For an ambitious startup that want to succeed, the first year is intense. With limited resources it needs to build something the world wants. It is also need to build its winning culture.
While startups have organized themselves in different ways for some time, the dominant way for smaller startups until the pandemic was “everyone in one office”. There were some exceptions, and companies like Atlassian proved there are another way. During the pandemic “remote” became the the way, and post-pandemic some version of “hybrid”.
While there should be some flexibility, my belief is that a startup that can have its team work in the same place (a.k.a. the office) increases its chances of building a great product and a large company.