WEBVTT

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The basic problem
with working in an office

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is you're just not in control
of your work environment.

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[The Way We Work]

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Howdy, my name is Matt,
and I'm the CEO of Automattic,

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the company behind WordPress.com,
Jetpack and WooCommerce.

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We're coming up on over 800 employees,
and they live everywhere,

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from California to Alabama, Mississippi,
to where I live in Texas.

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They're also in 67 countries.

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Canada, Mexico, India, New Zealand.

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Some of them choose not even
to have a home base, they're nomads.

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Whether they are in RVs
or traveling through Airbnbs,

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they are in new places
every day, week or month.

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As long as they can find good Wi-Fi,
we don't care where they are.

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Our focus on distributed work
didn't happen accidentally.

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It was a conscious choice
from the very beginning.

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Notice I don't use the word "remote,"

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because it sets up the expectation,

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that some people are essential
and some aren't.

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I use the word "distributed"
to describe what we do,

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where everyone is
on an equal playing field.

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I think a distributed workforce

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is the most effective way
to build a company.

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The key is you have to
approach it consciously.

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When we started WordPress,

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many of the first 20 hires
were people I'd never met in person.

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But we'd collaborated online,
sometimes for years.

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I wanted to continue that
for one simple reason.

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I believe that talent and intelligence

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are equally distributed
throughout the world.

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But opportunity is not.

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In Silicon Valley,
the big tech companies fish

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from essentially
the same small pond or bay.

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A distributed company
can fish from the entire ocean.

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Instead of hiring someone who grew up
in Japan but lives in California,

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you can gain someone who lives, works,

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wakes up and goes to sleep
wherever they are in the world.

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They bring a different
understanding of that culture

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and a different lived experience.

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At the base of the decision
to go distributed,

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there's a desire to give people autonomy
over how they do their work.

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Unless you're in a role
where specific hours are important,

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you can make your own schedule.

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Everyone can have a corner office,
their windows, the food they want to eat,

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you can choose when there's music
and when there's silence.

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You can choose what temperature
the room should be.

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You can save the time
you'd spend commuting

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and put it into things
that are important to you.

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A distributed workforce
is ideal for a technology company.

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But people often ask me,

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"This works great for y'all,
but what about everyone else?"

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If you have an office,

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you can do a few things
to build distributed capability.

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First: document everything.

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In an office, it's easy
to make decisions in the moment,

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in the kitchen, in the hall.

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But if people work remotely

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and some members of the team
are having those conversations

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they don't have access to,

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they'll see these decisions being made
without understanding the why.

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Always leave a trail of where you were
and what you were thinking about.

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This allows others to pick up
where you left off.

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It allows people in different
time zones to interact,

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it's also great to think about
as an organization evolves,

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people leaving and people joining.

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Try to have as much communication
as possible online.

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When everything's shared and public,
it allows new people to catch up quickly.

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You also need to find the right tools.

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There are so many apps and services
that help with day-to-day communication,

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video conferencing, project management.

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The things that changed how you work
probably aren't objects anymore.

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They're things you access
through your computer.

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So experiment with different
tools that enable collaboration,

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see what works.

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Create productive, face-to-face time.

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In a traditional office,

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you're in the same place
48 weeks out of the year

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and you might have
three or four weeks apart.

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We try to flip that: we come together
for short, intense bursts.

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Once a year we do a grand meet-up

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where the entire company
comes together for a week.

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It's half-work, half-play.

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The primary goal is connecting people.

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We want to make sure
everyone's aligned and on the same page,

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and they have a deeper connection
with their colleagues.

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When they work together
the rest of the year,

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they can bring together
that understanding and empathy.

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And the final practice:

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give people the flexibility
to make their own work environment.

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Every person at Automattic
has a co-working stipend

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that they can put
towards a co-working space

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or just to buy coffee, so they don't
get kicked out of the coffee shop.

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One group in Seattle
decided to pool their stipends together

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and rented a workspace on a fishing pier.

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Each person who joins the company
gets a home-office stipend.

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This is money they can invest
in getting the right chair, monitor,

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the right desk setup, so they can have
the most productive environment for them.

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Today, there are just a few companies
that are distributed first.

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In a decade or two,
I predict that 90 percent of companies

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that are going to be changing
the course of the world

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are going to function this way.

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They will evolve to be distributed first,
or they'll be replaced by those that are.

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As you think about
what you're going to build next,

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consider how you can tap
into global talent,

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give people autonomy to live and work
where they feel they should

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and still participate fully in whatever
it is that you're creating together.