Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Remote working is here to stay. People demand a better work life balance, and companies can achieve a competitive edge by leaning into the changes.
In this episode, I have Liam Martin of Running Remote sharing some of his research and insights on remote working and will give you the confidence in the remote working model if you are on the fence.
Welcome to Startups with Niall Maher.
This show is to going give you tips, strategies and advice to grow your business and hopefully entertain you along the way.
Niall will introduce experts and resources that he is always learning from.
It’s all about sharing that experience with YOU.
Niall has worked in nearly every corner of technology businesses; Lead Developer, Software Architect, Product Manager, CTO and now happily a Founder.
You’ll also get to hear live calls with special guests (such as founders, authors and experts).
Thanks for listening and let’s grow together.
Niall Maher: Today I'm chatting with and
learning from the beautiful Liam Martin.
He is the founder of time
doctor and running remote.
Running remote is the world's
largest conference on remote working.
So it's no surprise that today's
episode we'll be mostly talking about.
why remote working can be a
superpower to your business.
It's a long episode, so let's
just go for it because we kind of
go off tangents a few times, but
I'm not gonna apologize for that.
Let's just jump straight in.
Liam Martin: You have one
of the most glorious beards.
I think I've ever met out of all
of the podcasts that I've done.
I'm thinking I'm at four 11
and you win most epic beard.
Niall Maher: We'll have to get
an article of who those people
were, just so I can shame them
Liam Martin: Yeah, right.
Actually go to listen notes,
ah, listen, notes.com.
You just type in my name and it records
every single podcast that I've ever done.
So you can then just tweet
everyone and say, Hey, you didn't
have as good of a beard as me.
Probably a lot of the female podcast
hosts will, uh, be fine with that.
But anyways,
Niall Maher: say they will
be happy to lose that battle.
It's the male ones with that
have a beard that will care.
Liam Martin: You know, I do feel sad for
men and I have about two or three friends
of mine that are like this, that just
can't like connect their beard together.
You know, they've got like,
they got the patches here.
They got the mustache, they got the
goatee, but they can't get in between.
And, uh, at least for me, the most
masculine thing that I can do on the
face of the planet is just stroke.
My beard.
It feels so good.
And it's, it's too bad that
a lot of guys can't do that.
Niall Maher: I say to people all
the time, I just stroke my beard
and I have this fancy microphone
and it makes me look competent.
it's all an illusion, you know,
I'll, I'll, I'll stroke too hard.
It'll fall off.
And then everyone will notice from there.
We are a total tangent, but I did
use to have it way longer on when
it started waking me up at night.
And that's when I decided to cut
it because it was getting caught
under my arm when I was rolling
over in the middle of the night.
So I was when it started getting
to do that in practical level, I
says, let's, uh, get rid of that.
Liam Martin: Yeah.
Yeah.
Niall Maher: I didn't get you here
today to talk about, um, beards,
although I can share, you know,
some beard oils with you afterwards,
Liam Martin: Okay.
Niall Maher: what I'm looking for
is a tips and tricks and remote
working advice since it's your
domain of expertise, really.
first off, I'd love you
to introduce yourself.
Liam Martin: My name's Liam Martin.
I'm a human being located on planet earth.
More specifically, I am located in
Montreal, Canada right now in preparation
for our yearly conference, which I
run called running remote, which is
the largest conference on remote work.
Or we teach people the tactics and
strategies to become unicorns, DECA
unicorns with a remote first methodology.
And I've been doing that
for about five years.
I've run some other tech companies
in the SaaS space like time doctor
and stuff, dot com, which are both
time tracking tools for remote teams.
And actually just recently.
And the reason why I'm here is I
wrote a book over the last year
and a half called running remote
as well, which really studied.
The one single difference.
And if there's actually only one
that all of the remote pioneers
had the people that were remote
before the pandemic in comparison
to all of the pandemic panickers
that just went remote at gunpoint
during the last two and a half years.
Niall Maher: Oh, nice.
I'll have to ask, can you share that now?
Or do people have to go by the book?
Liam Martin: I mean, maybe buy
me a drink first and let's get
into this podcast a little bit
deeper before we, uh, before
we go into that deep insight.
Cause people got to listen to the
rest of this podcast before I tell
them the secret to the universe.
Niall Maher: I'll also share the whole
beard oil at the end of it as well.
They might hang around for that.
I don't know.
That's excellent.
So the book must have been a tough.
thing.
I've been by Packt a couple of
times to write a technical book.
And when I just sit down and look
at the amount of work that it takes
it's just unsurmountable to me.
Am I my time?
So how did you go about
writing The book for.
Liam Martin: The beauty aisle, I'll give
you the actual secret, which kind of
directly connects to how I wrote the book.
So all of these remote first founders
that were remote before the pandemic, the
people that I call the remote pioneers.
So one single thing that they all had
in common that other people do not is
a term that I'm boiling down to what I
call asynchronous management, which is
the ability to be able to manage people
without directly interacting with them.
And a lot of computer engineers and
developers probably know that terminology,
but outside of the remote work world
and kind of the tech world, asynchronous
management and asynchronous work is
not necessarily all that well known.
And so one of the big core components
of that is the platform actually
becomes the manager instead of the
individuals inside of that organization.
So like your manager is
effectively JIRA more than it is
your scrum master as an example.
And so the way that I was
able to write this book was
I was the CMO of the company.
I actually technically, still am
the COO of the company, but about a
year and a half ago, when we decided
to write this book, I delegated
that responsibility to my VP of
marketing, VP of growth and a VP of CS.
And so they took on those roles and
because we have open transparency
throughout our entire organization
and all of our processes and
systems are all documented.
It was very, very easy for them to be
able to take over my roles, chop it
up, and I could spend the next year
and a half working on a bigger problem,
which was really trying to communicate
this message, which I think is the
core reason why the vast majority of
people that are tired of remote work
and want to go back to the office.
Don't they, the reason why they want to
go back is because they don't actually
understand that it's a different manager
in a framework that you need to be able
to implement, to have success with.
Niall Maher: I do want to actually
get some more information on the book
writing part, because I think that's an
interesting thing that a lot of people,
I think a lot of business owners on
founders are very egotistical in a sense.
So the idea of having their thoughts
and everything printed on paper
is exciting for a lot of people.
