Pretty silly, short, overly hyperbolically-opinionated article.
It infers that anyone who agrees with RTO to some degree as hypocrites.
I agree this part of Thiel's quote here, it makes sense to me: "misalignment can creep in whenever colleagues aren't together full-time, in the same place, every day"
That email that a manager sent at 10pm regarding some stuff todo for the tomorrow 8am meeting with the client ? "Sorry boss, can only work with the whole team."
"Colleague on vacation?" "the whole team on vacation!"
Misalignment will always occur. Always, and it's the manager job to ensure that there aren't any.
Bringing everyone in the same room is the simplest way for a manager to manage, without understanding the need of the member of the team.
Yes, I sometimes need face to face discussion with colleagues to nicely understand the specifications, and it's way better than any video call. But when I'm trying to debug that script in the CI/CD that doesn't work as intended, I don't need to be sitting next to the project manager who's always on the phone.
Been working remote mostly for 15 years. I haven't experienced, caused or observed any misalignment. I have experienced a high degree of productivity. I feel this is what some who run companies were afraid of, that many people can work remotely and be happier and be as or more productive all at the same time.
I disagree with some of the attacks of the SV leader's personal lives in comments on this page but I also disagree with anyone who tries to assert people must be in the office to be productive.