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Async, not avatars: Slack’s Stewart Butterfield on the future of work Dec 15, 2021

Show notes

Stewart Butterfield has a lot of thoughts about how work should work. Which is not exactly surprising, given that he’s the CEO of Slack, and now works for Salesforce, two companies that are at the center of the digital workplace for businesses around the world. He’s seen what the shift to remote-first work has done to many companies, and how digital transformation has changed business’ conception of what “work” even looks like. It all sounds a little philosophical — and maybe it is — but it’s also the stuff companies everywhere are grappling with right now.

But 2021 was hardly an ordinary year. The way we worked and lived will (hopefully!) not be the way we work and live forever. So what trends should we leave behind, and which should we embrace? And maybe just as important, which are going to stick around no matter how we feel? The future of work doesn’t have to look like the present, but it doesn’t have to look like the past either.

For our last Source Code interview of the year, we asked Butterfield to look back at 2021 and ahead to 2022, to try and figure out what the future of work might look like. Will asynchronous work become the norm? Will companies and employees gain a better work-life balance? Will all our meetings move to the metaverse? How should we set up notifications, build culture, and create inclusive companies when everyone’s a rectangle on a laptop screen? Butterfield has thoughts and ideas on all of it, and lessons for everyone heading into another, hopefully much less chaotic year.

For more on the topics discussed in this episode:

For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.

Super-fast delivery and super-powerful DAOs Dec 12, 2021

Show notes

Anna Kramer joins the show to talk about DoorDash’s new 15-minute delivery service, what it takes to move stuff around that fast, and why the industry is obsessed with speed. Then, Tomio Geron discusses the DAOs trying to buy an NBA team, the constitution, movie rights and more, and explains how far DAOs can really go.

For more on the topics in this episode:

For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.

How Matter became the future of the smart home Dec 08, 2021

Show notes

For the first time, it looks like the smart home industry is on the path to being … smart. In large part, that’s because most of the companies in the space have decided to work together to support a standard called Matter that governs the way devices talk to each other, and would ensure that devices can interoperate and communicate no matter where they came from.

Tobin Richardson is the CEO of the Connectivity Standards Alliance, the organization responsible for creating, certifying and controlling Matter. His organization counts a huge number of consumer-tech companies as members, from Google and Apple and Amazon to Ikea and Comcast. Richardson’s job is to wrangle all these players, including some of the world’s largest and most powerful companies, toward a single vision for the future of the smart home. It’s not always easy.

Richardson joined the Source Code podcast to explain the history of the CSA and Matter, why all these companies finally decided to work together, and what it takes to keep a lot of opinionated engineers on task and on mission.

For more on the topics discussed in this episode:

For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.

Big Tech’s big job shuffle Dec 05, 2021

Show notes

Issie Lapowsky joins the show to discuss Jack Dorsey’s sudden exit from Twitter, the waning cult of the founder, and what’s next for the social network. Then Ben Pimentel joins to chat about why Dorsey wanted to focus on Square, why Square is now called Block, and the company’s crypto-first future. Finally, Ben Brody chats about the confirmation hearings for Gigi Sohn and Alan Davidson, and what happens next in the Meta/Giphy antitrust saga.

For more on the topics in this episode:

For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.

Where everyone’s a CEO and nobody works full time Dec 01, 2021

Show notes

Anyone who tells you they know what the future of work looks like is lying to you. For some people, post-pandemic work looks completely different than it once did, while others are already back in the office in roughly the same way as before. But there are big trends, even bigger than the pandemic, around remote work, flexibility, corporate values, and work-life balance, that are disrupting all facets of the workplace.

Hayden Brown, the CEO of freelancing platform Upwork, is definitely biased toward a freelance-first, gig-based version of the future of work. But she’s also had a front-row seat to a huge amount of change, after becoming CEO of the company only a few weeks before the pandemic hit. Since then, she’s had to help employers and workers alike navigate new ways of finding work and new ways of getting things done. And while she admits freelancing isn’t for everyone, she’s also confident that neither is a full-time job.

Brown joined the Source Code podcast to discuss Upwork’s recent rebrand and its efforts to describe and understand the future of work. She also talked about how a push for flexibility is changing workplaces everywhere, why the freelance economy is so appealing to so many people, and what companies can do to catch up.

For more on the topics discussed in this episode:

Hayden Brown on Twitter
Upwork’s “The Great Work Teardown” study
An inside look at Upwork’s rebrand — Upwork
How freelancing is changing work — The New York Times

For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.

Shipping is easy. Returns are a pain. Returnmates has a plan. Nov 24, 2021

Show notes

The shipping industry is not short on new ideas about how to get things to people faster, cheaper and easier. Want a toothbrush and a burrito at your house in 15 minutes? That’s almost certainly doable. And it’s an increasingly competitive space.

