Amir Salihefendić on trust, communication & deep work in building a remote company

[01:35] Paul: Today I'm talking with Amir Salihefendić, founder and CEO of Doist, a fully distributed remote company that creates productivity tools Todoist and Twist. We'll dive into his fascinating story, moving from Bosnia to Denmark as a child, and how he started his remote company while in college and the thinking around how he runs that company. Welcome to the podcast, Amir.

[02:11] Amir Salihefendić: Thank you, and it's a pleasure to be here.

[02:14] Paul: I'm really excited to talk to you today. I think you have a lot of great ideas around what I'm seeing as emerging as potentially something that could really break through, I think, in 2020. Just the idea of remote work and what it unlocks for people. But I wanted to start with just a little bit more about who you are. So I'd love to hear more about who was the Amir that arrived in Denmark when your family emigrated there as a child.

[02:46] Amir Salihefendić: Yeah, that's a good question. And I mean, something that I think is very critical to understand. It's kind of like, uh, I was a refugee, so, you know, like, we didn't really migrate because we wanted to. We were forced to do this because of, like, the Bosnian War. Um, so basically my family lost everything in, in the war, and we had to kind of, like, start from, from scratch. Um, yeah, so I think, like, it was kind of very traumatic experience.

I don't actually recall much of it like the early childhood and stuff. And maybe like my brain has also just like blocked this off, right? Uh, yeah, so I mean, it was pretty tough. But honestly, like, I think for me as a child, like, I didn't really understand much of it because I came to Denmark as like 5 or 6-year-old, um, and you don't really have, you know, the full understanding of the situation and I think maybe this was a much harder hit for like my brother and sister and my parents than actually me. Um, but yeah, I mean, I grew up in Denmark and, um, I was actually the only foreigner in the whole school. Wow.

And I also started like attending a real Danish school in the fourth grade. So basically like I didn't have like any kindergarten, um, Or like the, the first couple of years, it was just like a school, kind of like made-up school at the refugee camp. So I mean, school was also very tough, and also like I couldn't really speak the language probably. So yeah, I think like that was probably also a very traumatic experience, but, uh You know, I got accepted very well and I never actually got like mobbed by the others or like, you know, so the people were very nice to me usually. But still, like, you know, I kind of felt I didn't like fit in. And that is basically the early life story of mine.

[05:02] Paul: Are there any stories or moments that kind of stand out from going to school in Denmark and growing up there that maybe looking back shaped you a bit?

[05:16] Amir Salihefendić: I mean, something to note is like I started school very late and then also, you know, combined with having very bad self-discipline and really being mostly interested in computers, I was like a really, really bad student. So, and also like my parents had like some very tough jobs, a very tough job of running like a grocery store. So like they work almost all the time and they couldn't like really assist me like the schoolwork. So I struggled a lot and like the teachers actually thought I was pretty, you know, like delayed and probably like maybe also not that intelligent. So I had like a special, I attend like special classes. For some time.

Yeah, and it's actually only like when I started to attend like the second year of high school that I actually really got up to speed with others and then kind of accelerated from there. But yeah, that is probably like the situation I recall the most from, from that time.

[06:29] Paul: I think in reading your story and listening to some other podcasts, so I wanted to try and interview, ask you questions you haven't been asked before. There's a lot out there about you, but one thing that really stands out is you're able to, over and over again, not follow the conventional wisdom. I'm wondering where you think that comes from, because I think it's both enabled you to build a pretty impressive remote company and just do a remote company, which, when you were founding it, wasn't the norm.

[07:03] Amir Salihefendić: Yeah, that's a good question, Paul. And I mean, maybe it's kind of like this upbringing and like feeling like an outsider and not really like following the standard path. Like nothing that I have done has actually been very standard. And that combined maybe also like with first principles thinking that I got also inspired by some, some time ago. Um, I think those— that is probably like the combination that makes that possible. Uh, this said, I do actually like read a lot, and you know, I get inspired a lot by others.

Uh, it just— I just don't blindly go where others go. So for instance, like, um, early on I was kind of inspired by like the Basecamp folks who I think have done like a pretty good job, but I just don't blindly follow what they are like preaching. And I also try to look at things like from a different perspective. And so for instance, like, you know, we are fully bootstrapped, but I don't really see like VC pad as like the evil pad and like VCs as destroying like societies and stuff like that. I mean, the narrative that some people bring into it Yeah, so I think that's hard to know, like, how this got created. But the thing is, like, I always actually tried to look at things from, like, different radical perspectives, and then I tried to, like, create my own conclusion on things.