So that's why I just want to dig into
that, but on the asynchronous side
of things, cause I noticed something
you're really passionate about.
I love asynchronous management for
the one reason is it gives protected
space for people to do their best
work as well, where you're not obliged
to suddenly drop everything and stop
working on the important things.
Just to answer them.
Liam Martin: I tell
people constantly that.
As a manager, your responsibility
is to remove distractions from
your direct reports, from the
employees that you manage.
And the vast majority of the time,
unfortunately, you are the problem.
The manager, you are the distraction
machine that is stopping them from
achieving what my friend, Cal Newport
calls deep work, which is another kind of
core piece of literature that feeds into
asynchronous management, which is the
capability to be able to have everything
at your disposal, to be able to solve
difficult problems, to get yourself into
that flow state that you need in order
to be able to write the code that you
know, that to get a solution to that
problem, to make that code work is it
requires such immense focus and flow,
and the moment that you get into it.
And then all of a sudden
it's like, oh shit.
Okay.
Well, in 15 minutes, I
got to go to this meeting.
You can't even get yourself into it.
You need really solid blocks
of time to be able to interact
with that type of information.
And the vast majority of managers
don't actually recognize that,
which is really unfortunate.
And we try to teach that inside of
the book, but, uh, writing the book
hard, very difficult, took a year
and a half should have taken a year.
spent like half my day working
on that book every single day.
We did a couple dozen meetings or
sorry, interviews for the book.
Even just kind of like building
out your methodology, uh,
was, was very, very difficult.
Like what do you name all of these.
Parts of your book.
Even the core thesis, which I don't
know if you know the term blue ocean,
there's a book called blue ocean.
It talks about like, what's your unique
identifier in comparison to everyone else?
Like, how are you
different from the market?
And asynchronous management, there is
no book written on it as of yet that
we were able to find at least nothing
that we found that's been popular.
That's for us, our blue ocean term,
which is, it's not actually remote work.
That's the problem.
It's the management platform that
you've been working under inside
of remote work is the problem.
And this book helps to solve that core
issue and allow for people to actually get
managed effectively or in a remote way.
But yeah, writing a book so hard I
would say halfway through, I wanted to.
Like
Niall Maher: Sounds about right.
That sounds like nearly everything
anyone starts building, whether
it's a book or software halfway
through is always the point.
Liam Martin: I just, I wanted to
quit and I didn't quit because I just
kind of grinded my gears forward.
And actually the, the core piece you want
to tell anybody, whether it's a book, a
startup, anything, be really passionate
about what you're trying to solve for.
Right.
So I was very passionate about
trying to solve this problem.
Our mission as a company that
feeds everything that we do
is we try to help the world's
transition towards remote work.
We try to help facilitate that.
So this book was absolutely
inside of that core thesis.
And for me, I just kept that in mind
as I was sitting with paragraphs
for six hours, trying to figure out
how I can really get the context.
Right.
Niall Maher: Did you have to go through
major series of revision or anything?
Or how did you test the idea?
Did you get beta tests involved
early on or did you just get a lot
of feedback as you're going along?
What was the, what did the editing
cycle look like for that then?
Liam Martin: so one of the big
advantages for me was I was already
interacting with these remote founders.
So I already had a lot of really
good introductions to them.
And thankfully they
all lined up perfectly.
Like when I asked them a question, 11
out of 12 would say the same thing.
So I was getting really,
really strong signals.
And these signals are very
counterintuitive, like the concept of
radical transparency, which is in the
book, which is that everyone inside
of the company should have the same
informational advantage as the CEO.
That's a very difficult thing to
communicate to a general kind of
like business audience, but inside of
remote asynchronous teams, it's just.
Given that you should give everyone as
much information as humanly possible so
that they can then come to hopefully the
same conclusions on difficult problems
as you did as the CEO of the company.
So they all lined up perfectly.
And that was great because
it was very easy to write.
There wasn't any like core disagreements
between the groups, but I think the
other part of this was just when you
have it all outlined and you want
to kind of like then get into the
nitty gritty of it, even thinking
about the marketing of those terms.
So I call it chocolate broccoli.
Actually it comes from a buddy of
mine, Dan Martell, who talks about
chocolate broccoli all the time.
And he said like, all right, so no one
wants to eat the broccoli, but if you
dip it in chocolate, you know, They'll
love to eat chocolate, but then when
you actually got it, when you have them,
then you can feed them their vegetables.
And I think that's where we're at right
now with this book is I was trying to make
sure I put enough chocolate on it so that
people could actually get the message and
can be pulled along throughout the book.
So like I got a lot of stories about all
the crazy stuff that remote pioneers ended
up doing before the pandemic and, and
all of the adventures that we went on.
And we've got a guy that runs a team of,
uh, 2000 people and he lives in a teepee
in the middle of the Costa Rican jungle.
and he runs like a multinational
corporation out of a teepee in the jungle.
He dragged a $200,000 fiber optics
cable to his teepee by the way, to be
able to get this all to run, like just
weird characters that would not exist.
If it wasn't for remote work and the
opportunities that that provides.
So a lot of, kind of interesting
stuff connected to that.
And they're in the book
Niall Maher: I feel like this is like
John McAfee's new startup, but he's
suddenly undead in the middle of somewhere
else because that's sounds like one
of those ridiculous founder stories,
Liam Martin: yeah, I kind of want
to call him my Colonel Kurtz.
Um, but he didn't really
like that, that much.
Um, anyways, you know, it's like, he's
the stereotype, not scary, I guess,
maybe not stereotypical, but he's
the guy in the middle of the jungle.
That's just kind of gone through the
ringer, gone through good and evil.
And he said, I'm just going to
give up the trappings of want even.
And I'm sure you probably saw
Elon Musk buying Twitter recently.
Elon Musk was talking about how a
lot of people were critiquing him
because he had so many possessions
and so much to lose, but then he
just basically sold all of his stuff.
And he was like, now what?
Right?
Like this guy has got the same thing.
He's like, all right, I'm
just going to sell everything.
And I'm just going to really focus on
what's important, which is finding myself.
And so I decided to find myself
in the middle of the jungle in a
shack with $200,000 fiber optic.
Niall Maher: Yeah.
I, I just loved that, but the
shack has to have broadband.
