Automattic editor Mark Armstrong turns the interview table on our host, Matt Mullenweg, to discuss how Automattic became one of the biggest fully distributed companies in the world.

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Produced by Mark Armstrong and the team at Charts & Leisure: Jason Oberholtzer, Whitney Donaldson, Cole Stryker, Levi Sharpe, and Michael Simonelli. Theme music by Jason Oberholtzer. Cover art by Matt Avery.More 
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Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg on building a fully distributed company

Matt Mullenweg, cofounder of WordPress and CEO of Automattic, embarks on a journey to understand the future of work. Having built his own company with no offices and more than 1,300 employees in 76 countries, speaking 95 different languages, Mullenweg examines the benefits and challenges of distributed work and recruiting talented people around the globe.

Technology

Tech News

Podcasting

Gadgets

Software How-To

Business

Investing

Careers

Management & Marketing

Business News

Shopping

On this episode of the Distributed podcast, we dig into the good, the bad, and the history of Automattic meetups. More

Episode 30: The Magic of Meetups

The latest episode of the Distributed podcast pairs Dylan Field, Figma’s CEO and Co-founder, and guest host Connie Yang, Head of Payments Design at Stripe. Join a discussion on design, instilling remote culture, and the digital economy, including Field's perspective on the role of design in technology. “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.More 
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Episode 29: Dylan Field, Figma Co-founder, Talks Design, Digital Economy, and Remote Culture with Host Connie Yang

Whether making 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, as Matt says in the latest Distributed podcast episode with Erica Pandey, business journalist and writer of the What’s Next newsletter at Axios. This fast-paced conversation covers a lot of ground, from Erica’s own journalism career, to how she works with her Axios colleagues across bureaus. She balances Axios’ Smart Brevity style with authoritative reporting on complex topics, seeking multiples perspectives, from data to experts to people on the ground.  Says Erica, “One of my greatest joys is being able to talk to people.”

The lively conversation centers on how we’re all returning to work after so much change and adaptation, including the rise of hybrid workplaces.More 
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Episode 28: Erica Pandey of Axios on Returning to Work

Matt Mullenweg joins Shane Parrish on The Knowledge Project podcast to talk about companies that are distributed from the beginning, and some of the benefits that means for its people.  "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."More 
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Distributed by Default: Matt Mullenweg on The Knowledge Project

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 how GitLab’s six values are reinforced in 20 ways at the fully-remote company.  GitLab, now with more than 1,300 employees, updated its values over 300 times in the last calendar year.  “They have to be reinforced,” says Sid, “and be alive in that way.”   

The values, how they are experienced, and most other details and data about GitLab's processes are publicly shared in a 10,000 page Handbook. "Transparency is sunlight," says Sid.

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Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg on building a fully distributed company

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