Oh I 100% know - there are a handful of spontaneous hallway conversations that started as idle chit chat and veered off in unanticipated directions that altered my career path. I can see them clearly since they were literally life changing.
None of them - not one - would have happened virtually. There would never had been a reason for me to interact with those people other than I just happened to be in the same physical time/space as them and happened to stop and chat.
It's rather silly when you try to think about it rationally - that so much should ride on random chance; but it's also life. There's millions of years of social evolution favoring in person contact and to pretend otherwise is just silly.