So for instance, like, instead of, you know, just being like VC is the only path forward or like bootstrapping, is the only path forward. I kind of like try to see like what are the different, you know, radicals preaching and what is like the middle ground here. Yeah.

[09:02] Paul: Yeah, that's, that's harder than it seems. It, I think just because of the pressure of founding a company is so high, so many people just want to do what everyone else is doing just to be safe. I'm wondering how you actually go through that process. So for example, you have no outside investment, no plans to exit, right? So somewhat similar to Basecamp. They do have outside investment, but I don't think they have any voting rights on the shares.

How did you— was it just web research, talking to people? How do you arrive at that? View?

[09:45] Amir Salihefendić: First of all, I had some experience with the VC path and I didn't really like it that much. So, you know, that's how I kind of arrived to this, that like my last company was actually like VC-backed without any like real business model. And I didn't like this at all. So that's how I arrived at the current situation. But also something to know is like, I wouldn't actually oppose getting funding at some point or even like exiting. And I think like exit is kind of like, it needs to be understood in context that I don't really want to stop what I'm doing.

But for instance, like doing, like becoming a public company, that's kind of like an exit. but it's kind of like an exit that doesn't really end your journey, especially like if you're smart and do it smartly. Um, so I mean, just to give you like, uh, a bit of overview of these things. So like, I think even like my perspective is kind of very balanced, and I'm not really like a very radical, uh, person that opposes anything.

[10:58] Paul: Uh, yeah, yeah, it's, it sounds like you try to look for the radical ideas to kind of figure out where the middle ground is and the reasonable solution.

[11:09] Amir Salihefendić: Exactly. And honestly, like, um, like Wait But Why— I'm not sure if you know that blog, but it's amazing.

[11:17] Paul: Yeah, definitely.

[11:19] Amir Salihefendić: And one of the recent articles he has is basically like the, the human, you know, like, uh, mind and how we actually operate. Um, And, you know, I think like presenting black and white things and radical ideas is actually the easy path forward because, you know, we are kind of like very tribal by nature. So you can see this like in politics and stuff like that. And what I have actually learned is like maybe to tone this down and like maybe, you know, try to find the middle ground and look at things from different perspectives instead of like painting the world as like black versus white. And I think if you see this around, like even adding, like we can go back to Basecamp, you know, there's like no gray areas, like it's very bombastic and it works really, really well, this kind of communication. That's why they do it.

But it also like is a very, I think, dangerous way because You know, most of things are kind of like balanced and you need to find like a middle way in almost any situation and not just like go from black to white or like, you know, do like propaganda aspects of like an idea or a movement. Yeah.

[12:40] Paul: And it seems the nuance aspect is such a core part of so many of the remote companies I talk to. What a lot of people seem to realize is as soon as you hire those first remote employees, you have to actually write down and put down what are the processes, what are the culture, what are the beliefs, what are the trade-offs? And it's actually a lot harder than people imagine, mostly because the model for work is in-person communication, where a lot of these things are kind of picked up through practice rather than figuring out what they are. How, I mean, we could dive into a lot on remote working, but what are some of the other big shifts you've seen from just starting a remote company versus others?

[13:30] Amir Salihefendić: In what sense? Like shifts in working together or like—

[13:35] Paul: Yeah, so one of the big shifts I've seen is that It actually shifts the focus from work as the center of life and then designing your life around it with commutes, cars, everything, to shifting more of what is the life you're living and then designing the work around it. Maybe you can reflect on that shift or if there are other shifts you've seen that have really been powerful. From remote work?

[14:08] Amir Salihefendić: Yeah, I mean, the way that I look at it is kind of like, it's a very radical way actually, and maybe not everybody will agree, but I see this like as a new industrialization because it's actually like the first time in human history that you can actually get an amazing job regardless of where you live. So you're not really like location-bound anymore. And I think this has like huge amounts of implications to everything. So like you say, like you can design your life as you like. And if you actually also like are both accepting like location independence and also time independence, then you can, you know, do work from almost anywhere and you can structure your day as you like. And you can still be productive and do amazing things.

And I think this is actually the first time in history where this is actually possible, at least do it that like in a, in a high-scale way. Yeah. So for me, that would be like a huge implication that has like all kinds of consequences. And maybe like some of the consequences isn't talked about that much is basically like making this accessible to almost anybody on Earth. While like the old system, like you had to live like in London, like San Francisco to actually get like a tech job. Right now you can do that from like Africa or whatever.