I think that sums up a lot of
The hippie technologists that
are around as well at the moment.
This
is once there's broadband, I
can be stable and meditate.
Liam Martin: So I thought about actually
releasing all of the interviews because we
did them all over zoom and recorded them.
But this guy, um, that, uh, that I
interviewed, uh, when I interviewed
him, he was nude like completely
naked when we interviewed.
In his junk, you know, like he was
actually on a hill, uh, for the interview
and he was showing us all of his
livestock and all this kind of stuff.
And just, you know, he's a good
friend of mine, but weird fucking guy.
And just out there in the world, he
could only exist doing a remote work.
And that's also, by the way, the
promise that the book really gives
you, which is the ability to be
able to work wherever you want.
Whenever you want.
Asynchronous management is actually
the big piece that everyone's
missing to be able to allow
people to be not owning positions.
So I'm not the COO of the company,
but I currently inhabit the
position of the CMO of the company.
And I can delegate that responsibility
at any point, if there's a more important
problem for me to be able to address.
And that's the beauty of asynchronous
management, it just provides everyone
the autonomy to be able to work on
problems that they're really passionate.
Niall Maher: I think that's the important
thing is just that sense of empowerment
and people getting their lives back.
I increasing that a lot with COVID.
Anyway, people have seen a life
that they, I think a lot of people
have just realized that they.
Shitty jobs and they disliked doing
them and everything else because,
you took away the one thing they
liked, and that was the social aspect
or the meeting people in the offices.
And this is leading into
obviously how we stop people
from feeling isolated and things.
And, but I think there's a big
sense of people want our freedom.
People want it to be able to see
people, meet people, travel, do the
things they're able to do, and also be
trusted that are going to do their job.
And I don't think that's a big ask if
you're hiring competent, good people,
it's about getting the hiring right
and then letting them do their thing.
Liam Martin: When I studied these
remote asynchronous organizations, they
had on average, a ENPS score, which
is employee net promoter score, which
is effectively just a measurement of
how happy these employees are of 70.
And the average ENPS score is 36,
at least in the United States.
I don't know where it is globally,
but basically if these asynchronous
remote companies have double the
happiness level, than people on premise.
And the thing that's interesting
is when you look at culture.
So I asked all these guys, like,
what does culture mean to you?
Because a lot of companies are saying,
oh, well, you can't build culture.
If you're not in the office and
the founder of Doist Amir, uh,
gave me a really good analogy.
To knock this home for everybody culture
to them and to asynchronous organizations
is not about the people in the company.
It's about the work that
you do in the company.
And that's a small switch, but a
lot of people think culture is a,
well, we have pizza Thursdays and
you get a cake on your birthday.
And you know, we dress up last Friday
of every month or something like that.
Like a wacky animal.
I don't know, I've never been
in an office, but it all seems
pretty boring and stupid to me
to be completely honest with you.
But in asynchronous organizations,
it's entirely focused on
the mission of the company.
So if you're not incredibly passionate
about trying to solve for that
problem and you as a company, Your
job is to basically filter for that.
Are you really passionate
about remote work?
Do you want to be able to assist in
the world's transition of remote work?
If you do, then you should
probably come and work for me
because I'm very passionate about
that particular subject as well.
And you're going to have a ton of fun
and you're going to do some boring
stuff, but hopefully you're going to
do a lot of really exciting stuff, but
regardless of whether it's boring or
exciting, you know, you're feeding into
the core mission, which is helping the
world's transition towards remote work.
And so that's the piece that like most
HR professionals miss, and I just don't
understand why they're not thinking in
that context, because it's such a genius
way to recognize, Hey, you know what?
We need to be able to make sure that
people are really excited about the
company, not the people inside of
it, because that's actually only a
secondary issue because at any point,
those people could leave, right?
Remove all of those other variables.
Are you really excited about the company?
Are you proud of about what, you know,
you're producing as an organization?
That's the key message that I think
everyone needs to think about as we
move forward to, you know, I think
probably effectively a remote world.
I don't think we're going
back the other direction.
We're very quickly.
We're pretty much at the point
where remote work is at its
lowest point since March of 2020.
And it's now going back up.
So we're seeing a really interesting
kind of fruition happen where I'm saying
we're moving from working from home
to true remote work, which is great.
Niall Maher: And I've seen even in
the last week or two Airbnb officially
saying, Hey, we're only doing remote now.
And they got, in one week, I think
800,000 hits on their careers page
because people were just like,
that's what I want under so many.
I think any business that
doesn't offer this is going
to start losing and bleeding.
Good talent as well.
Especially I know in, in Dublin here,
it's so hard to get talented developers.
So you do have to go a
little bit more global now.
And if you don't offer a remote to
all of your staff to people who are
in the officer's going on, how come
you trust them and not us to work at
home, you know,
it's bizzare.
Liam Martin: You're absolutely right.
I think that, um, read a genie is out
of the bottle moment where, oh yeah,
I'm going to go work for Airbnb F you
and your, you know, your crappy job.
I'm going to go work at Airbnb.
I'm going to go work at Shopify.
I'm going to go work at Coinbase.
I'm going to go work at, GitLab.
These are all companies that.
I have never had an office or have just
recently abandoned their offices and
our absolute behemoths in the industry.
So I think for anyone that's
thinking right now, oh yeah.
We can force everyone back to the
office, never going to happen, or you're
going to lose all your A-players, which
is actually a lot of people from an
HR perspective, they think, oh yeah.
We've only lost 20% of our staff when
we forced everyone back to the office.
Yeah.
That's okay.
You only lost the good ones.
Like 20% of your workforce
usually does 80% of the work.
Those are like those eight players
that you want to be able to
keep inside of the organization.
And when they leave, your organization
is still running, but it's, rutterless
like, there's no one, that's just kind
of going to say, um, I have this mindset
of if you went and you saw someone
breaking into a car as an example,
if you are going to go over there
to help, or if you're just going to
watch, that's the difference between.
Someone who's committed and an
A-player versus someone who's just
like, ah, not my, not my problem.
Right?
Like that's the very definition
of a bunch of B players.
And unfortunately it's a very small
minority of the population, but you
want, as many of those people, it's
like, Hey, stop breaking into that car.
You know, I'm going to run after you.
