[shadowspar]

"conventional wisdom says that distributed startup teams can be just as effective as those that are in person."

You've got to be kidding me. "Conventional wisdom" says that you need to co-locate everybody from the CEO to the mailroom staff in a big cube farm.

One thing I'll concede -- distributed teams need to work a hell of a lot harder at communication than co-located teams. You have to explicitly make a point of saying a lot of the things that practically get conveyed "for free" when you're in the same physical space.

I completely agree that companies -- teams -- need a shared culture and sense of purpose to gel. If you're undergoing the startup experience and communicating with others like they're humans (which you need to do to make telecommuting work) you'll quickly find you have close friends instead of coworkers, regardless of the distance between you.