MicrosoftWhen you actually attend something like Build everyone knows that you're busy doing something important. Your manager knows that they spent a significant amount of money sending you someplace and that expecting you to do standups, pull requests, and all "just a quick meeting about ..." is wasting that money. But if you're "just watching videos" they don't have any trouble with expecting you to stay on a normal schedule and be available instantly. You can watch videos on your time, after your 10-hour day.
Also you get a better feel for how your peers are reacting to the latest announcements, what's pure marketing versus what might have a real impact on your work. Videos come across as pure marketing unless they're heavily into coding and demos, in which case the video makes it possible to pause and rewind to understand the details, so being able to go in person and watch the recordings is the best of both worlds.
And swag is always good. After two years of Covid isolation I'm running out of stickers.
