It's a shame that this article focussed on startups, because the problems outlined are endemic to any endeavour where a large amount of ideas and knowledge have

It's a shame that this article focussed on startups, because the problems outlined are endemic to any endeavour where a large amount of ideas and knowledge have to be exchanged between individuals with as little friction as is humanly possible. In my own current case, that situation is a project moving from requirements capture to functional specification, where a huge amount of this sort of interchange has to happen, but is being prevented due to geographical separation of client business analysts and the technical design people. The remote collaboration tools have not been written that can even begin to substitute for a quick question over the cube wall, or an insight gained / misunderstanding overturned though a serendipitous ad-hoc conversation. Sadly there is a pervasive management myth that office space to colocate teams is too expensive, and can be replaced by weekly meetings, email, communicator, exchanged documents and spreadsheets and the like. Wrong.