It did strike me as odd that if they're trying to solve that problem, having some people, you know, actually work remotely, would in fact indicate if the product was solving problems - dogfooding and all that.

I've felt those "week vs 15 minute" issues. Some of that is developer-specific, no doubt, but that's fundamentally a communication issue that needs to be managed.

I've also worked gigs where people were in the same room and didn't talk to each other, or wouldn't answer emails due to office politics, and in general stuff that should have taken 15 minutes still took a week, even though everyone was in the same building.