A series about the future of work from Greymatter.
Work From Anywhere
Sarah Guo
Greylock
Greylock general partner Sarah Guo hosts the Work From Anywhere podcast series, which explores the changing way people work through conversations with the most innovative technology leaders. Sarah is interested in almost everything where technology can be used as a weapon to get us to the future, faster. She spends a lot of her time thinking about opportunities in B2B applications and infrastructure, cyber security, artificial intelligence, and the future of work and communications.
Aaron Levie
CEO of Box
The series kicked off with a conversation between Sarah and Aaron Levie, the co-founder and CEO of Box. Aaron, who’s now experiencing his second recession as a company leader, takes us through their decision-making process as Box has adapted its business strategy and company policies over the years. The company, which offers a cloud storage and data management platform, sees increased relevance as an enabler of the digital workplace in the remote work era. In late May, Box announced employees could work remotely til at least 2021.
Adam D’Angelo
CEO & Founder of Quora
Greylock general partner David Thacker hosted an episode with Quora CEO and founder Adam D’Angelo. Prior to Covid-19, Adam says Quora had a strong in-office culture, with employees expected to work out of the Silicon Valley headquarters and a few other satellite offices. All product development was in a single building. But the shift to remote has been surprisingly smooth and productive, says Adam, and the company recently announced it will be a a remote-first company moving forward. Adam and David discuss the company’s adaptive measures as well as product development strategies.
David Thacker
Greylock
David shares his experience leading product development teams at Google, LinkedIn and Groupon. He also lays out his assessment of the current investment landscape as companies compete with both large established enterprises and startups operating in the same sectors.
Dylan Field
CEO & Co-Founder of Figma
Sarah Guo spoke with Figma CEO and co-founder Dylan Field, whose company has seen a surge in demand for its collaborative design software. Dylan discussed Figma’s expanded product offerings. The company is rapidly innovating in response to customer struggles to collaborate, beyond its initial visual design beachhead. Dylan shared his thought process about how to lead the so-far SF and London-based Figmates, and interact with Figma customers and community through this period.
Todd McKinnon
CEO & Co-Founder of Okta
Okta CEO and co-founder Todd McKinnon, left Salesforce in 2009 to start Okta on the promise of enabling seamless access to SaaS applications. He’s been an outspoken proponent of the more nuanced “dynamic work” rather than remote work, even prior to the pandemic. As more people work “dynamically” in today’s environment, Okta is also seeing increased demand for their products and services. In this epsiode, Todd discusses his decision to launch a startup in uncertain economic times, how that helped him adapt to the current environment, and how he thinks about Okta’s approach to the global talent market in 2020.
Kurt Schrader
CEO & Co-Founder of Shortcut
Shortcut (formerly Clubhouse Software) CEO and co-founder Kurt Schrader discusses how both the product and company, has evolved during shelter in place from “remote-friendly” to “remote-first” as well as changes in usage patterns across thousands of Shortcut teams.
Shishir Mehrotra
CEO & Co-Founder of Coda
Coda CEO and co-founder Shishir Mehrotra talks about Coda’s growth, his favorite remote work use cases, how Coda gradually became distributed, and how he works with Coda co-founder and CTO Alex DeNeui remotely.
Dan Beck
COO & Co-Founder of Utmost
Utmost COO and co-founder Dan Beck sat down with Greylock partner Saam Motamedi to discuss the evolving business climate, best practices for remote teams, and his predictions for the future of work.
Alexander Embiricos
CEO & Co-Founder of Remotion
Alexander Embiricos, the CEO and co-founder of video workspace startup Remotion, also sat down with Greymatter shortly after the company’s launch to discuss how Remotion is helping remote teams build a culture of talking live.
Wade Foster
CEO & Co-Founder of Zapier
Zapier CEO and co-founder Wade Foster sat down with Greylock general partner Sarah Guo to discuss what he’s learned in the nine years since the company was founded, and how he sees the widespread shift to remote work affecting the way companies operate in the future. Wade also shares the Zapier founding story, describing how their mission to provide the “nuts and bolts plumbing of engineering” to businesses big and small was untrendy in 2011, but is now regarded as one of the early trailblazers of the no-code and low-code software movement.
Nicholas A. Bloom
Economics Professor at Stanford University
Stanford University Professor of Economics Nicholas A. Bloom, who has spent decades researching remote work and management practices, dives into the various ways businesses around the world are thinking about returning to the office (or not) after more than a year working remotely.