I've worked remotely for nearly 20 years in various configurations (all team remote, team collocated and I was the lead and remote, some local and some remote,

I've worked remotely for nearly 20 years in various configurations (all team remote, team collocated and I was the lead and remote, some local and some remote, as lead and as a team member) and this is spot on. My current situation is one where it's actually harder to be remote than it was when we all worked for a giant company that was openly hostile to teleworkers (If you're not in the office everyday, you're part of the problem). Even though I'm in a smaller company and an environment that brags about its startup culture and flexibility. In my current iteration, information does not flow naturally, but rather 1:1 and in-person along restricted paths, making it much harder to work remotely. So to build up a picture of what's going on, I connect with several other teleworkers and we try to compare notes on "what have you heard about X" and "who's working on y." If the whole team is remote or acts like it (open communications, info flowing visibly, etc.) then remote working, remote bonding, remote team-building is natural and easy. I know; I've done it for years, building high-performance teams that see each other once or twice a year. If you're the outlier and most everyone else is local, it takes a lot more effort, and even then can be very, very hard. Some places are just easier to work for than others.