That kind of thing.
Those are the people that really
drive your organization forwards.
And, uh, if you lose them, you may
think that everything's fine right now.
But in a couple months, you're
going to be in a world of pain
Niall Maher: I love that analogy because
I do a lot of research and study on,
Hiring and getting the competitive edge
on hiring and what makes the top 5%, so
much better than everyone else as well.
And a couple of books like work rules
to who hiring guide you know, having
good score cards and things like that
are all very useful for figuring out
what you need, because the top 5% for
your business is completely different
than the top 5% for somebody else's
business, because your mission is
different than other businesses.
So it's still, it's not the same
5% that people are fighting over
as well, which is something else
that I think a lot of people
forget about.
It's not just that you're
ignoring 95% of people.
but how do you go.
Hiring remotely and checking for that.
Is it a fail fast approach where you
trial people and see what happens or is
it a more rigorous upfront interview?
Liam Martin: So we do do the initial
interview and onboarding synchronously.
We haven't really been able to figure out
how to turn that completely asynchronous,
but we do do a lot of testing.
We do a culture fit first and almost
every single person that I interview.
I ask them the Peter teal question.
you know that question?
Niall Maher: No, I don't.
Liam Martin: What important truth.
Do you believe that most
people disagree with you on
Niall Maher: Oh, interesting.
I don't even know if
I want to answer that.
Liam Martin: let's
Niall Maher: a, really tough,
Liam Martin: What
do you think
What is an important truth
that you believe that most
people disagree with you on
Niall Maher: Yeah.
I think one, for me, that's
grated in my business life.
And it's a, it's something I adopted from
reading the Tibetan book of living and
dying while taking too much acid okay.
Early on in my career.
But there's one statement that comes
out of that book that has just resonated
with me and has honestly that too.
I didn't think it was going to be a deal
breaker, but it's often led to the end of
a lot of business relationships for me.
And that is get rich.
Right.
I think that's the one thing that I
always come back to when I'm dealing with
people is our day only are they after.
With no boundaries or are they after, is
there some compassion to their drives?
Like I look, I think, no matter what way
interpreted to separate things, it's,
it can be dirty money at some point,
but it's the case of what was the,
what is the key motivation for people?
And I think that is very different
when it comes to a lot of business,
people that have dealt with over time.
Liam Martin: Yeah, I think the key
motivation is really important because
I think ethical implications with
regards to business, that's a game
of inches and sometimes it's almost
imperceptible about when we make one
business versus another business decision.
And that one business decision may
result in a feedback loop that takes
you in a really negative direction.
I'll give you an example.
We had a.
We had a company that wanted us to build a
feature that we did not agree with at all.
Which was, they wanted us to
be able to put video cameras.
They basically wanted us to be able to
turn people's webcams on without their
permission and just have them on all day.
And it was a massive contract.
Like it was, it was like a
seven-figure error, our contract.
It was enough to make a
difference, um, for us.
But then we said to ourselves, which
is a core tenant of everything that
we do at least for our time-tracking
products, which is, does this
make the employee more productive?
And the answer was no, um, it doesn't
make the employee more productive.
So therefore we can't do it.
Another one that we had, which was really
difficult for us is we had another client
that wanted an on-premise solution.
And the only reason why you would
have an on-premise solution is
because it's inside of an office,
but we're a remote time tracking.
Company, like that's what our company is.
We're, we're specifically
built for its remote teams.
So we said, okay, we're
not going to do it.
You know, like those types
of things are interesting.
And I think you have to like lay down the
constitution of the company beforehand,
and then it's really difficult to come
up against, like that, that constitution
will be tested over and over again.
And you just have to be able to have
the executive team and the board in
place to be able to defend against that.
But, you know, I look at companies
that are really, really big now.
And sometimes a lot of
them have lost the battle.
Like Google's core thesis
is no longer do no evil.
Like they got rid of that, you know,
just kind of like that's a really
core piece and I really loved that.
But then how do you move forward?
And I think that when we're seeing.
The future of remote work today,
to your point, I mean, you said
that there's not many developers
and engineers available in Ireland.
I think we're going to see a complete
transition of work where like, if
you thought that the world was flat
beforehand, I think we're going to be
absolutely just marble across the planet
because now it's a really, it's a really
fantastic opportunity for anyone anywhere
to be able to get work opportunities that
they wouldn't have otherwise been able
to get access to, which is an incredibly
exciting time for me, but also has a
lot of possibly negative implications
that are pulled along with that.
Like, are we going to start to hire
people from, you know, environments
where we disagree with them, right?
Like, are you going to hire Russians?
There's a lot of fantastic
Russian programmers right now.
Niall Maher: I guess then the director
team is responsible for making these
decisions and that's why everyone
needs to be so cohesive in that unit,
because there are the little things
that can make everyone fall apart.
I think.
Liam Martin: Yeah, I think that,
um, the other part of this too, is
make sure your cap table is either
full of people that are on the same
journey as you, or stay bootstrapped.
Um, cause there's a lot of guys that
I know where the moment that they flip
where, you know, the investors have
board control stuff changes pretty quick
and you just, oh, we were doing that.
Oh, well we're now we're doing the webcam.
Well, why they want to say no to that?
Well, it's $12 million, so
we're going to do it right?
Like, and it's just one of those things
that you lose control of, um, as,
as the founder of that organization.
So that's another big tip
that I would have for people.
If they're thinking about, giving up
more of that control, I would always
keep more than 50% founder owned.
Or if you have a major investor, make
sure that you've done massive due
diligence on them so that they're
not going to screw you in the future.
Niall Maher: Yeah.
I think a lot of people forget that due
diligence goes both ways where it's not
just no responsibility or no anything
when you start to take outside investment.
And if you're like, I'm sure for you with
your async lo for asynchronous work, that
freedom has to be a big driver for you on
what you want to achieve from your career.
So by adding those golden handcuffs would
probably ruined up for you down on your.
Liam Martin: Yeah.
I mean, we, we have a lot of digital
nomads inside of the company.
So one of the big perks is
be location independent.
If you want up to you.
And I travel about three to
six months out of the year when
it isn't COVID and it's great.
Uh, we leave around January the
fifth, right after new years, we
come back around may me and my
wife and my daughter, and it's a
fantastic lifestyle that, I wouldn't
have, if it wasn't for remote work.
