on devs was good compared to low inflation and low interest rates. Then both of those things changed
this is more the reason; the "mea culpa, how could we have known" excuses is just to cover a regression to the mean they knew was eventually going to happen.
For CEOs that thought this would be permanent see Shopify and Amazon. Both have said this publicly and Amazon spent billions on transportation infra. They are not stupid.
Amazon is a different case altogether (see my other post about them) as they deal in physical goods; that transportation infrastructure allows them to capture greater market share even if online sales drop.
I don't believe that any CEO/CFO with half a brain actually thought this. Sure, things wouldn't return to pre-pandemic levels necessarily, but the COVID-induced state was not going to permanently change human behavior.
> ROI on devs was good compared to low inflation and low interest rates. Then both of those things changed
this is more the reason; the "mea culpa, how could we have known" excuses is just to cover a regression to the mean they knew was eventually going to happen.