I don't really understand the response. I'm not talking from a position of ignorance here; time zones are exactly as big of a problem as I think, because what I think has been informed by my experience working across time zones. There are certainly mitigation strategies, which improve the situation far beyond the naive solution of "let's pretend they're locals who just never come to the office". But no mitigation will make communication with someone you've never met in Shanghai as easy as it is with your buddy in the desk across the hallway.