And probably also wouldn't have,
if I was answerable to a board
that was not friendly to me.
And that's a big piece of this,
which just do you want to have,
like, there is a component, at
least for me in business of, yeah.
We want to make more money,
but also what's more fun.
Like, could you make 10% less
money and double your fun.
Oh, I'll do that.
Right.
And not many people kind
of think about that.
But it is absolutely true.
And you need to have those types of ideas.
You need to have those thought processes
and be mindful of that as you move through
and scale your organization, particularly
if you're remote, because the way that you
communicate inside of remote teams is a
little bit more disconnected asynchronous.
So having those documents in places
absolutely critical as like a kind of
filtering process for your organization
to say, we just don't do that.
Or yes, we, when, if we can
sacrifice 10% of revenue for doubling
everyone's fun, that is absolutely
a decision that we should make.
Niall Maher: I love that because I think
that's a metric that people don't focus
on enough is just, are you having fun?
Doing.
Because the older I get, the more I
realize that we're all still children
and we all still want to play.
And we all still want to enjoy ourselves
and be happy and laugh every day.
And that trade-off is massive.
Especially if you're running a business,
that's going to consume you for quite
potentially the rest of your life.
If it's any, if it's meaningful
enough, it will probably consume
you for the rest of your life.
So, yeah, why trade-off.
Liam Martin: Yeah, I can't remember
the name of the person that gave
me this quote that I'm remembering.
But if you can't tell if it's
worker play, you've got life, right?
If it's just like these podcasts, as
an example, I get to meet a really
interesting person, sometimes three
to four interesting people per day.
And it's really cool and interesting.
And I like it quite a bit and
I always learn something more
about myself every single time
I've done one of these it's work.
But it also could be play,
like I'd do this for free.
You know, if I had the opportunity
to do it and so why not do as
much of this as humanly possible?
That's the type of stuff.
If it's you can't tell if it's
worker play, keep doing more of it,
particularly if it's making you money.
Niall Maher: It was Naval Ravikants book.
I think that
that was in, um, because he has a great
little quote in there, which is it's easy
to outplay somebody when they're working.
And if you're feeling like it's just play
all day, you're out playing somebody.
So it's easy.
You can go a 20 hour day and it's okay.
Whereas somebody else that struggles to
get up bed and struggles to get to their
keyboard and struggles to do everything.
It's, you're just playing them,
which is such a motivation
when you're going forward.
I'm the same for this.
I'm doing this.
I don't get any money off of this.
Yes.
Maybe I will in the future.
I'm not sure I don't do it for that.
To meet cool people and share
some knowledge with people
because I can, you know, it's fun.
It's a bonus.
If I can make a business
out of this thing, I guess.
But it's not the goal.
The goal is to chat to people and figure
out how they do stuff and how I can learn.
Liam Martin: You know, the other
thing that I've learned is that
is the only way to actually make
money at something like this.
So if you come at it with, okay,
I'm going to monetize this podcast
as quickly as humanly possible.
You're never going to do it, or it's
going to be very, very difficult, but
if you're doing it because you're really
passionate about it and you love to
talk to other people, you're going to
do the, a hundred episodes that you
need to do to actually get good at
something to then have someone pay you.
Which for me is a lesson
that I sometimes forget.
Tried to open up a tick
talk just recently.
And I came at it from
the wrong perspective.
So I shut it right back down.
I'm addicted by way.
Yeah.
Uh, I came at it, I just immediately
recognized, wow, this is getting super
corporate and work E for me, where it was
forced, like my PR team was like, okay,
we need to get all these scripts together
and you need to do all of these TikToks.
And I was like, this isn't me.
I don't, I wouldn't say that.
Like just that kind of stuff.
And I realized, okay, I need
to hit the brakes on this one
Niall Maher: Yeah.
Recalibrate.
And sometimes you'll figure it out.
You might find a format that works
for you in the future when you're
not trying so hard as well, because I
guess it's, we're always being told we
need to be on everything and we need
to be doing all things at all times.
And I think that's also dangerous as well.
Certain formats like this suit me because
I like talking, um, anyone that knows me
in the real world and not on the online
world will know that I like to talk a lot.
So it means I get through this
now, um, with new people from
all over the world as well.
Uh, if I try to fit that into a 15
second, is that the format of TikTok?
I don't use it yet.
Uh, is a 15 seconds.
Liam Martin: It's um, I think they
actually have it now up to a minute.
Some interesting, scary statistics
about TikTok, by the way.
It has doubled the watch
time now of YouTube.
Niall Maher: that is terrifying.
Liam Martin: Yeah.
So from a watch time, from an
engagement and watch time perspective,
tick docks, twice as big as YouTube.
And when you think about, and for
those seven people and Niall who
have not engaged with TikTok yet
that are listening to this podcast.
It's so perfectly locks in your
personal algorithmic tastes that within
15 minutes of using it, it's just
delivering you exactly what you want.
And YouTube has actually
taken this route as well.
I mean, I know that you have a great
YouTube channel and I've been working
on one for about two years, mostly
just the stuff that I'm putting up,
because I want to talk about it.
But YouTube has, and my wife had a
very successful YouTube channel that
had a hundred thousand subscribers
on it, but then she went from a
subscriber based viewership to an
algorithmic based viewership on YouTube.
So now you're describing your
subscribers, don't really count for
anything on YouTube or on TikTok.
So you can have like a 10 million
subscribers on TikTok, but all the TikTok
does is it identifies whether or not that
TOK has the possibilities to go with.
And it does that through a very small
amount of testing with the test group.
And then if it doesn't, it drops
off and if it does, it pops up.
And so it's a really kind of scary
future, I think for I don't know, web
one and web 2.0 type of people that
are just thinking, okay, well, I have
a voice here are the people that want
it to hear that voice, and I'm going
to distribute that message to them.
Now, the new messages.
Yeah.
You've collected all these people
that want to hear what you have to
say, but that doesn't matter anymore.
And we're only going to give it to them if
they really do want it subconsciously in
the back of their own minds, which ends up
producing a lot of weird tick talks, uh,
which I don't necessarily like all that
much to be completely honest with you.
I think generally AI is a, and
this is coming from someone who.
