I think it's pretty cool with all the "startup ra ra ra" bullshit that's popular right now, to see someone high profile say "fuck it, it's not that important" Congrats on all that you've achieved. Bigger congrats for having the balls to make the decision that feels right for you and your family. I hope you're running away with a big sack of that VC money too :p

Doesn't this fly directly in the face of Joel's repeated statements that the SO/SE team being build from the VC funding will be in NYC only (other that don't-call-us-we'll-call-you)? I do agree though - I've worked semi-remotely and as part of a distributed team and it really is difficult to maintain the discipline. One thing that makes it harder is if you have a co-located group and then other people spread around the place - the co-located group naturally forgets to include the others. When everyone's distributed I imagine that's less of a problem.