I’ve been running a fully remote company for 10 years.
Here’s what most leaders still get wrong about remote work:
Remote isn’t a perk. It’s an entirely different operating system.
And you can’t just install it on top of an office culture.
1. Most office companies can’t “become” remote.
Remote requires a different operating system and a different type of employee. Including:
- Clear written communication
- Superb async collaboration
- Self discipline
- Trust from leadership without physical supervision
- Structured work instead of constant shoulder taps
You can’t retrofit that. You have to build it from the start.
2. Hybrid is often the worst of both worlds.
The real conversations still happen on office days. Remote days quietly become errand days. Nobody says it out loud, but everyone knows it.
3. Remote is harder when work happens in a second language.
This one rarely gets discussed.
Remote depends on fast, nuanced written communication. When your team operates in a non-native language, friction goes up. Humor, tone, and subtlety get lost.
That’s a real reason you don’t see many fully remote companies in Israel, where work happens in English but life happens in Hebrew.
4. Most tech companies will be remote within a generation.
Our kids will ask us a simple question:
Why did you drive two hours a day to sit in a noisy building?
Remote opens the talent pool to the entire world. It lets people build their day around real life. The advantages for knowledge work are overwhelming.
5. Fully remote ≠ never meeting in person.
In fact, the opposite.
The single biggest budget line at Blue Seedling is bringing the team together face-to-face. Our recent All Hands in Lisbon is a good example.
Spending time together is priceless. It just doesn’t need to happen five days a week in a fluorescent-lit office.
We’ve been fully remote since day one. Ten years. Long before COVID made it trendy.
Oh, and we’re hiring. If you want to work with a global team that actually does this well.
