I have no qualms with what Suster writes here. At the same time, I've encountered a number of very powerful counterexamples that gives me pause. - 37signals:

I have no qualms with what Suster writes here. At the same time, I've encountered a number of very powerful counterexamples that gives me pause. - 37signals: Renowned for its strong company culture, 37signals talks often about how having a distributed team is a competitive advantage because it allows them to hire the very best fit (excellence at work and culture fit) without regard to location. - Singly: Up-and-coming post-Series A company. I've gotten to know them because they use my product iDoneThis (http://idonethis.com http://idonethis.com) to replace their daily standup. Neither their CTO nor their VP of Engineering works on site in SF and they are an API company! Yet they have an extremely strong engineering culture, and much of it revolves around a no nonsense approach to work and zero tolerance of meetings, and that's facilitated by being distributed. - Ravelry: They've not only built a tight-knit team that's distributed, they've built a ravenous community and fan base with their product (2M+ users). They've said that because they're distributed, that makes them work extra hard on communication and making work fun.