Collaboration increases productivity and building new offices continuously is not the only way to increase collaboration, specially for the kind of work that SV companies does. I think from that perspective the OPs post bears merit. However it is also a matter of job security and if you don’t have to go to an office physically you may feel insecure inside ....
That's true, I think a lot more can be done for the WFH perspective. If companies offered all employees a good home setup, good desk, chair, screen, keyboard, mouse, headphones, good mic, good webcam, a good whiteboarding solution as well like maybe an iPad + pencil. And there was an app allowing remote share, remote control, remote whiteboard, and subsidize cost of a good internet. I feel I'd be even more productive at home with all that in place.
We've been looking into this lately, and settled on iPad Pro + Pencil + Explain Everything as a remote meeting and whiteboarding solution. It seems promising so far. Miro is another software option that seems pretty polished, although we haven't tried it yet.
Hopefully someone with more experience can share more tips on what has worked well for them.
I guess it depends on your role and how you execute it to a large extent. The OP mentioned certain roles that are to a large extent possible to wfh. Maybe 3 out of 5 days one can wfh.
Also in respect to Bay Area it certainly hurts productivity if you have to spend 2 hours everyday in commute. Unless your role means constantly blabbering on the phone you just can’t work while commuting. And I would argue if you do spend most of the time yapping on the phone then it shouldn’t matter if you are doing it remotely except for few cases where face to face is absolutely necessary.
> Overall, face-to-face time decreased by around 70 per cent across the participating employees, on average, with email use increasing by between 22 per cent and 50 per cent (depending on the estimation method used).
From Harvard study in 2018 comparing pre/post open-office.