Read more about the Grand Meetup in “The Importance of IRL in a World of Screens.”

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On this episode of the Distributed podcast, we get an insider’s look at the Grand Meetup, Automattic’s annual weeklong all-staff event, where employees have an opportunity to collaborate, learn from one another, and hang out face-to-face. Folks from across the company share what makes this gathering so special, talk about social cohesion in the context of a large distributed company, and reflect on what’s great (and what’s tough) about the distributed lifestyle.

The full episode transcript is below.

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Mark Armstrong: Okay go.

Josepha: The song that’s in my head right now is “Good morning. Good morning.” My name is Josepha Haden Chomphosy. I shouldn’t say it like a question. That is my name. My name is Josepha.

Mark: Great to see you. Thank you for stopping by the Automattic podcast booth. Josepha what do you do with Automattic?

Josepha: Great question. A little bit of everything. I am the lead of the .Organization Division, which is the division that supports and helps to guide a lot of our open-source work with the WordPress project itself.

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Mark: Who are you? Tell me your name.

Aaron Douglas: My name is Aaron Douglas. I am a Mobile Wrangler for Automattic. My official job title is actually Chief Tater Tot Officer — I neglected to change that and it just stuck. I work on the WooCommerce mobile app as my primary thing, but everywhere around Automattic I try to help out where I can.

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Mark: OK. Here we are in the hallway again. What’s your name and what do you do at Automattic?

Brandon Kraft: Hi, I’m Brandon Kraft. I’m a Code Wrangler working with our Jetpack plugin.

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Mark: What is your name?

Sheri: Sheri Bigelow.

Mark: And what do you do at Automattic?

Sheri: I am an Excellence Wrangler.

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Rocío Valdivia: My name is Rocío Valdivia. I am from Spain and I’m a Community Wrangler at Automattic.

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Achaessa James: I’m Achaessa and I’m with the Legal team.

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Will Brubaker: So my name is Will Brubaker. I am the Chief Mechanical Officer.

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Erin Casali: So hello, I’m Erin Casali, often referred as “Folletto,” and I currently work as the Design Lead of Jetpack. And how long? It’s been a while now, six years.

Mark: Where are we now, here?

Erin: So we are — I think — in Orlando, because we are inside a hotel, and have been a while, so I’m not entirely sure where we are? Your hotels look all the same. But we’re in Orlando. I lost count of time. I think we are on day three or four of the Grand Meetup.

Mark: It really is a blur, isn’t it?

Erin: It is.

Mark: Thank you for being here.

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Matt Mullenweg: Howdy howdy, I’m Matt Mullenweg, the CEO of Automattic, and the host of the Distributed podcast. Those voices you just heard? Those were Automatticians — folks who work for Automattic — and today we’re going to be hearing from them about this year’s Grand Meetup, and more broadly, what distributed work means to them. Back in September, Automattic held its annual Grand Meetup, which is the one time during the entire year that pretty much everyone at Automattic gets together in one place. The other 51 weeks of the year, we all work from different places all over the world — over 70 countries now. So this is a chance for some of us to meet face-to-face for the first time, and for everyone to catch up with old friends, discuss our work and align around our goals, and hear great talks from folks like Stephen Wolfram (who was a guest on this podcast a few weeks back). We set up a recording booth at the meetup and talked to a bunch of folks from around the company to hear about their experiences with distributed work. My colleagues Mark Armstrong and Ben Huberman were on the ground, asking questions throughout the meetup. Mark and Ben are from Automattic’s Editorial team, and they’ve also been helping out a ton with this podcast. We’ll kick things off with some Automatticians talking about why meetups matter for distributed teams, then get into an interview with Megan Marcel, our Director of Global Events & Sponsorships, about what it takes to pull off this huge event with so many people — I think we had around 900 this time. Then we’ll hear some remote work tips, and finish with some stories about why these folks have chosen the distributed lifestyle. OK, let’s do it. Take it away, Mark.

Mark: OK, thank you, Matt. Now that we’ve met some of our colleagues from Automattic, let’s go deeper and learn a little bit more about their experiences at the Grand Meetup. If I can set the scene a little bit, Ben and I stationed ourselves at different tables outside in the hallways of this conference room in Orlando — just a few miles from Walt Disney World. We just flagged down people as we saw them, or people would see us with a microphone and say, “Hey, what’s that? Can I get interviewed?” I have to say it was super fun to have an excuse to pull people aside and interview them and ask them about their experience at the Grand Meetup. It can be such a nerve-wracking experience to be surrounded by all the people you work with, so it’s just fun to take a step back and look at the scene, and ask some questions of each other on what it’s all about and why we’re even there in the first place. 

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Mark: Now we’re here at the Grand Meetup in Orlando, Florida. What is the Grand Meetup?

Josepha: The Grand Meetup is basically like a company all-hands. I think that’s how corporate places call it, where we get everybody from the company who’s able and willing together in one place to do some additional training, additional team-building, and a lot of [the things that have] to happen when you work in a distributed company. So when you work in a distributed company, every time that you interact with your colleagues via text, or however you are away from them, you are taking out of your social bank account with them. And so when you get people together, that’s when you have the opportunity to see each other face to face, remind everybody that you’re all human beings, and fill that social capital back up, because it’s so hard to communicate via text. That’s one of the main benefits of bringing everybody together this way. Of course we have a lot of trainings and a lot of opportunities to have high-bandwidth conversations. But I think that’s one of the main benefits, and it’s almost a side-effect benefit. I don’t think anyone thinks actively about that when they bring everybody together for this.

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Mark: When did you join Automattic?

Achaessa: November 1 in 2018, so I give a flash talk this year. It’s my first GM.

Mark: Fantastic. So what how has it been so far? 

Achaessa: The GM? I love it. I love it. I’m meeting all these people who I’ve been working with all this time and it’s so awesome. It’s like the best in the world.

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Will: It’s a very energizing experience to be here. My job is very demanding, and my life is very demanding, and everything around us is very demanding. I start to get de-energized in about July or August, and it’s also like things are physically — it’s hot outside, and things are more difficult in this time of year, at least for me. But then I get here, and I get around people and I ask questions there that are on my mind and what I’m passionate about, and I want a real answer here. And you know what? I get a real answer, and I get an answer that inspires me and makes me want to go home and work harder. You know what? I’m empowered now to fix the things that have exhausted me, and we’re going to start over, and we’re going to move towards the next year’s goals, and I’m very clear what those are. And that’s what this does for me, is that it’s a reset. It energizes.

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Ben: So right now we are in Orlando for the annual Grand Meetup. What does the Grand Meetup mean to you?

Rocío Valdivia: Wow. The Grand Meetup means a lot of things to me. I love the energy. I come back home with all my batteries charged for the rest of the year. I’m very aligned with the values of this company and I’m very aligned with the kind of people that I find here in general. Nobody’s normal, right, and everybody’s different in so many different ways. And in this company you can be however you want to be, and [be] nice to each other. And something that I will highlight as well is that everybody helps each other. I love that. And what I value the most about the GM is the connections that I create in person, that I can use them. It’s like I take advantage of all the connections I create in person during the GM the rest of the year. I lea