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-per...
May 26, 2023•58 min
Subscribe to Distributed at Pocket Casts , Apple Podcasts , Spotify , RSS , or wherever you like to listen . 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’...
Nov 19, 2021•1 hr 2 min
Subscribe to Distributed at Pocket Casts , Apple Podcasts , Spotify , RSS , or wherever you like to listen . We admire journalists today more than ever. Whether getting their start as a solo blogger on their own beat, or growing up in a thriving newsroom, journalists must forge their own unique work life as they write the first draft of history. So it’s no surprise that this episode of the Distributed podcast with Matt Mullenweg and special guest Erica Pandey, business journalist and writer of t...
Jul 22, 2021•48 min
Subscribe to Distributed at Pocket Casts , Apple Podcasts , Spotify , RSS , or wherever you like to listen . “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...
Jun 10, 2021•1 hr 26 min
Subscribe to Distributed at Pocket Casts , Apple Podcasts , Spotify , RSS , or wherever you like to listen . “Every company has a poster on the wall,” says Matt Mullenweg in the latest episode of The Distributed Podcast. Matt welcomes Sid Sijbrandij, Co-founder and CEO of GitLab, another pioneering company with Open Source origins and a long-running commitment to a completely distributed workforce. Sid and Matt settle into a conversation about GitLab’s six values – which have been cut down from ...
May 21, 2021•1 hr 19 min
Subscribe to Distributed at Pocket Casts , Apple Podcasts , Spotify , RSS , or wherever you like to listen . “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 ecosyst...
May 11, 2021•1 hr 23 min
Subscribe to Distributed at Pocket Casts , Apple Podcasts , Spotify , RSS , or wherever you like to listen . 500-page bound merger agreements, office printers, and libraries lined with law books. Legal work looks a lot different now that most in-house counsel (and law firms for that matter) have adopted some form of distributed work. But that doesn’t mean the work itself has changed. Contracts still need to be written and signed, litigation still needs to happen, and employment law might be more...
Apr 23, 2021•48 min
Subscribe to Distributed at Pocket Casts , Apple Podcasts , Spotify , RSS , or wherever you like to listen . “Was there a palpable time when you felt like…you had to have a new kind of thought as you got bigger?” asks Mike Maples Jr., host of the Starting Greatness podcast in an April conversation with Automattic founder and CEO Matt Mullenweg. Matt shares several such pivotal moments in an episode full of stories and insight from the growth of Automattic, and of his own journey and leadership e...
Apr 20, 2021•40 min
Subscribe to Distributed at Pocket Casts , Apple Podcasts , Spotify , RSS , or wherever you like to listen . Join us for the latest episode of Distributed, as Matt Mullenweg interviews Jack Dorsey, co-founder and CEO of Twitter and Square. They discuss how both companies have embraced remote collaboration, the underrated value of deliberate work, and how questioning preconceived models from the get-go can change everything. This spring, Jack Dorsey told Twitter and Square employees they could wo...
Dec 16, 2020•1 hr 16 min
Subscribe to Distributed at Pocket Casts , Apple Podcasts , Spotify , RSS , or wherever you like to listen . Trying to sound your best as you work away from an office more than ever before? As audio and video conferencing surge worldwide, Matt talks about the science of sound with Davit Baghdasaryan , the CEO of Krisp , a fast-growing company offering an AI-powered noise cancellation app for removing background noise on any conferencing platform. Krisp’s technology , including its proprietary de...
Oct 15, 2020•43 min
Subscribe to Distributed at Pocket Casts , Apple Podcasts , Spotify , RSS , or wherever you like to listen . Are companies setting up their managers for success? What are BICEPS? How do you assemble your colleagues like a management Voltron? Lara Hogan is the founder of Wherewithall , a firm that specializes in management and leadership training — a company that Automattic has worked with in the past. She’s the author of Resilient Management , a must-read for anyone who is a manager, wants to be...
