Zapier: No Offices, Ever
Zapier was founded in 2012 and has never had a physical office. Not an office they moved out of - never had one at all. The company grew from three founders across two states to 800+ employees across 40 countries, reaching a $5 billion valuation without a single physical headquarters.
Zapier CEO Wade Foster has written extensively about building and running a fully distributed company. Their playbook is one of the most detailed and transparent accounts of remote company building available, and much of it is published publicly for other companies to learn from.
Hiring for the No-Office World
Zapier hiring process is designed specifically to identify remote-work-ready candidates. Key elements:
- A paid project is central to the hiring process - candidates do real work for real pay before receiving an offer. This evaluates actual work quality rather than interview performance.
- Written communication is evaluated throughout - applications, responses, and project documentation are all assessed for clarity and quality.
- Questions specifically explore how candidates have worked remotely or self-directed previously.
Async as Default, Not Exception
Zapier is async by default across all time zones. The company uses written communication for most decisions, Loom videos for visual walkthroughs, and Notion for documentation. Meetings are rare and treated as a last resort rather than a first option.
Zapier has documented their communication norms publicly. Key practices: messages should not require immediate responses, off-hours messages are understood to be responded to during working hours, and "urgent" is reserved for genuinely time-sensitive situations (not just "important to me right now").
Building Culture Without Physical Space
Without an office, Zapier invests in culture through different mechanisms:
- Annual company retreat - the entire company meets in person once per year. This is the single most culturally significant event in their calendar.
- Team retreats - individual teams meet several times per year for focused work and relationship building
- Online social infrastructure - Slack channels for hobbies, interests, and personal sharing; virtual social events
- New hire buddy program - every new employee is paired with an experienced teammate for their first 90 days
Performance Management Without Presence
Zapier has fully eliminated proximity from its performance management. Every team uses OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) with clear, measurable targets. Performance reviews focus entirely on outcomes. Management training explicitly addresses the bias toward visible activity over measurable results.
What It Takes to Thrive at Zapier
Zapier employees who thrive share common traits: strong self-direction, excellent written communication, proactive information sharing, and comfort with ambiguity. People who need frequent in-person validation, prefer verbal over written communication, or struggle to self-organize find fully distributed work difficult.
Zapier is explicit about this in their hiring process: they are looking for a specific type of person who is genuinely excited about remote work, not someone who is indifferent to it or views it as a benefit rather than a way of working.