Automattic

Great culture. Everyone is super nice.

Meaningful, successful products. You deploy your code to millions every day.

Great life-work balance.

Very generous home setup.

The CEO and company in general are genuinely good at heart. It feels like most CEOs are a bit phony nowadays, but I feel Matt is not like that at all.

• Some parts of the products can be depressingly buggy.
• It's easy to feel like a cog in a machine (big company in the end).
• A somewhat arbitrary and strict conflict of interest policy that really curbs your creativity outside work. You probably won't be able to pursue any side quests once you join.
• HR can be very stiff and seemingly unreasonable. There is a sense of “if I do this for you, I have to do it for everyone” that really takes away a lot of your enthusiasm. Working super hard isn't rewarded unless wildly visible.

Please get rid of the black box COI approval form. Many times I don't start a side project that can easily benefit a8c because I want to avoid being shut down by HR and lose my love for the company. It doesn't feel right.

I completely understand the risk on the company's side, but I strongly believe that the opportunity cost is considerable for the company as well. The COI prevents innovation entirely in most cases, not directs it towards the company.

It's like “distribute the wealth.” Well, it has to exist first.