On Remote Work

The argument that remote work kills collaboration assumes collaboration requires physical presence. It doesn’t.

Most “collaboration” in offices is interruption. Someone walks over, asks a question, you context-switch. The cost is invisible because it feels productive. You’re talking, after all. But the real work—the deep thinking, the coding, the writing—happens in stretches of uninterrupted focus. Those stretches are rarer in an office.

Async doesn’t mean never talking. It means choosing when. Write it down, send it, let the other person respond when they’re ready. The conversation persists. The thinking is clearer because you had to articulate it.

I’m not saying offices are bad. I’m saying the default assumption—that colocation is necessary for good work—is wrong. For many kinds of work, async remote is better. The burden of proof should be on those who demand presence, not the other way around.