AI is killing remote work Software that once took days to ship can now happen in hours or minutes, enabling people to ship 10-20 times faster than before. This all changed on the day Claude 3.5 Sonnet came out. But it’s hard to get this speed-up with remote work. Even short communication delays have become significant bottlenecks in an AI-accelerated workflow. What used to be acceptable async delays now represent a material slowdown in potential productivity. When teams work together physically, they can leverage their human peers at the same pace as they use AI for immediate experimentation and refinement - testing ideas, generating alternatives, and making decisions in rapid succession. Why spend more money for a slower answer? With AI handling much of the execution work - writing code, generating content, creating designs - the main bottlenecks are now cognitive: getting stuck on problems, running low on energy, or struggling to generate fresh ideas. In-person collaboration is particularly powerful for overcoming these barriers. The spontaneous discussions, quick whiteboarding sessions, and energy of working together help teams think better, learn faster, and get unstuck more quickly. The primary advantage of remote work in the AI era may be the ability to maintain 24/7 operations through distributed teams. While an in-person team can ship 8 hours a day, a globally distributed team can ship 24 hours a day. 3x more! However, this works best as a complement to, rather than a replacement for, a strong in-office presence. The reason is less about speed and more about velocity. The optimal approach might be a core team working together physically, supplemented by remote team members who can maintain momentum across different time zones.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ To acknowledge this fact, we’re adding a cost of living adjustment based on the purchasing power parity of each country, capped at a ⅓ discount to our NYC rate. We’re also capping remote positions at 25 hours a week, to be clear that they’re not close to full-time employment. We still pay well–you’re being comped to the most expensive city in the world, after all–but the dream of the future of work being fully remote is over. But that’s okay–it was fun while it lasted!