Tag Archives: hiring

Automattic Featured on TechCrunch TC-1

“Part of my life’s work is trying to make WordPress something that looks more like a city. Companies always die. Cities never die. There’s networks of things that can be created, and once they reach a certain scale, they’re somewhat invulnerable.”

-Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg

This week, TechCrunch published a four-part series of articles that take an in-depth look at the longevity and momentum of Automattic’s business, with the underlying premise that we’ve done everything wrong — according to venture capitalists. 

Despite confounding our critics, our company has evolved and grown over the last 16 years. Today, we continue to be champions for open source, distributed work, and democratizing publishing and e-commerce.

“Long term, if I had to bet on what’s the most important platform, 50 years from now, I’d bet on the web over anything else that exists today. It’s the most robust, resilient, creative, the most free and open, and the Cambrian explosion of creativity on the web hasn’t stopped,” Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg says in the interview.

Our belief in the power of the open web underlies almost every aspect of what we do — from building websites to hiring a fully distributed workforce across 89 countries. Good ideas and talented individuals come from anywhere. Automattic’s incredibly talented staff is a testament to that. 

One of the insights highlighted by TechCrunch is the ethos behind how we hire. As observed in the article, a combination of in-person interviews and the traditional desire for “culture fit” can hinder diversity. During our recruitment process, we give candidates the option of a written interview, where their faces or voices don’t have to be part of the process. 

TechCrunch’s stellar editorial package is organized around our origin story, open-source software development, acquisitions, future strategy, and distributed work. 

Read the articles here (TechCrunch subscription required). 

Matt Mullenweg On Finding Talent: From Cheddar News

“If you’re a business for whom talent is a key differentiator,” said Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg this week on Cheddar News, “then I would highly recommend you learning how to evolve your business to be fully inclusive of remote people.”

On Wednesday, Matt joined senior reporter Michelle Castillo on Cheddar’s Closing Bell to talk about Automattic’s latest fundraising, and how the company will continue to hire for and invest in technology that democratizes publishing and commerce.

Matt made the announcement earlier this week.

“One thing that’s fascinating about Automattic is that you guys have a work remote policy,” Castillo asked. “Why did you make that decision so many years ago?”

“When we started being fully remote, which was I guess 15, 16 years ago, it was the best way to access the best talent in the world,” Matt responded.

“I think that’s still true.”

Offering encouragement to those who have only experienced remote work by necessity because of the pandemic, Matt also urged organizations to commit to being fully distributed, instead of settling for hybrid situations that can create new challenges: “Keep in mind, even if last year was tough, it was tough for every company, including us – who have been doing this for over a decade.”

You can watch the full interview at Cheddar.

Distributed by Default: Matt Mullenweg on The Knowledge Project

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“Aren’t people lonely because they don’t have their friendships at work?”

On a recent appearance of The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish of Farnam Street, Matt Mullenweg revealed that he hears this question often, and that the answer is one of many benefits of a company built to be distributed from the start.

“If your only social network is at work, you might be lonely if you weren’t working with people physcally,” answered Matt. “But then what does that open up? It opens up the opportunity for you to choose people around you geographically to spend time with.”

The conversation evolved to the Five Levels of Autonomy (spoiler: many companies made it to Level Two during the pandemic) and how it allows teams to focus on the work. “Part of our model of distributed work also provides a fair amount of autonomy in how people get their work done,” Matt said. “I like that it creates a lot more objectivity and focus around what the actual work is.”

The episode was first published in January, but it is a great listen today as many companies that became distributed by necessity in 2020 make decisions about returning to work places.

Shane and Matt also talk about blending the cultures of different business units within a company like Automattic, the future of proprietary software, and how Open Source is like kids banding together on a playground, for the greater good of the open web.

This was the 100th episode of The Knowledge Project, whose recent guests have also included Angela Duckworth, Jim Collins and Josh Kaufman.

You can listen to the full episode on your favorite podcast platform, watch it on YouTube, and read Shane’s highlights from the conversation over at The Knowledge Project.

Hiring For Distributed Companies & Angel Investing: This Week in Startups with Jason Calacanis

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“Why would the best employees in the world choose so little autonomy in the third of their day or more that they spend working?” Matt Mullenweg asks Jason Calacanis in a recent appearance on the long-running This Week In Startups.

The angel investing-themed episode opens with both investors sharing their approaches to early-stage companies, supporting entrepreneurs, and making an ecosystem-building impact, on top of return-on-investment.

The conversation soon shifts toward the outlook for distributed work. “What do you think the world’s going to look like in six months when everybody’s got their shots and is back to work, in at least the United States and Europe?” Jason asks. Matt shares a hiring insight for distributed, global companies, from the changing perspective of a talented individual who can now work from many more places: “You can really build a robust social network with folks you choose to connect with…(anything) that gives you that sense of community, not just where you happen to work.”

Matt’s latest appearance on the show – he first appeared on Episode 26 in 2010, according to Jason, and again in 2013 – touches on Automattic’s business structure, using collaboration tools like P2 to onboard new employees, cryptocurrency, and the value of editors. “I haven’t met a single writer – or any of my own writing – that hasn’t been vastly improved by really great editing,” says Matt. “Engaging your ideas with another human just improves them every single time.”

You can listen to the full This Week in Startups episode here, or check out the YouTube channel.