Jul 24, 2020•38 min
Subscribe to Distributed at Pocket Casts , Apple Podcasts , Spotify , RSS , or wherever you like to listen . “We have introduced so many frictions to people’s lives by forcing them to move.” Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury, the Lumry Family Associate Professor at Harvard Business School, studies the future of work — specifically the changing geography of work. What happens to cities, to immigration policies, and to issues around gender equity when more companies let people work from anywhere? Choudhu...
Jul 03, 2020•50 min
Subscribe to Distributed at Pocket Casts , Apple Podcasts , Spotify , RSS , or wherever you like to listen . Is working from home a breakthrough for introverts? The answer, of course, is not so simple. Matt Mullenweg’s latest Distributed conversation is with Morra Aarons-Mele , host of The Anxious Achiever podcast for HBR Presents from Harvard Business Review , and founder of award-winning social impact agency Women Online and its database of women influencers, The Mission List . She’s also the ...
Jun 19, 2020•52 min
Subscribe to Distributed at Pocket Casts , Apple Podcasts , Spotify , RSS , or wherever you like to listen . Matt Mullenweg speaks with neuroscientist Dr. Adam Gazzaley, co-author of the 2016 book The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World , about how our brains work, particularly during times like the current pandemic. How does the brain handle internal and external stimuli, and what do we know about the effect of practices like meditation, exercise, nutrition, and sleep? Gazzaley...
Apr 29, 2020•57 min
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. Subscribe to Distributed at Pocket Casts , ...
Apr 15, 2020
Subscribe to Distributed at Pocket Casts , Apple Podcasts , Spotify , RSS , or wherever you like to listen . The world has dramatically changed in just a few weeks. As companies around the world shift to remote work, how do we navigate this crisis? Distributed host Matt Mullenweg talks to Vanessa Van Edwards, bestselling author, speaker, and founder of Science of People, about how we communicate with our friends, family, and coworkers during a time when Zoom and Slack are our primary tools for u...
Apr 09, 2020•46 min
Read more about Jason Fried in “ Working Smaller, Slower, and Smarter .” Subscribe to Distributed at Pocket Casts , Apple Podcasts , Spotify , RSS , or wherever you like to listen . For our first episode of the year, host Matt Mullenweg talks to Jason Fried, the CEO of Basecamp. Jason runs a semi-distributed company that’s been making project management software for 20 years. He’s accumulated a wealth of wisdom about how trusting employees and treating them with respect can yield long-term succe...
Jan 09, 2020•33 min
Read more of our 2019 takeaways in “ Eight Lessons from the Distributed Podcast So Far .” Subscribe to Distributed at Pocket Casts , Apple Podcasts , Spotify , RSS , or wherever you like to listen . To close out the year, our host Matt Mullenweg is joined once again by Automattic’s Mark Armstrong to discuss the state of distributed work as we transition into a new decade. Matt discusses his key takeaways from his 2019 conversations on the podcast, and reflects on his year as the CEO of a growing...
Dec 26, 2019•44 min
Read more about Anil Dash in “ To Remake Tech, Remake the Tech Company “ Subscribe to Distributed at Pocket Casts , Apple Podcasts , Spotify , RSS , or wherever you like to listen . Anil Dash didn’t like the direction the web was going, so he joined a tech company that promised to take web development back to its indie roots. That company became Glitch, a semi-distributed company based in New York City. In this episode, Matt and Anil talk about the good old days of blogging and how the ideals of...
Dec 12, 2019•57 min
Read more about the Grand Meetup in “The Importance of IRL in a World of Screens.” Subscribe to Distributed at Pocket Casts , Apple Podcasts , Spotify , RSS , or wherever you like to listen . On this episode of the Distributed podcast, we get an insider’s look at the Grand Meetup, Automattic’s annual weeklong all-staff event, where employees have an opportunity to collaborate, learn from one another, and hang out face-to-face. Folks from across the company share what makes this gathering so spec...
Nov 26, 2019•1 hr 11 min
Read more about Clark Valberg in “Building the Tools that Bring the Screen to Life.” Subscribe to Distributed at Pocket Casts , Apple Podcasts , Spotify , RSS , or wherever you like to listen . InVision CEO Clark Valberg needed a tool to help his distributed team collaborate on design projects. So he created it — and it became the company’s flagship product, one that every Fortune 100 company now uses. In this episode, Clark joins our host Matt Mullenweg to discuss how he built his distributed c...
