Yep, 2-4x onsites together a year to develop human relationships, and otherwise 100% remote, is by far the most effective team arrangement IME. It is especially the most accessible format for people who do not necessarily perform their best work within the typical office hours (9-5, +/-1), who do not want to live in your metro area, or who are distracted by disturbances in their surroundings - or just aren’t hardcore extroverts.
Or simply put: if you truly want the best, most focused, highly performing team, an office requirement shrinks your talent pool tremendously for extremely little gain. Do quarterly meetups somewhere and move on, IMO.
Agree, 4x is doable only if you have no kids. Otherwise you not only create a lot of stress for the other parent but you also lose valuable time with your family, which you won’t recover as kids grow up. I feel like 2x is reasonable.
I don't have kids and I'm still more on team 2x/yr than 4x/yr by a large margin, but I'll still take 4x/yr for ~3 days each over in-office daily (or even twice a week). Mentioned it mostly as a compromise option I could accept (and IIRC that compromise is what 37signals did and documented in the Remote book which I haven't read in quite some time).
Or simply put: if you truly want the best, most focused, highly performing team, an office requirement shrinks your talent pool tremendously for extremely little gain. Do quarterly meetups somewhere and move on, IMO.