“I think worldwide tech salaries may equalize pretty fast” – Sam Altman

In 3 years almost of working with some remote people, I can say for sure that remote workers are less productive than in person workers, but only in the sense that all the in person people collaborate better together. I regularly run into the mechanical engineers at my office and we bounce ideas for a new product while standing at the coffee machine and then we make it together over a few weekends and get a big bonus and the company wins big with the product!

This stuff you cant do with remote workers. When the boss needs help on testing the app, he talks to me instead of the guy who made it since I am just one desk over and its easier to work together than schedule a meeting and all that. He just let the remote guy go and gave me the project.

I doubt that remote work will really take off. I barely even know the remote workers since all our interactions are 100% focused on the job. I cant build trust with them because I just don't know them. They are just a talking head in a window on my computer.

I know for IT at least there is a reverse trend with outsourced work. But IT techs don't want to go back into companies anymore because now they make more as consultants and they have better working conditions without 24/7.

Sure, theoretically if everybody works at home... but there are language, time-zone, cultural and other barriers to consider.

Engineering as a service may work to a degree, but if you use an external service you really have to write specifications and they have to be extremely precise...

By "equalize" he probably means "lower" for many. Perhaps he doesn't want to say to those of us in high-wage countries to realize that we're competing globally for position salary-wise, and thus companies are incentivized to pay you less, because there is someone else just as qualified as you who will work for less.