Matt Redler

• Tell us a little bit about your company and mission.

Panther is the people suite for distributed teams. Our purpose is to empower work-from-anywhere, and we do that by taking care of all the HR+IT needs of remote teams, so they can hire and run a first-class team that works from anywhere.

• Where is your team located? Are you all remote or do you maintain an office?

We're an all-remote team, with members distributed in eight timezones across the world (so far). We don't maintain formal company offices, but we do empower our teammates to work from wherever they're happiest by giving them a remote working stipend. Our teammates use their stipend to create the best working experience possible. Sometimes that's a co-working membership. Other times it's a coffee subscription, snacks, wifi, a housekeeper, and a massage chair for the home office.

• What is your approach to async communication vs. synchronous meetings?

Panther is asynchronous by default. We emphasize writing and long-form thought over meetings and slides. And if we must meet, particularly when there is a need to transform information instead of just transmit it, we keep it as short as possible, invite as few people as possible, and record and distribute the meeting in our company theatre (Rewatch).

• Do you maintain set working hours or do you let employees manage their own schedules?

Work hours are for suckers. We care deeply about outputs and far less about inputs.

We're all working in different times zones. And, we all love working at certain times (locally). I'm writing this at midnight (ET).

At Panther, we try hard to get as much deep workflow as possible, and that happens more sporadically than most of us think. And yet, Panther as a unit makes progress 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, with teammates all over the globe.

‍• What are the top two perks you offer your team?‍

Since we're globally distributed and async-first, every person at Panther can work from wherever they're happiest, and they can explore the world.

We invest deeply in the social tissue of our team. We fly everyone out for world-class team retreats a few times a year. When we're together, the goal isn't to complete a work sprint. The goal is to break bread, have hard conversations, and make hard decisions.‍

• What's your favourite tool for remote collaboration?

Threads, hands down.

• Can you share one prediction for the future of work?

Slack is dead. Forums (Threads) are in.

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