The Distributed Podcast is an in-depth conversation about the future of work — with the companies and leaders driving it. Hosted by Co-Founder of WordPress and CEO of Automattic Matt Mullenweg. Subscribe.
On this episode of Distributed, we dig into the good, the bad, and the karaoke-filled history of Automattic meetups. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, our annual Grand Meetup brought the entire company together for a week. The time spent together — along with team-specific meetups scattered throughout the year — helped us strengthen relationships with our colleagues located around the world. Now, as companies and workers grapple with returning to the office, it’s a perfect chance to consider in-person time as an important complement to the autonomy and flexibility of distributed work.
We spoke with Automatticians about how to stay connected in a distributed work culture. You’ll hear from Toni Schneider, Automattic’s first CEO, Josepha Haden Chomphosy, Executive Director of the WordPress Project, and Nick Gernert, CEO of WordPress VIP, along with a wide range of Automatticians.
The full episode transcript is below and has been lightly edited for clarity.
Nearly ten years ago, Dylan Field and Evan Wallace turned a Thiel Fellowship into a solution to the ‘single source of truth’ problem for design systems.
Their interest in design collaboration and WebGL laid the foundation for the origin story of Figma, today’s ubiquitous browser-based design tool — and rapidly-growing company.
“The more (we) pulled this thread, the more we learned there’s so much to do in terms of making design better, and in making it so more people can access design within the organization,” says Dylan of their early pursuis. (Spoiler: drone technology was a runner up in their technology explorations).
The latest episode of the Distributed podcast pairs Dylan, Figma’s CEO and Co-founder, and guest host Connie Yang, Head of Payments Design at Stripe, with past design leadership posts at Coinbase and Facebook.
Connie’s passion — uncovering the bits of magic surrounding us in everyday life — guides their friendly dialogue from design to remote culture and much more. Early in the show, Dylan shares what he’s learned about instilling culture in a rapidly-growing company, especially amid the changes brought on by the pandemic. “The main thing that changes once you go from in-person to remote is you can no longer rely on physical context to instill culture,” says Dylan. “It matters even more to elevate the role of design, and elevate anything you think is really important in that digital context.”
Dylan also builds on a recurring Distributed podcast theme over the past year, adding “It’s really important to be intentional about creating serendipitous moments.” Figma’s playful approach to collaboration influenced its recently-launched FigJam, a digital whiteboard that can help fill the need for serendipity.
Dylan speaks with the unique authority of a tech leader who has not only prioritized design but, with his team and products, greatly influenced it in a way that seems to have happened just in time for distributed collaboration.
“We’ve gone from a physical economy to a digital economy. I don’t think these are new trends or new things that happen but now, all of a sudden it happened all at once, and accelerated massively,” he says, echoing Matt’s May 2020 post Gradually, Then Suddenly.
“I think that we’re seeing every part of the economy shape around design,” says Dylan, noting how Figma has even observed collaboration in the product, beyond design, on days when other workplace chat tools were down.
Why does it matter? Because now, Dylan says, “Design leads to winning.”
Thank you to both of our guests for this latest episode of Distributed. We hope you enjoy it.
Congratulations to GitLab on its IPO earlier this week. You can read coverage of GitLab’s public offering at TechCrunch (GitLab’s mega IPO), Bloomberg, and plenty of other places.
In May, we interviewed CEO and Co-Founder Sid Sijbrandij on the Distributed Podcast. The conversation didn’t specifically cover a potential public offering beyond Sid acknowledging GitLab’s well-known aspirations to go public.
But the two CEOs focused on being public in great detail, especially in terms of GitLab’s well-documented transparency. In the conversation, Matt said, “…there are often CEO backchannels where you’ll ping another CEO and be like, so how does this work at your company or what do you do for this? And I would say that you are the one I ping. And 99.9 percent of the time it’s a link to your public handbook.”
Every company has a unique path to growth. Matt recently wrote about Automattic’s approach to fundraising and acquiring products, and this week TechCrunch covered our untraditional journey. Meanwhile, GitLab has carved out an unparalleled growth path, and this week is the culmination of years of effort and commitment.
Two things our companies have in common, inarguably, are a commitment to a fully distributed team, and passionate support of open source software — one of the most powerful ideas of our time.
We admire GitLab’s very transparent approach to both, and congratulate them for their listing this week.
“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.
In Distributed FAQ, Matt Mullenweg addresses some of the most common issues companies, executives, and individuals face as they consider transitioning to a distributed model.
