Is the Remote Work Revolution Flopping, Succeeding or Both?
About this episode
Guest host Rogé Karma talks with journalists Anne Helen Petersen and Charlie Warzel, authors of a book on remote work, about why offices remain empty and whether that is a problem. They argue the pandemic proved much office work does not require an office, and that hybrid schedules combine the worst of both worlds; what the office uniquely offered — collaboration, serendipity, gossip, mentorship, and a thin form of community — cannot be restored by mandate alone. The conversation ranges across loneliness and the search for belonging outside work, how workplace technology like Slack became a digital tether, the distinction between boundaries and guardrails, and the deeper overwork culture that remote work both exposed and intensified. They sketch a more utopian redesign: fewer headquarters, more flexible neighborhood spaces, and honest accounting of what work is actually for.