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. Remote recently raised their Series A financing round of $35M.

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:

• How Job entered the world of tech at GitLab
• The advantages of remote work
• Second order effects of remote work on the world
• 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
  

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