We’ve started using gathertown where I work and it gives you a bit of the best of both worlds (minus the nice in person social lunch type of thing). We’re fully

We’ve started using gathertown where I work and it gives you a bit of the best of both worlds (minus the nice in person social lunch type of thing). We’re fully distributed/remote. With gathertown or something like it I think you can get close to in office collaborative productivity, but without it I don’t think you do on net. In person people more naturally collaborate and discuss problems, cycle times are faster (IME). Remote could be great if people were good at pushing async comms and were easily available during working hours, but that’s rarely the case imo. People seem more reticent to jump into a call when remote than to talk in person (among peers). I predict remote companies to be less competitive on net. It’s possible the hiring advantages could overcome that, but I’m skeptical.