Nov 14, 2019•33 min
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 ma...
Oct 31, 2019•32 min
Read more about Taso Du Val in “Inside Toptal’s Distributed Screening Process.” Subscribe to Distributed at Pocket Casts , Apple Podcasts , Spotify , RSS , or wherever you like to listen . When hiring managers interview a candidate for a high-level role, they want to be sure that the person they choose will be productive and able to work well with their prospective team. But what if the hiring process takes place over video chat? A growing number of companies outsource the vetting process to a c...
Oct 17, 2019•30 min
Read more about Stephen Wolfram in “The Machine that Turns Ideas into Real Things.” Subscribe to Distributed at Pocket Casts , Apple Podcasts , Spotify , RSS , or wherever you like to listen . Stephen Wolfram started out on an academic career path, but eventually realized that founding a company would allow him to pursue his scientific work more efficiently. He’s served as a remote CEO of Wolfram Research for the last 28 years. In this episode, Stephen shares with host Matt Mullenweg — another r...
Oct 03, 2019•46 min
Read more about Sonal Gupta in “Welcome to the Chaos.” Subscribe to Distributed at Pocket Casts , Apple Podcasts , Spotify , RSS , or wherever you like to listen . Sonal Gupta leads Automattic’s Other Bets division, a team that builds products that aren’t yet core to Automattic’s business, but keep the company innovating and pushing it to explore new territory. In this episode, Sonal and our host Matt Mullenweg talk about how important communication is in the organized chaos of a fully distribut...
Sep 19, 2019•15 min
Read more about Scott Berkun in “ Observe, Don’t Surveil: Managing Distributed Teams with Respect .” Subscribe to Distributed at Pocket Casts , Apple Podcasts , Spotify , RSS , or wherever you like to listen . Scott Berkun wrote the book on distributed teams. Literally. He spent a couple of years at Automattic and wrote about his experience as a manager in a distributed company. In this episode, Scott talks about that experience, discusses how things have changed since, and explains how today’s ...
Sep 05, 2019•32 min
Read more about Cate Huston in “ How to Build and Strengthen Distributed Engineering Teams .” Subscribe to Distributed at Pocket Casts , Apple Podcasts , Spotify , RSS , or wherever you like to listen . Cate Huston is the Head of Developer Experience at Automattic, where her team is responsible for hiring, onboarding, and retaining some of the best software engineers in the world. In this episode, Cate talks with Matt about what kinds of people thrive on distributed engineering teams, and how te...
Aug 22, 2019•28 min
Read more about Leo Widrich in “ How to Stay Connected in a Distributed World .” Subscribe to Distributed at Pocket Casts , Apple Podcasts , Spotify , RSS , or wherever you like to listen . Leo Widrich co-founded Buffer, the social media management software company, in 2010. But like many founders, the frantic pace and daily stresses of startup life caught up to him. After spending a couple of years in a Buddhist monastery studying mindfulness and learning to build emotional resilience, Leo now ...
Aug 08, 2019•33 min
Read more about John Maeda in “ Helping Creativity Happen from a Distance .” Subscribe to Distributed at Pocket Casts , Apple Podcasts , Spotify , RSS , or wherever you like to listen . John Maeda has spent the last three years leading Automattic’s design team, and on this episode of the Distributed podcast, he reflects on what he’s learned with our host, Matt Mullenweg. John shares how to facilitate collaborative creativity across a distributed team, explains why smart managers blog (and vlog) ...
Jul 25, 2019•36 min
Read more about Zoe Harte in “ How to do HR in a Blended Company ” and about Han Yuan in “ Engineering with Empathy .” Subscribe to Distributed at Pocket Casts , Apple Podcasts , Spotify , RSS , or wherever you like to listen . On today’s episode, two leaders at Upwork share how they do distributed. First up is Zoe Harte, Upwork’s Head of Human Resources and Talent Innovation, who speaks about her experience of overseeing a blended team of full-time and freelance employees. Then, I talk to Han Y...
Jul 11, 2019•42 min
