[Founder’s Real Talk #21] Distributed Work and Async Communication

One of the superpowers of our startup is our distributed work model. However, as our team has grown, keeping a balance between async and sync communication has become increasingly difficult. This challenge will only amplify as we continue to scale.

We have been actively leaning toward thought leadership pieces on this topic, such as — GitLab Remote Work Guide and a16z Pay Without Borders podcast. But the organizational behavioral challenge to us may be different since we are building with a different vision — more inclusive for displaced people and eventually maybe moving down the skill level.

Here are some examples:

• The concept of distributed work is still relatively new, so many people have yet to adjust to it, both consciously and subconsciously trying to cling to the traditional “office work” culture.
• Also because distributed work is relatively new, it is still unclear if it will prove to be beneficial for everyone, at least within the million people we plan to onboard.
• Generally, individual contributors (who likely have worked as freelancers before) tend to have fewer issues embracing this model, whereas managers and client-facing teams encounter disproportionately more difficulties.
• Considering the diverse backgrounds amongst our team members — from domain knowledge, culture, language, working practices, etc. — it can be incredibly challenging to create an even playing field within a distributed work environment.