This post from DHH misses one bit. This hiring remote workers works for them, (as it's worked for me/us at Inkling and Cityposh) because we also have another tenant to our hiring practices. We hire people who can manage themselves. 37signals calls this "managers of one" http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1430-hire-managers-of-one.

I like to think of it as hiring employees to boss me around http://blog.inklingmarkets.com/2009/10/hire-employees-to-bos...

The companies complaining about remote workers not working for them is also because they are surrounded with people that can't do their work unless they have constant group think meetings so no one can possibly be blamed for the work/decisions being made.