Sadly, this is not true. I live in the bay area and most startups here, need you in person for their day of interviews. The industry standard seems to be 1 soft skill/ HR discussion + 1 technical phone screen + 1 day of technical interviews(4-6). And as optimistic as one can be, it's hard to find the right (job + company + people) combo in the first try, since it's hard to judge certain aspects from a HR call and a technical interview which is usually a 45-60min call where most of the time is spent coding. This leads you to interview in-person at places where you might not like the company culture/ team/ leadership/ commute/ etc. It is true that a lot of resources go into interviewing from the company's perspective but it is also pretty much the same for an interviewee.