Vertical integration as a product strategy

In this episode, Wouter Teunissen sits down with Job van der Voort, founder and CEO of Remote.com, to unpack how he built one of the most valuable startups and what the future of company building looks like in the age of AI.

Before Remote, Job studied neuroscience and psychology, then joined GitLab as one of its first employees, helping it scale into a multibillion-dollar company. But through that journey, he saw a problem few were solving: hiring globally was still a nightmare.

So in 2019, he and Co-Founder Marcelo Lebre started Remote.com to fix i and to make it easy for any company, anywhere, to employ anyone in the world. In this conversation, we talk about:

- Why every founder should “virtually integrate” their business.

- How to scale from 5 to 2,000 employees without losing focus.

- What studying neuroscience taught Job about luck, judgment, and decision-making.

- When to raise money (and when not to)

I really enjoyed this conversation, Job was incredibly kind and thoughtful. We talk about everything, from founder psychology to product design (a conversation topic I really enjoyed) AI, and the philosophy of building companies that last.

This episode is presented by Rho , the all-in-one banking platform for startups. Thousands of startups like Perplexity, Product Hunt, and more use Rho. You get everything you need to manage your startup’s cash. Exclusively for Biography Pod listeners and viewers, you’ll get a $1500 statement credit plus a ton of exclusive perks when you manage your company cash with Rho. To learn more, visit ⁠https://rho.co/biography ⁠

Follow Job: ⁠https://x.com/jobvo ⁠

Remote: ⁠https://www.remote.com⁠

Follow Wouter: ⁠https://x.com/WouterTeunissen⁠

Biography Newsletter: ⁠https://biography.beehiiv.com/⁠

Timestamps:

00:00:00  - Intro

00:01:16- The First Years of Remote . Com

00:02:26 - Founder Mode

00:05:49 - It's all your fault.

00:12:42 - Why you need to virtually integrate

00:21:19 - "In 2021, we grew from 50 to 650 people...."

00:30:25 - You should always be doing this...

00:35:37 - How do you build a valuable product?

00:42:52 - How Job manages a 2,000+ company from his attic

00:51:44 - Work life balance?

00:57:23 - Should you raise as much money as possible?

01:08:17 - Should you build a remote first company?

01:11:36 - Job's first work experience

01:13:26 - What Studying Psychology and Neuroscience teaches you

01:16:07 - The Luck Factor in Science is not in your favour

01:24:01 - When is it time to start a company?

01:25:36 - Borrowing money to start my first business

01:31:43 - Joining Gitlab ($6 Billion) as an early employee

01:34:30 - How Our Startup Won Apple as a client

01:36:42 - Focusing as you scale

01:41:29 - What makes a great product?

01:48:35 - When is it time to add features?

01:49:43 - Should you start a company in Europe or are we screwed?

02:03:52 - The future of company building in the age of AI