S 01 | Ep 38 Revolutionizing Company Culture Brett Putter has spent years studying how the best remote - first companies actually operate , not the pandemic version of remote work where everyone moved their office habits onto Zoom , but organizations like GitLab , Buffer , and Hotjar that built their cultures from scratch around distributed teams . His core argument is that most companies are running a post - pandemic reality on a pre - pandemic operating system , and the gap is quietly grinding them down . In this episode Brett introduces the concept of emotional proximity as the remote substitute for physical proximity , and argues it is not a consolation prize but a genuinely powerful tool when used intentionally . Leaders who recognize the moments that matter for their people , birthdays , project milestones , a difficult week , and call them out specifically , build the social capital that makes everything else move faster . The CEO who sends a handwritten note to a new employee ' s partner is not doing something sentimental ; he is building a bond that will survive a thousand Slack messages .