When you actually look at the claim Altman can defend from his own experience, it's not that remote work doesn't work for "the tech industry"; it's that remote work doesn't work for early stage startups. But most of "the tech industry" is not early stage startups. Most of the people working in the tech industry could still be working remotely, while at the same time the small fraction of them that are working at early stage startups could be working in person in an office (or hangout space, or whatever), and the tech industry would do just fine.
Unfortunately, when I look at Altman's track record as a pundit (as opposed to as a startup developer), this kind of schoolboy error is what I usually see.
So two friends living in two different places can never build a product and then business around it together. They must be sitting within one meter proximity or the magic potion doesn't work.
Why don't you show us successful startups where people built it fully remotely without meeting each other in person? Sam is claiming that in early stage startups, one need some in-person interaction which I fully agree with.
I don't want to out myself, but the company I work for is a smallish startup (<100 people now) that has revenue, and closed a multimillion dollar round last year. Most of the people there have never met in person (I've been there for >2 years and have not met any of my coworkers, and only one is in my country, at the opposite end)
While some of the execs have met in person now, the whole thing was bootstrapped by a handful of people before they met.
> Sam is claiming that in early stage startups, one need some in-person interaction
He's claiming that, but that's not all he's claiming. His claim about remote work being a big mistake for the tech industry is much broader than just early stage startups. But as far as I can tell, he has no real basis for his claim except for early stage startups; so his claim could be true for them but false for the tech industry as a whole.
I do not know much about startups.. but there are many, many successful projects that have been fully remote - Linux, GNU, Debian, etc. Almost all open source projects I know of do not need an office space.
Yeah, if you are just pumping out generic jira ticket work which doesn't require interaction with anyone else, of course remote works well. If you are actually trying to move fast, throw ideas around, and collaborate, nothing beats being in the same room.
Video calls are a poor replacement to real life interactions. Otherwise the air travel industry would have been crippled by now.
Video calls are a perfect replacement, those that can't do it generally either have: a poor video call culture (people avoiding calls etc., Not turning on video, calls been seen as way too formal and rigid) or just can't use technology effectively.
He does claim that, but you can extend it to early-state projects, even at big companies. It also makes onboarding harder, so you have to include that factor, too.
Unfortunately, when I look at Altman's track record as a pundit (as opposed to as a startup developer), this kind of schoolboy error is what I usually see.