Toni Schneider part 2 and thoughts on virtual companies
August 28, 2009
Luckily I also heard the second part of Toni’s speech, which was amazing as well! Here two interesting and remarkable statements:
Every employee has full access to all live systems and the source code. So everybody in the company can change a feature and immediately release it. It takes 30 seconds to change all 1200 servers and another 30 seconds to fix a bug that has just been released! And by the way: there is ONE system engineer administrating all 1200 servers. ONE, let’s call him superman.
Automattic is a fully virtual company. Until a while ago they had no office, now they officially have an office in Pier 38 San Francisco, but the employees do not work there. There are some in San Francisco, but most the people are spread all over the world and therefore even the guys in San Francisco don’t work in an office to not break with the rules of being a fully virtual company. They never have any meetings, which saves lots of time. The only time they meet each other physically is at their bi-yearly event somewhere on the planet. They collaborate over IRC or the P2 theme for Wordpress.
The virtual company thing made me think. I wondered whether a virtual company could also be an option for Amazee. The answer is clearly no. One of Amazee’s core strengths is the dedication of our team, the positive culture, strong identification with Amazee and the great working environment. I can tell from myself and also often hear from the team members, how happy they are to come to work, exchange ideas, joke around and be together. At the moment we have six people living in Zurich and three people commuting from other Swiss cities to Technopark Zurich everyday (by public transportation of course!) . They all have the option to work from home, but they don’t. I guess working at home is not as rewarding and does not provide the same identity as working together in the office.
It needs a very special corporate culture to have a successful virtual company and I really admire Toni for running such a great company. Anyhow, as long as there is Amazee I don’t want to work for any other company and I would never aim to change our little cozy Amazee gem office for the virtual world.
Maybe my team members have a different opinion – feel free to comment 
Doodle CEO Mike Naef and Automattic CEO Toni Schneider
The interested crowd
