So you got the job. Now what? Join me, Eleni Mata, on HBR's new original podcast, New

Here, the Young Professionals Guide to Work, and how to make it work for you. Listen for

free wherever you get your podcasts. Just search New Here. See you there!

Welcome to the HBR idea cast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Alison Beard.

If you're a regular listener or have followed any form of news or business

media over the past few years, you've heard a lot about remote work. First, at the

start of the pandemic, as companies took a crash course in equipping all of their

knowledge workers to do those jobs from home. And more recently about the pros and

cons of hybrid work and which organizations are pushing employees to go back to

the office and why. Many leaders have now accepted that at least some of their

workforces will be mostly or entirely remote, whether that's to save costs on

office space or salaries and pricey urban areas, or is a way to keep giving

employees the flexibility they want and to win the war for talent. But today's

guest didn't implement remote work at his company because he had to. GetLab,

which builds and manages an open-source software development application,

started off with employees fully dispersed and has stayed that way. Now with

more than 1,300 people spread across more than 60 countries. It's said to be

the world's largest all-remote company. Sid Cibrandi is co-founder and CEO and he

joins me now. Hi, Sid. Hi, Alison. Thanks for having me.

Let me ask you, what was behind the original decision to make GetLab

fully remote from the start? Sort of well before others were thinking that was

a possibility. It happened organically for us. I started a company from the

...