Distributed FAQ: Hiring

In Distributed FAQ, Matt Mullenweg addresses some of the most common issues companies and executives face as they consider transitioning to a distributed model.

Q: When interviewing candidates, are there any tactics you recommend to better assess candidates’ fit with a distributed workforce?

A: At Automattic, one thing we try to do is set our expectations publicly so they are obvious. We stress our company-wide travel expectations (3-4 weeks a year), and highlight our benefits. We do this to add a layer of self-selection to the process. We also do trial projects, which last a few weeks and are incredibly valuable when making hiring assessments.

Transparency is key. We put a lot of thought into our hiring process to ensure that it reflects our culture in order to manage job applicants’ expectations. For example, we include our Creed as part of the standard offer letter.

Q: We are currently hiring for a few roles and it’s quite likely that the entire process will be remote. Is there anything we need to look out for, or do differently than in a non-distributed context?

A: Our entire hiring process can oftentimes be conducted over Slack.  Every new hire starts with two weeks of support, which is a hands-on opportunity to learn about our products and to develop empathy for our customers. Our support folks — Automattic’s Happiness Engineers — are our welcome wagon.

To learn more about distributed hiring:

  • Listen to Matt’s conversation with Automattic’s Head of Developer Experience, Cate Huston, here on the Distributed Podcast.
  • Read a recent interview with Automattic’s Global Head of Human Resources, Lori McLeese.

7 Remote Work Lessons for Managers During the Coronavirus

During this time of tremendous change, here is some timeless advice from leaders who have worked with their own distributed teams. For more, check out their individual Distributed podcast interviews.

1. Make time and space to listen

“As a manager, the best thing you can do is train yourself to hold space for yourself so you are not having a million things that you need to unload onto your employee, to keep making more room, to keep letting more things bubble up that can be resolved. Keep it with open-ended questions and to let advice maybe only come in at the very end.”

— Leo Widrich, cofounder of Buffer 

2. Trust each other

“At distributed companies, you can’t tell really if someone doesn’t show up to work. I mean, you can eventually tell, but it’s much easier to disappear. The level of trust required is much higher. And so there is a portion of the [hiring] process that is earning that trust. We really believe that people can be successful and we’re looking to make people successful. There is no ‘prove it again’ after you get hired. I think that’s really important.”

— Cate Huston, Automattic

3. Know your role as a manager

“I think part of my role is to explain why things aren’t impossible. And I see increasingly with a lot of projects we have done, the first response is, ‘That’s just impossible.’ …  I am happy when people say that. When I’m not happy is when people say, ‘Oh sure, we’ll do it,’ when I plainly know there is no way they can do it, it’s too hard. And so then I’m trying to figure out, ‘OK, so let’s see whether we can figure out how to do it.’”

— Stephen Wolfram

4. Give yourself the structure you need

“When I got here, everyone was like, ‘It’s great because you can work in your pajamas if you want to.’ And for the first six months I did. I didn’t have a dedicated office area and I just sort of got up and started working whenever I felt like it, and finished working whenever I felt like it. And I found that that was not a good choice for me, especially in the work that I have to do. It ended up making me less resilient, more reactive, and also I had no concept of when work started and stopped.” 

— Josepha Haden, Automattic  

5. Blog your experience 

“My wife will always say, ‘You’re staring off into space like you’re writing something.’ She just knows that it’s this thing where I’m collecting my thoughts….I think better and organize my thoughts better and share my ideas better when I write it, and it introduces a rigor to what I’m sharing. I love that push to accuracy and push to quality. It makes my thinking stronger.”

— Anil Dash, Glitch

6. Rethink your meetings

“If you’ve taken three days to think about something and you say it in a meeting and people start just throwing stuff right back at you — in some ways you’re asking them to because you’re sitting at a table, what else are they going to do? But it seems unfair to them, in fact, for them to have to react to this thing that you have thought about for three days or three weeks or three months, for them to have 30 seconds to say something back seems unfair.”

— Jason Fried, Basecamp

7. Consider what questions you’re asking

“An effective manager in a distributed work environment needs to develop the skill of asking precise and information-gathering questions to elicit this kind of information. Because even if the employee might not be able to produce this information on their own, or might know it but not necessarily know how to communicate it in a way that would be applicable and useful in a work environment.”
— Lydia X. Z. Brown

For more insights, subscribe to Distributed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen.

Photo by Alexas Fotos / Pexels

Episode 13: Attorney Lydia X. Z. Brown on Making Work More Accessible

Read more about Lydia X.Z. Brown in “Making Work Accessible, Wherever it Happens.”

Subscribe to Distributed at Pocket Casts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RSS, or wherever you like to listen.

Because of their background in working with disabled and marginalized people, attorney and activist Lydia X. Z. Brown has a deep understanding of how different workplace environments can best serve diverse workforces. Today they join our host Matt Mullenweg to discuss what distributed companies can do to make workflows and working conditions more inclusive.

The full episode transcript is below.

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Inside Toptal’s Distributed Screening Process

In tech hubs like San Francisco and New York, the demand for top-tier talent can outstrip supply, so HR departments find themselves in a fierce competition for local job applicants. In response, some companies have turned to the distributed model, which allows them to reach beyond hub cities and to access qualified candidates around the country and internationally. Hiring for distributed positions comes with its own set of challenges, though. 

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