In addition to getting my WordPress photo tutorial, I spent a chunk of the afternoon with my partner Peter Flint (who runs our Recruiting Team at Polaris) and Matt, Toni and Raanan from Automattic brainstorming a bunch of stuff, including how to think about building the organization.
To date, Automattic has been a virtual company, with no “office,” and this has worked quite well. Among other things, it has allowed the company to attract some of the very best software developers in the world — literally. Thinking about how to continue to get the benefits of this virtual model, while also scaling the organization as needed to sustain the business’s growth, is a fascinating challenge. It is hard to say how just how this will pan out down the road. But one thing I will bet on: Matt and Toni will develop their own model for building an organization rather than going down a tried and true path that has worked for others; and, that the Automattic model will be the right model for Automattic.
While I like to think that I am helping the guys work through the various opportunities and challenges they face, I have to confess it is a ton of fun working closely with a team whose singleminded focus on doing things “right” often leads to rewriting the rulebook as we go.
Something tells me I will look back on this having learned more from it than the team learned from me. (Don’t tell Matt and Toni I said this…)
Oh, and just to make sure the photo tutorial worked, here is a photo of Matt and Toni:
