Tag: podcast

July 6, 2021

Nicereply Podcast Interview

Craig Stoss and the folks at Nicereply had me on their podcast to talk about how we hire in support at Automattic. The episode’s a nice, focused 20-minute conversation about our hiring approach and philosophy. I’m a big fan of these short, specific podcast conversations; not everything has to be 60+ minutes!

One of our quirkier (yet highly effective!) practices is text interviews, which I wrote about earlier this year. Craig and I talk about that and more. If you’re interested in distributed teams, hiring practices, or any mix of the two, give the episode a listen.

And, of course, Automattic’s actively hiring in all manner of roles.

April 10, 2018

I recently joined Fletcher Richman on his new Support Leaders podcast to talk about Automattic’s support team. The episode is live now. It’s a quick 38-minute listen where we talk about how I came to work in support, how we work at Automattic, and some of my favorite books.

August 5, 2016

How to Provide Great Customer Support. Solid podcast episode from Hiten Shah and Steli Efti about customer support. Filled with lots of practical tips and distinctions.

December 15, 2015

Support Ops Hangout

I joined Chase, Carolyn, and Jeff on the Support Ops podcast yesterday afternoon. We talked about goals for 2016 and how to make the most of the new year.

With the Happiness team at Automattic we set some OKR-like goals for the second half of 2015 and made a lot more progress than we did in prior times. If that interests you I’d highly recommend this Google Ventures video about OKRs.

The audio version is live as well as the video recording. It was a lot of fun to join the podcast and I think it turned out well.

May 28, 2015

Feeds and Speeds for Life. Episode 38 of Ben Thompson’s Exponent podcast. Ben and James talk about the value of opportunities, advice, and MBAs. There’s a particularly interesting segment where they talk about whether tech’s diversity problem is primarily a supply or demand side issue.

May 23, 2015

Exit & Return. The first half of a two-part podcast episode about Shulem Deen, who, as a 22-year old Hasidic Jew in 1996, discovered the web through America Online. Much of the available content conflicted with Hasidic standards and ultimately led to him being expelled from the community. The second part is also available. – via Peter

May 14, 2015

Tradeoffs. Episode 36 of Ben Thompson’s Exponent podcast. I’ve been catching up on past episodes lately and this one’s really good. It focuses on the tradeoffs inherent to net neutrality considerations. If you don’t already, I’d also highly recommend subscribing to Ben’s Daily Update.

January 1, 2015

The Windows of Siracusa County. Episode 96 of Accidental Tech Podcast is worth listening to if for nothing else than the post-show chatter. John Siracusa describes what his computer monitor looks like; it involves 31 different browser windows alone. Crazy.

October 2, 2014

Motivation Has Pit Stains. Dan and Merlin talk about how motivation plays out at work. Interesting anecdotes throughout. Also a good distinction drawn by Merlin between motivation and inspiration; the words are not interchangeable.

October 1, 2014

The Internet Rainforest. Great podcast episode from Ben Thompson and James Allworth about the changing economy. I dig the discussion about the individual autonomy this all provides for.