A lot of CEOs are itching to get workers back to the office, but tech CEOs who want that face an extra uphill battle: After all, theirs is the industry that made remote work possible.

Why it matters: The tech industry was built on "dogfooding" — the idea that companies should use the products they push on the public — and every effort by a tech leader to hound reluctant employees back to the office park seems to betray that ideal.

Driving the news: This week Apple, tech's most valuable company, began requiring its workers to report to the office at least three days a week.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has walked a careful line between acknowledging the appeal of remote work but praising in-person "serendipity" and "collaboration" and making clear that he and Apple would really like to see more of the troops at the company's $5 billion, beached-flying-saucer headquarters.

The big picture: Apple's stance is unusually uncompromising among tech's giants.

Between the lines: In tech, every fight boils down to numbers. But arguments over the relative levels of productivity workers can achieve remotely vs. in-office are tough to resolve with data.

Inevitably, managers who favor in-office work rely less on statistics and more on invocation of culture and creativity.

Also: COVID is still very much with us, frequently sending "back to the office" workers right home again.

Of note: Apple TV+ had a streaming hit this year with "Severance," which depicts a world of office workers profoundly alienated from themselves via a neural technology that ropes off their work experiences and memories from the rest of their lives.

Our thought bubble: Apple led the personal-computer revolution with an appealing pitch to personal empowerment. The company's reluctance to fully embrace remote work is not only likely to demoralize some of its employees — it feels surprisingly off-brand.