Eric Wimer and Kristian Zak, the founders of Returnmates, are focused on the other end of the buying process: the returns. They’re trying to build a system that is just as efficient and convenient (and almost as fast) for sending back the stuff you don’t want after all. They’re partnering with some big brands in the process, which are betting that by making returns easier, they might actually be able to make customers more comfortable shopping online in the first place.

Wimer and Zak joined the Source Code podcast to talk about the returns industry, why businesses are finally coming around to making returns easy, and how to build an efficient system to get people’s unwanted clothes, gadgets, rugs and dollhouses back from whence they came.

For more on the topics discussed in this episode:

For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.

Buying the Constitution and repairing your iPhone Nov 21, 2021

Show notes

Anna Kramer joins the show to tell the story of ConstitutionDAO, and the crypto fans who tried to buy the U.S. Constitution. Then, Ben Brody explains what’s behind Apple’s new Self Service Repair Program, and whether this is really a huge win for the right-to-repair movement.

For more on the topics discussed in this episode:

For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.

Ring's journey to the center of the smart home Nov 17, 2021

Show notes

Tech is currently reckoning with its role in the real world, and what happens when our digital and physical lives collide. Jamie Siminoff, the founder and CEO of Ring, has been thinking about that for a decade. Ring has spent the last few years trying to figure out how to balance privacy and safety, what it takes to make people feel comfortable putting tech in their homes (or with the tech their neighbors may have installed), and what it means to be a good citizen. After some high-profile issues and a lot of scrutiny about its policies, Siminoff and Ring have spent the last couple of years rethinking all of their ideas.

Ring recently announced a number of new products, including the Alarm Pro security system that includes internet backup and a smart-home hub, and the Always Home Cam, a drone designed to fly around your house and keep an eye on things. Those products represent some of Ring’s most ambitious work yet, as it tries to both define and refine what home security means.

Siminoff joined the Source Code podcast to discuss Ring’s new products, how his thinking on security and privacy have evolved, why a drone might actually be less intrusive than your average security camera, and what it took for Ring to force all its users to turn on two-factor authentication. Oh, and why it’s so hard for a computer to tell the difference between a dog and an intruder.

For more on the topics discussed in this episode:

Jamie Siminoff on Twitter
Ring Always Home Cam, an Indoor Flying Camera
Ring Alarm Pro
We Tested Ring’s Security. It’s Awful — Vice
At Ring’s R&D Team, Security Gaps and Rookie Engineers — The Information
Ring’s Services Have Not Been Compromised – Here’s What You Need to Know — Ring
How Public Safety Agencies Use Neighbors — Ring
A Dad Is Suing Amazon's Ring Because He Says A Hacker Terrified His Kids — BuzzFeed

For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.

Fake resumes, real metaverses, and letters from Congress Nov 14, 2021

Show notes

Anna Kramer joins the show to discuss Elon Musk’s confusing sale of Tesla stock, what a fake resume says about the state of recruiting in tech, and how Apple’s new MacBook Pros have become the hot new software engineer perk. Then, Janko Roettgers breaks down the metaverse: what it is, when it’s coming, what it’ll look like, and the problems we should expect. Finally, Ben Brody explains why members of Congress love writing letters, and why it might be a more effective strategy than you think.

For more on the topics discussed in this episode:

For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.

The quest for the travel super app Nov 10, 2021

Show notes

Nina Herold does not buy the idea that business travel isn’t coming back post-pandemic. Even with more employees working remotely, even with Zoom and async creeping toward the mainstream, plenty of people will still get on planes, trains and highways to get the job done.

That doesn’t mean business travel won’t change, though. Herold, the chief product and operations officer at TripActions, thinks it might change a lot. Rather than travel for sales calls, employees might travel to quarterly team all-hands offsites; rather than a few people traveling constantly, everyone might travel a little. Most of all, Herold said, TripActions has found that a pandemic spent at home has made everyone rethink how, why and when they travel. And that there’s a big market to be won in that transition.

Investors seem to agree: TripActions, which laid off nearly 300 people at the beginning of the pandemic, has since raised two huge funding rounds and is now valued at $7.25 billion, nearly doubling the company’s valuation from two years ago. Boosted by huge growth and that massive pile of cash, TripActions is now set on an equally big goal: building the super app for travel.

Herold joined the Source Code podcast to talk about how travel is changing; what a travel super app might look like; why booking travel and filing expenses is still such a painful process; and why the difference between Basic Economy, Main Cabin, Economy Plus, Economy Comfort and Main Cabin Extra is such a tricky one to help users solve.

For more on the topics discussed in this episode:

For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.