Automattic, the company that has built WordPress into the Web’s most popular publishing tool, is shutting down its office. The company itself, which is known for its far-flung, remote-work culture, is doing just fine. It’s only the physical office that Automattic has decided to ditch (Oliver Staley in Quartz).
As founder Matt Mullenweg explains it, the company leased the converted warehouse on San Francisco’s Hawthorne Street six or seven years ago as a hub for Bay Area-based workers to use as they wished. Not enough did. Automattic’s 550 employees are scattered around the globe and free to work where they choose. (The company’s novel practices are documented in Scott Berkun’s book The Year Without Pants.) The S.F. office looked lovely, but freedom is even more attractive.