This is a tiny subset of cases. You need to make this clear up front if you are trying to limit the discussion to only fast-moving startups. For many people, that environment would be a miserable existence for many of the same reasons that this specific case benefits from everybody being in the office. We should really not try to optimize or generalize for this specialized case - it would hurt everybody. It would be like punishing everybody who doesn't work overtime - i.e. you're describing an exception that people, if they truly want to, are free to willingly engage in. But it's irrelevant to the broader discussion of work-life balance in a healthy society.

Could you share that data, then? There are successful / sustainable organizations of all sizes that embrace a remote work culture - Oxide, Dropbox, Palo Alto, VMWare, etc., heck - just check out this list [0]. Neither does the data support your assertion that remote work makes folks less productive [1].

I will agree that remote work may be more lonely for folks that depend on their job to socialize and make friends. But most of us (clearly) don't want or need that.

0. https://builtin.com/awards/fully-remote/2023/best-large-plac... 1. https://hbr.org/2020/08/research-knowledge-workers-are-more-...

I work for VMware and we are being acquired by a company that has an, at-best, complicated relationship with WFH.