I've been self-employed working remotely from my clients since 2011 so I can hopefully answer some of these fears :D

1. It is a different vibe compared to working with co-workers, so instead you find collaborators who may not work for the same company, or perhaps you code with your friends that aren't working on the same project. I had a membership at a workspace filled with other go-getting, fun-loving entrepreneurial mostly young professionals and it was that same amazing social + work setting, but 100% divorced from my employment/client. If I lost a client that wonderful work community and environment wouldn't have gone anywhere.

2. It is harder to overhear things at the watercooler if there's no watercooler - if you're remote in a non-remote company you will be missing out, but in a remote-first company you're forced to find other ways to communicate. It's up to each person to open those channels and pursue it, but in 100% distributed teams this happens naturally (when there is no office). You do have to be a little proactive sending some emails though "So I hear you like cats" "So I heard in the meeting you're travelling to South America now, how is that?", etc.

I think what we'll see is the idea that your employer must get all your butts into chairs under the same roof is not the best way to do things for a few reasons:

- it's costly to the employer to shelter and provide for employees in real estate and so many other ways if they simply don't need to have a building

- it limits the talent pool they can hire from geographically for little good reason - a distributed team can hire anybody anywhere in the world and that definitely gives you a competitive advantage at finding talent!

After going this work-from-my-own-setting for almost a decade I feel like it's inevitable, and I think companies who don't use a 100% distributed model today will be competing harder than they need to and paying more than they should to do it.

I'm glad COVID has accelerated the schedule for all this happening, but I really hope most offices don't go back.

Here are some tips I've found for making the most of working from your own surroundings:

- DO customize the environment to your comfort: lights, sounds, smells, privacy, seating - if you could design the perfect environment for being at your best in that moment, take those liberties. It pays off in productivity

- DO get up and move around often throughout the day, or move from place to place. It seems sometimes you get into a funk and all you have to do to leave that dim cloud is just physically relocate and you'll be refreshed mentally. Get up and go make a coffee, go water the lawn as a break, go check the mail. These little breaks will help you keep up the pace and give you stamina.

- DO get out of the house (COVID-willing), if there are cafés or outdoor places with electricity and bathrooms and tables and chairs it can be good and here's a secret -> set goals when you leave the house for what you must accomplish before you return home. If a café has hours and closes down for the night you have tricked yourself with a very real deadline and sense of urgency that otherwise wouldn't be there. By setting goals for myself and using real time deadlines like this I can stay focused on what I'm supposed to be doing

In short, I envision that in 10+ years and for a long time we it will be normal for us to design offices at home, or share rent of work studios with our family and friends, and what used to be coworkers and office drama will just be the people you choose to live and work with, and you can get hired and lose your job and this social group of people you work around doesn't need to change. Overall I think it will be better!