Episode 22: Job van der Voort - From first employee at GitLab to founding Remote.com and shaping the future of work

Job van der Voort (@Jobvo) is the CEO and one of the founders of Remote.com. Remote makes it possible to employ anyone, anywhere in the world. Their mission is to simplify how companies employ the best talent globally and to help remote organizations do their best work. They offer services such as international payroll, benefits, taxes, and compliance for businesses big and small - so that they can hire anyone in the world - while outsourcing all the admin & legal work to Remote. Remote's vision is to become the "stripe for (remote) work". Remote is also among the fastest growing startups globally and is backed by some of the best venture capital investors in the world, such as Index Ventures, Sequoia, General Catalyst, Two Sigma, and many more very accomplished angel investors. Before founding Remote, Job worked as neuroscientist, and he was one of the first engineers that joined GitLab. In his role as VP of product, Job was responsible for GitLab's product development and he helped grow the company from 5 to 450+ employees. Today GitLab is one of the largest distributed companies in the world. We discuss: The advantages of remote work Best practices for working from home The origin story of Remote.com Tips for aspiring entrepreneurs and much more Show notes: 00:50 -- Intro 03:49 -- Personal intro from Job van der Voort 06:59 -- How Job started as one of the first engineers at Gitlab 07:37 -- Background to Gitlab - What is Gitlab? 08:05 -- Job’s first touchpoints with working for a fully distributed / remote company 10:07 -- Insights into Job’s role at Gitlab as VP of product 11:37 -- Gitlab’s growth and scaling up 12:40 -- Collaboration tools 14:06 -- Advantages of remote work 16:33 - The shift to remote-first from employers perspective 17:56 -- Second order effects of shifting to remote work 20:30 -- Best practices for remote work 24:59 -- The origin story of Remote.com - How remote.com was started 27:45 -- Introduction to what remote.com does 30:35 -- Remote.com’s venture capital fundraise 32:00 -- Customers of Remote.com 33:23 -- Remote.com as stripe for remote work 36:09 -- Job’s vision for remote.com in 5 years 37:19 -- Job van der Voort’s advice for aspiring entrepreneurs and leaptakers 40:39 -- Labor market and demand for remote roles 42:36 -- Book that had biggest personal impact 43:08 -- Job’s favorite remote collaboration tool 44:42 -- Advice to younger self 45:03 -- What courage means to Job