This is the crucial question. Colocated employees clearly cost more in the form of office space. They can also command higher salaries than similarly-skilled r

This is the crucial question. Colocated employees clearly cost more in the form of office space. They can also command higher salaries than similarly-skilled remote workers because they constitute a significantly smaller labor pool. Despite the counter-arguments in the article I do find it plausible colocated employees (ed: or maybe organizations) may be, on average, more productive. But because there are so many confounding variables I think it'll take many years of evidence before we can empirically answer the question of whether the increase in productivity generally exceeds the costs of being in-person. (For the record my guess is that it will be dependent on the industry and role. I think winner-take-all markets and roles like R&D and startup founders may be worth the added in-person tax, and everyone else will eventually be remote.)