The aligns very closely with my experience in a distributed startup. Of course there are challenges like the ones mentioned in the StatusPage post, but I felt that post exaggerated the problems greatly. For example, complaining about a 3 hour time difference and lamenting that this meant almost no overlap in working hours for team members. Sure, if your team makes no effort at all to align working hours when needed.

There are a few points that stand out and ring true to me. As someone who has thrived as a remote worker and made a career of being a generalist, I was similarly surprised to hear from StatusPage that these qualities aren't compatible. My team members and myself especially picked up new languages, tools, roles, and responsibilities and ran with them.

As far as communication, weekly phone meetings (no video needed) coupled with in-person meetings maybe once or twice a year served to keep us all on the same page. The main method of day-to-day communication was via persistent chat rooms and direct chats between people as needed.

After years of great progress, we had a successful exit in 2014. When I find my next team, it will definitely be in a remote role, as the benefits to me are so great that I've essentially ruled out working in an office in the future. If you've convinced yourself that your organization can't operate with remote workers, then good luck and I hope you find the team members you need.