None of them - not one - would have happened virtually. There would never had been a reason for me to interact with those people other than I just happened to be in the same physical time/space as them and happened to stop and chat.

It's rather silly when you try to think about it rationally - that so much should ride on random chance; but it's also life. There's millions of years of social evolution favoring in person contact and to pretend otherwise is just silly.

And is it possible that this is not a universal thing? Maybe some people can solve problems or have ideas in a different way? Or maybe in the parallel universe you might have maybe less financial/career success but something even better (less stress more happiness) anyway I can tell you that as a developer you can solve problems, you can help the team from remote too. I have almost 20 years of coding experience only on remote but won't bet that 100% an office job would have been better or worse, we never know.