[15:41] Paul: Right.

[15:42] Amir Salihefendić: So I'm quite excited of actually how this affects not only work, but also life and like people around the world.

[15:51] Paul: Yeah, it's, it's pretty incredible. And I think it is also a trend that scares people a bit, because if you play out the implications, so I'm actually located in Taiwan and grew up in the US. And if you suddenly can hire globally, you have to quickly do the math that some very, very talented engineer in Taiwan, and there are tons of them, is probably willing to work for far less of a salary than somebody in the US or other high-cost regions. So it becomes a lot more competitive. So I think people that are willing to be location independent might have a lot more options, but it's also pretty threatening to people who have relied on full-time work in their local economies.

[16:42] Amir Salihefendić: I mean, that is definitely true, but I think this will kind of be like a gain. Yeah. And the reason is I think also like salaries, as I see it, and also like as we see it evolve, will kind of become global in this space. So yeah, like, like already now, if you look at like the top remote companies, you know, location is kind of like maybe a small factor into the salary formula. It's not like this deciding factor like it is, um, in for regular companies. Um, and this actually has like huge amounts of implications, I think, also to societies in like, at least like in the future, um, where, you know, like a person— and we have this already right now inside our company— like they gain maybe like 10x of what they would actually gain locally.

And this has all kinds of implications, you know, for like their families and like the— they can, you know, be a great help in their local communities. And if you have like a lot of these people, I think this will kind of start a trend. And then like this path of like actually getting like this kind of job will become much more popular.

[18:01] Paul: Yeah, wow, that's pretty powerful. Um, I'd love to hear, so how are you actually thinking about compensation? Do you just start with some of the most competitive markets right now and orient around that? Because it's actually counter to what I would have thought.

[18:21] Amir Salihefendić: Yeah, I mean, I can— I mean, this is kind of like a huge debate, you know, like, and there's many ways you can actually look at this. I can tell you how we look at this and how our, like, formula is So basically we actually use like the US market as the benchmark currently. And I think like, I'm not sure like what percentile we are looking at, but it's like, I don't know, over 75% percentile that we look at. And then we base like the core salaries on that. And actually like the US market is by far like the the most expensive market to hire from. So that's basically how we do it.

And I think like a lot of other remote companies do a similar thing because like for these tech companies, what you actually care about is like hiring very talented people and you don't really care about like cost minimization or like paying as little as possible. Because, you know, like a great designer, a great engineer, support person, like marketing person can, you know, bring in a lot more than you actually pay them. Yeah. So that's at least how we look at this. And in our salary formula, location has like a 30% or can have like a 30% effect on the core salary that you get. And as I see it, like as we evolve, we actually want to pay higher and higher salaries.

So actually, we have done significant salary raises of, I think, at least 10% the last 8 or 9 years. So that's a bit about our salaries and how we think about it.

[20:14] Paul: Yeah. And it seems like remote work is at the core of this shift towards, and I think we'll talk about this in a bit. Makes work a little more asynchronous, right? So you can't track and control people. I was actually watching one of the Q&As you did at a conference and somebody asked a question which kind of cracked me up a bit, which was, how do you know if your remote workers are working? Like, that would be a good question in any company.

But we have this idea that we kind of need to control and monitor people. right? And it seems that remote work is really at the center of a shift from this built-in paradigm of you go to work for X number of hours to, all right, let's do great work. Does that resonate with what, how you're thinking about it?

[21:07] Amir Salihefendić: Um, it does, it does. And, um, I mean, I think that's spot on and something that we don't do, like we don't track people, we don't actually know how much time they are spending and we don't really care about this. I think what you really need to check is kind of the output, like what are people actually contributing with and not, you know, like the input is like hours. I think especially like in our work that's like highly creative, you know, you can kind of like go for like a 2-hour walk and do a lot of work and like solve really hard problems. And maybe in a normal company, this wouldn't really be considered hard work, you know, because you're just like walking and you're not really at your desk. Yeah.

So I think this shift is happening and I honestly don't only think this is happening like for remote companies, but like just like work in general, like, you know, with so much leverage that you have, like, as a tech worker and so much creativity, like, it becomes actually much more critical, like, the solution they come with than, like, the amounts of time you spend on this.