An AI lab.
We have like a bunch of people
that just exclusively work on this
problem inside of our companies.
And, uh, it's probably the scariest piece
of technology I've ever encountered,
like scarier than, than every country
on the planet having nukes scary.
In my opinion, I think that it's probably
one of the worst and most dangerous pieces
of technology humanity has ever known.
And I think he could very well end
humanity if we don't do something
about it as quickly as possible.
Niall Maher: there's a great
book called superintelligence.
You should try out if you want
to even be more scared by it.
It's always good about
Liam Martin: don't know if I want
to, I'm kind of at the point now
where I feel like I've just given
up, um, because all of these things
like even just social media, right?
Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, um,
Twitter, I think is going to go back.
Because took it over, but having
algorithmic targeting, that's only
five years old, we could go back.
Like, I don't know about you, but I
got an opt in to every frigging website
in the EU and anywhere else, right.
To be able to accept all cookies or
not accept all cookies and coming
from the marketing space, we thought
this is never going to happen.
This is ridiculous that they're going
to implement this, but they did.
And then the entire world kind of
cracked into line and took suit.
And so I think that we could do
the same thing with algorithms
and artificial intelligence.
Um, it's just going to require
somebody like the United States or
the EU to be able to take a stance
on that and say, we shouldn't be
implementing these technologies.
And these technologies should
actually be licensed the same way
that you would license a weapon.
Niall Maher: I think there's an important,
for AI and things, you have to actually
be able to predict what will come out of
the other end of these things, because
a lot of AI, you're not able to predict.
So that's something they're trying to push
towards, which is a little less scary.
At least if you can, if it's
just a mathematical model rather
than a go off, figure it out.
And now we have lost control of this.
It's taught itself.
Now we just don't know what the, what,
from this input, what the
output will be basically.
I think that's a little less
scary if we can get to that.
Because at least it's reproducible.
It's when things stack on a little
bit haywire and you don't know
why and you can't fix it and you
can't take it down because your
whole business runs on it either.
That's when we're uh,
boned to put a politely.
Liam Martin: yeah.
I mean, when you look at Facebook,
Facebook is effectively just that
tick-tock isn't is just an algorithm.
That's all that it is.
It's not that they're putting.
The cute little 30 second videos, it's
that TikTok knows the exact video to
send you next to maximize your response
to make you want to watch another one.
And that's the scary part of tech talk
or YouTube, which has effectively the
same technology that I think we need to
get rid of because if you really want
to know someone spend five minutes on
their TikTok, you'll see who they are.
Right?
Like my wife, she runs a mermaid business.
So she teaches women how to swim
in a pool with mermaid tails.
And she has locations
all over north America.
It's nothing.
But mermaids and princess Disney
TikToks, like that's all she's got
on her TikTok, you know, wrong.
And for me, it's a lot of
tech bros and Instagram girls.
I like tech and boobs.
That's basically what my, and
probably a little bit of like
cat videos snifter in there.
And so I think that the reality is that
you have to kind of, whenever I look at
my TikTok feed, I'm like, oh, the last
20 tick talks have looked like this.
Wow.
Is that who I am as a person?
You may even think about that
next time you open up the app.
If you're listening right
now and say to yourself, Hmm.
Is this way I am.
And then also maybe share that with
your partner, you know, switch phones
for 10 minutes and see what happens.
I think, uh, you might get, it might,
uh, introduce a very interesting
conversation between the two of you.
Niall Maher: Yeah, that is crazy.
I just, I've never even
opened the account.
I think I've gotten sent links to it.
I just didn't because of some
weird security things I seen on us
from a web developer point of view
where it just scared me off it.
Liam Martin: Oh, yeah.
Niall Maher: As a result of that, I just
never did, but now I'm just curious, based
on that, because only thing I can do to
start seeing what do I actually like?
It's weird that I would trust
an algorithm over asking myself.
Liam Martin: Well, there is a lot of 'em.
I mean, YouTube is
effectively the same thing.
If you, I turn this feature off,
but the, um, autoplay for next
video, I mean, they're trying to
identify what should you watch next?
Right.
They know you very well.
They know what you just watched.
They probably also know the time
of day and they know which location
you're in and all that kind of stuff.
And then they come up with a
pretty good idea of, oh yeah.
Well now I should probably watch.
this next video on Instagram
girls doing computer programming
as an example, that might be
Niall Maher: Yeah.
Liam Martin: novel video.
Right.
Niall Maher: Yeah.
There you go.
Liam Martin: so like,
Niall Maher: think that's a, that's
probably how you easily hook me.
And then.
Liam Martin: yeah, right.
I mean, it would help me and actually too.
So I, that, that's the kind of stuff
that I think is it's scary when you
see it happening so quickly and you
also see a platform like Tik TOK that
like, I don't know how long it's been
up and running, but I feel maybe I got
introduced to it two years ago and it's
just completely dominated this space.
Like it's twice as powerful as YouTube.
I don't know how much, I don't know if
you can compare something like the time
on site of Facebook versus, or Instagram
versus something like TikTok, but I think
for your under twenties, TikTok dominates.
yeah.
And I mean, like, so that is effectively a
Chinese corporation, which may or may not
actually be run by the Chinese government.
And so we're sending billions of people's
daily desires to the Chinese government.
Niall Maher: Yeah.
Liam Martin: scary when
you think about it.
Niall Maher: Yeah.
And that's the only reason
I haven't touched it.
yet, but again, you know, at a certain
point, do we just give off, give in
to the, to our new Chinese overlords?
Who knows?
Liam Martin: There's a
sociologist Emile Durkheim.
Who's one of the forefathers of
sociology and he wrote an article
and he calls it, Durkheim's.
I referred to as Durkheim's demon, and
he basically believed that you could
quantify all human activity down to a
point in which you had a machine that
could predict the next actions of any
single individual within, 99.9% accuracy.
Right.
And if you had this type of weapon
then, and he called it a weapon, then
it would be the end of all things.
Um, because you would be able to take one
small action preemptively and completely
change something for your desired
result, as opposed to the natural result.
And so when you think about
what we have right now, I
mean, that's basically Tik TOK.
Uh, that's that's Facebook, that's
social media on mass right now.
You can make the small changes
to society that can completely
allow for, um, in the U S Roe vs.
