I love remote work—some of the time. I also love offices—some of the time. I fear that in ditching offices completely, we might lose out on some society-level b

I love remote work—some of the time. I also love offices—some of the time. I fear that in ditching offices completely, we might lose out on some society-level benefits, like knowledge spillovers. Specifically, remote-work (to me) makes it more difficult to learn from others, to hear about what else is happening in the organization, to discuss interesting new ideas that could potentially be spun into new products or companies. A team can also more easily and quickly learn to collaborate while in-person. This doesn't even touch on all the economic spillovers of having people in the same area, such as restaurants and other services catering to the concentration of office workers (as mentioned by the author), but also things like specialized lawyers, financiers, and other professional services that concentrate around Silicon Valley and other agglomerative clusters. Ultimately, I hope we can come to a compromise, something like 50/50 remote/office, with smaller offices that cater more towards the explicitly social functions of the organization.