Building the $3B API That Didn’t Exist, Europe’s Regulation Problem | Marcelo Lebre, Co-founder of Remote
The Peel with Turner Novak
Turner Novak
4.6 • 11 Ratings
🗓️ 15 January 2026
⏱️ 112 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Marcelo Lebre is the Co-founder and President of Remote, the payroll and international employment company.
Remote is one of today's most underrated software companies. We get into why payroll is such a hard problem, why most of the industry still runs on spreadsheets, the edge cases of software meeting government, and a diagnosis of Europe’s regulation problem.
We also talk through the journey trying 8 different startup ideas before Remote, how COVID changed the business overnight, and what he’s learned about building culture and running remote teams.
Thanks to Gillian O’Brien, Villi Iltchev, Andreas Klinger, Masha Bucher, and Marcelo’s co-founder Job for helping brainstorm topics for this.
Try Numeral, the end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance: https://www.numeral.com
Sign-up for Flex Elite with code TURNER, get $1,000: https://form.typeform.com/to/Rx9rTjFz
Timestamps:
(3:22) Gaming with kids
(6:05) Hundreds of millions in revenue in the most boring market
(8:22) Payroll corporate spies
(14:54) Why payroll tax is such a hard problem
(19:46) Why tax is even more complicated outside the US
(23:08) Legacy payroll still runs on manual spreadsheets
(29:14) Remote’s unfair advantage in AI
(31:40) Building the global payroll API that didn’t exist
(38:06) Meeting his co-founder on a double date
(42:04) Seven years of failed products before Remote
(49:25) Launching Remote in 2019
(52:39) Each year felt like a new apocalypse
(59:25) Distributed teams must master async, document everything
(1:02:42) Culture is what you tolerate
(1:13:05) Europe's regulation problem and why it can't innovate
(1:21:18) Why fundraising is so hard in Europe
(1:28:23) Deleting spreadsheets to force automation
(1:40:25) Burnout, health, fixing the system instead of grinding harder
(1:47:57) Writing honestly about the hard parts of building companies
Referenced
Try Remote: https://remote.com/
Careers at Remote: https://remote.com/careers
Remote Handbook: https://remotecom.notion.site/a3439c6ccaac4d5f8c7515c357345c11?v=8bb7f9be662f45da87ef4ab14a42be37
The Toyota Way: https://www.amazon.com/Toyota-Way-Management-Principles-Manufacturer/dp/0071392319
The Book of Five Rings: https://www.amazon.com/Book-Five-Rings-Miyamoto-Musashi/dp/1590309847
Follow Marcelo
Twitter: https://x.com/marcelolebre
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcelolebre
Follow Turner
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak
Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Peel. I'm your host, Turner Novak, founder of Banana Capital. |
| 0:07.0 | Today's guest is Marcello Lebray, co-founder and president of Remote, the payroll and international employment company. |
| 0:13.0 | Remote plays their cards pretty close to the chess, but piecing together public information, I'd argue Remote is one of the most underrated software companies, |
| 0:20.9 | doing hundreds of millions in revenue and generating a lot of cash. |
| 0:24.7 | A conversation gets into why payroll is so complicated and hard to solve, why so much of the |
| 0:29.8 | industry still runs on spreadsheets, the edge cases of software meeting the government, and |
| 0:34.5 | the diagnosis of Europe's regulation problem. We also get into the |
| 0:38.5 | insane story behind trying eight different startup ideas before remote, launching in 2019, |
| 0:43.4 | how COVID changed things overnight, and ways learned about building culture and running |
| 0:47.4 | remote teams. A quick thank you to Gillian O'Brien, Vili Ilchev, Andreas Klinger, Masha at Day |
| 0:53.6 | 1, and Marcelo's co-founder |
| 0:55.3 | Yub for helping brainstorm topics for this. A reminder that I published two episodes of The Peel |
| 0:59.6 | every week exploring the world's greatest startup stories just like this one. Check out the |
| 1:03.7 | back catalog of over 100 episodes and tune in next week for conversation with Nathan Benache, |
| 1:08.6 | founder of the Air Street Capital and author of The State of |
| 1:12.0 | AI Report. Now, let's talk to Marcella after a quick word from Numeril and Flex. |
| 1:17.8 | This episode is brought to you by Numeril. Numeril is the fastest, easiest way to stay |
| 1:22.8 | compliant with U.S. Sales Tax and Global VAT. It's easy to set up, and they automatically handle all registrations, ongoing filings, and their API provides sales tax rates wherever you need them with all the integrations you need. Numerals supports over 2,000 customers in both the U.S. and globally, and they pride themselves on White Glove High Touch customer service. Plus, they guarantee their work, and they'll cover the difference if they mess anything |
| 1:45.6 | up. |
| 2:06.7 | They're fresh off of fundraise, closing a $35 million series B from Mayfield, which they're going to reinvest into building an even better product. If you want to put your sales tax on autopilot, check out Numeril at their new domain, numeral.com. That's N-U-M-E-R-A-L.com for the end-to-end platform for sales tax and VAT compliance. |
| 2:11.9 | This episode is brought to you by Flex. |
| 2:14.4 | It's the AI-Native private bank for business owners. |
... |
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