Wade to be rescinded or.
For Russia to invade Ukraine and a
lot of Russians be okay with that.
you know, these are the things
that are really, really scary
and they're happening today.
And so that's why I believe that
this should all be controlled
by an international organization
that can just license this.
We know exactly what's happening with it.
And more importantly, as to
your point, we can turn it off.
Niall Maher: Today's sponsor
is the Chinese government
and most of this will
Liam Martin: is TikTok, go to Tik
tok.com and download their app.
It's amazing.
And, uh, there's lots of beautiful cat
videos and Instagram girls on there, and
you'll love it quite a bit and don't pay
attention to anything that we just said.
Niall Maher: Yeah.
exactly.
I want to make sure did we get
that nugget of gold that we
started with we were meant to go.
Liam Martin: Oh, well, I mean, that was
probably the one thing that everyone
in the remote work community pre
pandemic knew about remote work that
almost no one knows about today, which
I'm calling asynchronous management.
So the ability to be able to manage people
without directly interacting with them,
that is such a magic moment in a business.
Because the other thing, interesting
insight that I got from studying all
these companies is they have on average,
a managerial layer that's 50% thinner
than their on-premise counterparts.
So these asynchronous remote teams
have more people doing work than people
that are managing people doing work.
And when you think about that on
a, on mass capacity, in an on mass.
You're going to be able to out innovate
your competitors because you're going to
have more people working on innovation
inside of that organization in comparison
to everyone else in the company or
all of your different competitors.
So I actually think it's kind of
a model T versus a horse and buggy
moment where you're able to extract
more value out of your labor force
because you've surrendered a big
part of those labor requirements to
a platform and not necessarily to
individuals inside of that organization.
Niall Maher: Nice.
So it's a much leaner
business then as well.
So you're going to make more money.
You're going to get more output.
You're going to, you get
a better choice of people.
Uh, it's, it's really hard unless you
love micromanaging and you feel like
that's the only thing you were born for.
Like, I don't see her as any reason that
you would choose any other way of working.
Liam Martin: yeah.
And the other thing that a lot
of these asynchronous remote com.
Talk about when you look at their employee
net promoter score, which is almost
double what the industry standard is.
So people like working in asynchronous
organizations, um, 50%, more than 50%
happier than people that work in offices.
The two things that they say is we have
the autonomy to be able to do whatever
we want inside of the organization
and basically get to our solution
without necessarily having someone
show us that solution or keep us locked
into a particular way of thinking.
And then the second one
is radical transparency.
So most companies have at their core,
a culture of radical transparency,
which is effectively that everyone
should have the same informational
advantages as the CEO of the company.
So this empowers people to number
one, be able to get to their solution.
Very quickly because they actually
do have all the same information
as the CEO of the company.
But then also secondarily, if there
are difficult decisions that need to be
made inside of the organization, the
people inside of that company generally
understand why that decision had to be
made and agree with it because they say
they have the same information as the CEO.
And so I'll see these reviews like on
bamboo or whatever else, tool you're using
to be able to manage employee happiness
and it's really stuff like, yeah, we
had a difficult decision that we had to
make, but I completely support the CEO
of the company in the decision that we
need to do we needed to do, because I
looked at the P and L and recognized that
we'd be out of business in six months.
If we didn't make the decision
now, that kind of stuff.
We're just really tough.
And it goes back to our ethics with
regards to an organization, because
do you take a project that's like
slightly unethical for you, but
then it makes the company succeed
and you can keep everyone employed.
Or do you cut back on those people
right now and stick to your ethics?
That's like a constant back and forth.
And fortunately, inside of asynchronous
organizations, all of that stuff
is open to everyone in the company.
So you need a lot of trust inside
of the organization, both on the
employer side and the employee
side to be able to make that work.
But if you can, uh, it's absolute
rocket fuel for your organization.
Niall Maher: And That honesty is crucial.
I think to stop it from being a
mommy and daddy situation as well.
You're just parenting and overseeing
things and you're hiding things for
people's own goods, from everything else.
When, we're really dealing with a lot of
adults who are working together to make
some money and move our lives forward.
So once we all got it at an except
that we're all actually moving in
the same direction, especially if
you've hired the people that are on
the same mission as you, and will
honestly try to drive you forward.
And what's the problem with
sharing all these things, unless
it's those ethical questions that
you really are trying to hide.
And I think that will make more
companies be ethical as well.
Liam Martin: Yeah.
The only thing that we do hide from
people is salaries of different employees.
So that's the only thing that we've
held back, but there are a ton of
asynchronous organizations that
actually do open everything up,
including employee salaries, their
PNL all the meetings that you have
inside of the organization, because
you're an asynchronous organization.
All of that stuff is online and can
therefore be documented and digitized.
So you can effectively become like,
Now, if I sent, if I put you in our
company and I said, Hey, can you go
back two years and figure out why we
made this particular feature direction?
Like, why did we choose this feature
versus another feature you could do
it because you could become kind of
like an archeologist of the company.
And unless you do have that, um, you
can actually know what the heck you did.
There's so many times that we're
like, why did we end up doing that?
And we go back a year and a half.
Oh, well, it was, it was
Niall that made that decision.
And now as an idiot, we
fired Nial six months ago.
Right.
So why are we still doing this?
Why did we still make
this decision happen?
And why did he come to that conclusion?
You know, it's like a lot of that stuff
is a really interesting counterintuitive
stuff that you wouldn't have otherwise
think is a huge advantage, but
actually is a massive advantage,
particularly as the company scales.
So like, as your company grows,
asynchronous work becomes more
and more advantageous to you
strategically in both tech.
Niall Maher: I hope more people
will take it on board here.
There's a lot of people are trying
to get people back into the office.
I had an event last week and
75% of the people who were
there were working remotely.
And that's why they came.
Event and the meetup, because
it was a networking event, other
25 just came straight from the
office and, you know, they needed
to be our more than anyone else.
I always love to find out people's
favorite books and their favorite
piece of software at the moment.
I'm sure You have a couple of great
ones, but first off, I know that the best
recommendation for everyone to go and
pick up now is running remote, obviously,
because that's one of the best books ever.
And then
from there, what?
Oh
yeah,
Liam Martin: Thank you.
