When you actually look at the claim Altman can defend from his own experience, it's not that remote work doesn't work for "the tech industry"; it's that remote work doesn't work for early stage startups. But most of "the tech industry" is not early stage startups. Most of the people working in the tech industry could still be working remotely, while at the same time the small fraction of them that are working at early stage startups could be working in person in an office (or hangout space, or whatever), and the tech industry would do just fine.

Unfortunately, when I look at Altman's track record as a pundit (as opposed to as a startup developer), this kind of schoolboy error is what I usually see.