[neilv]

In-person can make the bonding and camaraderie a lot easier for many people -- some, more than others.

That said, for the last 40+ years, people have also been building relationships online, much stronger than usual office ones. And, for much of that period, it was without even the benefit of videoconferencing. Some of my closest friends are from various open source communities, for example, and I've only ever met about half of them in-person.

I think many companies haven't yet figured out how to provide fertile soil for distributed teams to bond. And I've heard of cases where employees try to do it organically, but their style is cramped by the company (e.g., mandated corporate communications tools that aren't amenable to this, keyloggers as part of "endpoint security" having people feel under surveillance, suspicions that video calls are recorded, culture and metrics/demands that don't permit genuine casual interaction time).

Another speedbump sometimes might be for people who've grown up with their in-person charisma/presence a part of how they interact, and haven't yet fully adapted to other modalities. Nobody is tall on webcam, but a lot of other human qualities are still important, and can be expressed and perceived.

[syed_h5]

Yes, I don't think companies have really figured out how to grow the bond within teams. A lot of times employees struggle with just belonging to a company.

I really liked your POV. I am asking this favor from some of the people here with unique POVs. Would you mind checking us out at www.getparallel.io ? We wrapped up our MVP and our whole thing is to provide the fertile soil as you mentioned.