Niall Maher: yeah, there you go.
You can use that as a
testimonial on the site as well.
What other, what is your favorite
book or the one that you've most read.
Liam Martin: Ah, boy.
I mean, I think I'm going to
frame this in terms of tech.
And I think the most impactful book
for the tech industry is zero to one by
Peter teal shows you the framework of
building a really big business and why
you should build a really big business
and reframes your mindset on it.
Which was super impactful for me.
His first rule is competition is stupid.
If there's competitors in your space,
get out of your space and find a space
that doesn't have competitors, very
counterintuitive, but makes perfect sense
for the vast majority of people that
are listening to this podcast right now.
And then, um, one of my favorite,
fiction is, uh, the The Chrysalids.
I don't know if you've
ever read that book before.
It's like a science fiction.
Yeah.
It's a science fiction.
Um, Post nuclear apocalypse society
that goes through mutations and it's
3000 years in the future, but then
some of these children can communicate
telepathically, but the only book that's
left in all of society was the Bible.
So it's like a new dark ages and these
young children that can communicate
telepathically are routed out by that
society because they're imperfect.
In the eyes of the Bible,
they're in perfect.
It's a very interesting book.
And it was, I think it
was written in like 1930.
So it was way above its time.
Way ahead of its time
in terms of
the
science fiction,
Niall Maher: That's a,
that's an interesting one.
That sounds
Liam Martin: they, were evolving
into butterflies right there.
They were effectively evolving into
this new evolution of humanity.
Niall Maher: That's really cool.
Yeah.
I'm going to have to check that out.
And then what's your favorite piece
of software that you use most of the
time or that you'd be lost without.
Liam Martin: oh, well, those
are two separate questions.
My favorite piece of software that I
would be left with that I would be nowhere
without right now is probably Asana.
So I know, you know what I'm going to say.
Google apps cause like that I'm.
If I look at my Workday, the majority
of my work day is spent in Google apps,
docs, spreadsheets, Google slides, all
that kind of stuff, email, um, that.
And it's so affordable.
I think I pay something like $7 a month
per person for it it's it's fantastic.
And then the piece of software that I'm
currently really liking right now is
actually the, um, the Oculus quest to
we bunch of, we bought a bunch of those
inside of the company and we're now
meeting in the metaverse for like fun.
And it's a way for us to be able
to kind of just hang out and relax.
But more specifically, I'm trying to
figure out how people are going to work
in virtual reality, because I think that
that's a really open question and no one's
solved for it, but if the metaverse and
VR is adopted at the scale that everyone
is suggesting that it's going to be
adopted at, then how you work inside of
it is going to be absolutely critical.
So.
Spending about an hour a day now, just
kind of like thinking about it, figuring
out what's going to be next and figuring
out what I could build of that space.
Niall Maher: That is crazy.
You're the first person I know that's
going and searching this and actively
getting into the metaverse now.
And just for that competitive edge
as well, I guess, in your space.
as well.
It's, it's a really interesting.
Liam Martin: I was 12 years early
for remote work, and I'm probably
not going to be 12 years early for
the metaverse, but Apple's coming
out with their headset within a year.
Right.
That thing is going to be probably the
device that just blows everyone away.
But the core thesis.
If you believe one of the things that
I, I do a lot when I think about a
business and if I'm going to build
one is I ask myself, what conclusions
am I making from my assumptions?
So you can go through that exercise.
And one of my core assumptions is
that the metaverse will be big, right?
We're talking billions of people
using the metaverse on a daily basis.
If that is true, that it is app, there
is going to be a zoom for the metaverse.
There's going to be in a
sauna for the metaverse.
And it very well might not be
zoom or Asana because they may
not be paying attention to it.
Quick enough.
So for me, I'm thinking about that.
How do I work in the metaverse, that's
about as far as I've gotten at this
point, unfortunately, I haven't come up
with an app yet, but hopefully in the
next year, I'll figure something out.
Niall Maher: That's very interesting.
I'm looking forward to keeping
an eye on your Liam and seeing
what you come up with as well.
Keep me in the loop.
I'll
Liam Martin: Yeah.
Niall Maher: just so I can try out your
new software or whatever you design.
Liam Martin: It's a ton of fun.
If you've never been on, the quest
headsets, there are so much fun and
really do give you a view into the future.
I bought the DK one kit
way, way back in the day.
And I actually, so I must have lost
it because I was trying to keep it
because I thought to myself, this
will be worth hundreds of thousands
of dollars, 20 years from now.
And I moved houses and I can't
seem to find it anywhere, which is
super frustrating, but it was definitely
a, it was a cool moment when you put on
that headset and you just looked around
and you had this fluidity to emotion that
for anyone that's thrown on a headset
for the first time, you really have
this wow moment of this is the future.
Niall Maher: I'm sure this is tons of
information for anyone that's looking
into improving their asynchronous,
working, and also just adapting
to the new way of working really
Liam Martin: Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
If anyone's interested in more
go to running remote.com/book,
we've got the book right there.
And if you can't afford the book
or to go to our conference, go to
youtube.com/running, remote, where
we put up all of our talks for free
and you can learn a whole bunch about
how we build and scale remote teams.
And there's even the weird
guy from the teepee there too.
He's got to talk,
Niall Maher: I think
that's everything Liam.
So you're back to, real work now you
can go play somewhere else for awhile.
Liam Martin: Well, thanks
a lot for having me.
I really appreciate it.
Niall Maher: I had so much
fun chatting to Liam there.
I'm sure you could tell.
If you are interested in running
remote, I will put all of the links
in the description below as always.
Running Remote is on, on the 17th
and 18th of May this time round.
And if you missed it,
it's a regular event.
So check the website for that.
I'm really excited to get my hand
on his book as well, because he
was just full of knowledge and
clearly just loves this space.
And I've said it.
Probably a most episodes so far,
but I just love when I meet really
passionate people, no matter what it's
about, I just fucking love passion.
So.
That's all for this week.
Have fun stay safe and
i'll chat to you soon
Niall: If you enjoyed this episode,
I have a little favorite ask.
If you could leave the podcast a kind
review, it would really help the show out.
It appeases the algorithm gods
and helps me reach new people.
So I really appreciate it.
And until next time, my beautiful friends.
Keep learning and keep growing.