Why do certain companies succeed as a remote company (Gitlab comes to mind) and others wouldn’t? I think you’re probably right, but I’d like to understand. Will working from home force a change in management style?

To compensate for lack of socialization in the office, I notice that companies like Gitlab organise corporate gatherings were all employees can meet in person. Open Source projects teams meet at (the fringe of) Fosdem and probably at their yearly conference a second time.

My guess is two primary factors:

1) size Non-linear diseconomies of scale mean that all other things held equal smaller companies are more likely to be able to pull it off than larger companies

2) first mover / selection I’d guess that there’s a relatively small fraction of employees that can be competitively productive in an indefinite WFH scenario. Companies that were always remote first and got there before everyone else were able to pick off these outliers. Companies trying to convert to it have the luck of the draw and further as the market saturates everyone will have a harder time chasing after these few.

Maybe. If the property values completely collapse and they can get cheaper leases, I could see it, but that's sort of an after the fact issue.