Barbell theory of remote collaboration
Amjad Masad: “It's fascinating how Wired's story on the invention of the transformer is full of serendipitous interactions that seem impossible to replicate in a remote setting.” Marc Andreessen response: “Barbell theory: These kinds of spontaneous interactions can evidently only happen in physical real life, OR in fully online text chat environments.”
I have a similar barbell theory about remote workers themselves. Some remote workers use it as a way to slack. Other remote workers are driven nerds that use remote to accomplish big goals in both their personal and professional life. You want the latter on your team for success, and id bet on a team of the latter outcompeting most office teams.
This also applies to in person work. Some people use it to work, some people use it to hang out and gossip and chat.
I have found teams with high velocity public-channel-by-default chat messaging habits to be very highly collaborative. More efficient than in person. It requires trust since you will be putting in writing problems you are facing for example.
Theory: great remote workers grew up visiting online forums :)
TLDR: Slackers gonna slack. Hackers gonna hack.