Obviously the office is a part of the culture, and most employees want to be in the office at least some of the time. But to me, that doesn't explain why you can't offer a remote option for the employees who want it.

A charitable explanation might be what we've heard from execs: we don't want to rush to go remote, we'd like to dip our toes in and slowly explore broader options. Thus the hybrid 3/2 model. A less charitable explanation might be that Google has spent a lot of money on real estate. Or simply that leadership is out of touch and can't relate to the reasons why employees might want to be remote. I imagine it's a mix of both types of explanations.