Q. Who at Automattic has the best office setup — and what does an ideal remote office look like?
A. The short answer is: nobody and everybody.
When people join Automattic, we provide an allowance they can spend on setting up their home office. They can invest in an ergonomic chair, a standing desk, a good monitor, or almost any other item that would make their workspace more comfortable.
One of the best things about working from home, however, is that everyone gets to have a corner office — or their version thereof. You can avoid compromises that you would have to make in a shared office. This goes beyond the choice of furniture; for example, music is something that can help some people when they’re feeling low and need to change a mood or mindset. In a traditional office, they’d need to use headphones. In their home office, they can do whatever works for them.
Having complete agency over your physical environment is incredibly empowering and can inspire people to be more creative and productive. It also makes us more inclusive as a company, and allows us to attract a talent pool that includes people for whom an office isn’t the best environment.
As millions of people have switched to working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, and as their employers decide whether to continue this model indefinitely, many U.S. cities are seeing an opportunity to bring well-paid remote workers to their region.
In Distributed FAQ, Matt Mullenweg addresses some of the most common issues companies, executives, and individuals face as they consider transitioning to a distributed model.
Q. Trust and a strong shared culture are two ingredients that help companies thrive. How do you build either when coworkers don’t meet each other in the hallway every day?
A: Culture is what people do when no one is looking. Companies redefine their culture in real time whether they’re distributed or colocated.
In more normal times, meetups are key to Automattic’s culture — employees expect 3-4 weeks of travel per year, one of which is devoted to the company-wide Grand Meetup, and the rest to team and division meetups. We’ve seen that you can build trust and create bonds when you break bread across a table and meet in person, and then use that momentum to power relationships for years when everyone’s back in their home base.
But even these days, when travel is suspended for the foreseeable future, there are many ways to foster trust and to reinforce Automattic’s values and culture. We put a lot of emphasis on social communication at the company, leveraging the same tools we use for our work — P2, Slack, Zoom — to encourage informal interactions. For example, many teams start weekly meetings with a fun, non-work-related question. We created automated systems that can pair people up to chat about any topic they wish, and recently launched Connectomattic, a series of video calls based on shared interests and experiences, from meditation to baking.
Ultimately, we believe in giving teams autonomy to create a culture that works for them.
In Distributed FAQ, Matt Mullenweg addresses some of the most common issues companies, executives, and individuals face as they consider transitioning to a distributed model.
Q. With the rapid rise of distributed work, what are your top pieces of advice for someone going through the transition from a traditional work environment to a remote one?
A: There are many things individuals can do to make the switch successful, but here are five pointers to get you started.
Make a list of all the things you like and don’t like about previous work experiences and use it to design — and implement — micro-habits to increase your health and happiness. Remote work comes with the autonomy to build your own bespoke work environment.
Writing ability is crucial, and distributed work only amplifies its importance. Assume positive intent when using written communication.
Look at the outcomes you’re producing, not the time you spend at your laptop. It can be powerful to self-track and document what you’re working on. At Automattic, we encourage self-analytics — taking agency over the assessment of one’s own outcomes.
It’s important to structure your day. A little more schedule actually helps, whether it’s to keep a normal grooming routine in the morning or to set a firm time at which you turn off everything. Set a time to stop as well as to start, and find a dedicated workspace. Implement systems that help you maintain focus (e.g. the Pomodoro Technique for time management).
Implement self-care and opportunities to interact socially.
Tech news site The Information recently launched a new series, “Out of Office,” focusing on the rapid growth of remote work. Automattic CEO and Distributed Podcast host Matt Mullenweg appeared in the inaugural column, talking to reporter Nick Wingfield about his home-office setup and gear preferences:
Naturally, he has a perspective on what technologies to invest in to improve the quality of video calls, a key part of working from home. “I definitely think of a hierarchy,” says Mullenweg, CEO of Automattic, which operates WordPress[.com], Tumblr and other digital properties. “For me, it goes internet, audio, lighting, video.”
Distributed host Matt Mullenweg recently appeared on Sam Harris’s excellent podcast, Making Sense, sharing the “five levels of autonomy” when it comes to distributed work. Listen to their wide-ranging conversation on how companies transition to remote work in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. We love Sam’s podcast, Making Sense, so for more go to samharris.org/podcast/ and you can also subscribe to get his premium content, which is totally worth it.