[22:24] Paul: How do you think about training? I think one thing I've— so I've done some— I did consulting in my past career. I do freelance consulting now. And one thing I challenge executives on is tell me what your first week of training is about, right? And a lot of them will tell me it's about policies, procedures, and all these things. And I say, well, where's the training on like how to do great work, how to learn, how all these meta skills?

Do you help people think about developing these skills? Like even things that might be out of your domain, like sleep, health, doing deep work, learning how to learn.

[23:06] Amir Salihefendić: I mean, this is kind of like the core at what we do at Doist and what we actually want to promote is kind of like, you know, constant learning and constant growth of like the people that are inside the company and inside like this space as well. Like if you actually stop learning, like first of all, like this is a bad thing for the organization because a lot of stuff like the markets are moving so fast and the technologies are moving so fast that, you know, in some years, like, you will not be able to do any kind of, like, meaningful contributions. And then also for the individual, like, they will actually be hard-pressed to actually find a job again if they actually— if their skills stall. So let's say that, you know, like, you have invested all your time in just like learning jQuery and you stopped at that.

And then, you know, like a few years in, you have like a lot of other technologies such as like React or Redux or whatever. And if you actually didn't, don't really evolve your skill set, then like finding a job doing jQuery right now will probably be very tough, as I would imagine. And I think this happens like in almost all kind of things like design as well, like product work, and even maybe marketing, you know, and even maybe like the leadership positions. Like if you still think, you know, the right way to do stuff is kind of to track people and to kind of like look at how many code lines they have committed, then, you know, you're kind of like very outdated and it will probably not be a very good way to succeed for the future. Yeah, so that's kind of like how we and I look at this.

[25:05] Paul: Yeah, do you and your team talk about doing deep work and what that actually means?

[25:14] Amir Salihefendić: Oh, I mean, you know, we have huge threads about like how to do better work, how to do deep work. So I think that's kind of like a core thing that we actually do inside Doist.

[25:30] Paul: And so a short question here. One thing that jumped out is you give people 40 vacation days. Do people really take all 40 vacation days?

[25:42] Amir Salihefendić: I mean, they do. That's awesome. It's kind of like forced. Yeah. I mean, the thing is like you could actually do like unlimited vacation days. It doesn't really work that well.

Like if you actually look at the data, because you kind of like need to force people to do this and then it also needs to like be everybody inside a company that does this. So if I, for example, only take like 5 days of vacation per year, you know, it sounds like a very bad signal to the rest of the company.

[26:13] Paul: Another thing I've noticed about remote work is that it has this unintended side effect of just letting people breathe a little, letting them be a little more human. I think on your site you have a couple articles where you talk about parents and how they're just able to kind of embrace a little of the chaos that comes with that, letting their kids sit in on the video chats or even bringing their family to the retreats. How is that intentional, how you think about kind of including the broader aspects of people's lives? It just seems that remote work is really enables kind of breaking past that, like, I need to be in professional mode all the time mindset.

[27:00] Amir Salihefendić: Yeah. I mean, honestly, I think like something that's underrated for remote work, it's kind of like it's much more compatible with parenting. Because you kind of have like much more flexibility. And I think it's also much actually better for, for instance, for, for women, especially with like longer maternity leave, and also just like that they can kind of like structure their days so they can still actually do some work, but also like, you know, they can be with, with their babies and stuff. And of course, for for fathers as well. I mean, I have like a small daughter of like 2 weeks now, and it's quite great to just like be able to, you know, like do an extra hour in the morning with her, or like, you know, go home and work from home and be with her without really affecting my work that much.

Yeah, so I think like for parents, this is like a huge benefit, uh, and for families as well. And maybe this is like underappreciated right now.

[28:11] Paul: Have you talked to a lot of other companies who might not be remote yet but are thinking about making the transition and seeking you out for advice?

[28:23] Amir Salihefendić: Oh, I have talked with a lot of those. Yeah, it's a very common, uh, theme.

[28:29] Paul: What are some of the common thoughts of resistance that they give you and how do you help them reframe some of those things? I think just the one around like, well, how do I keep track of what my people are doing? We kind of touched that on a bit, but what are some of the common pushbacks that other founders or CEOs give you about remote work?

[28:59] Amir Salihefendić: Yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a great question. And I think something that's like really tough to do is like kind of change. Let's say that you actually have 20 people working from an office and then suddenly like you go in and like go remote all the way. I think that's probably a very, very hard change to do because like remote work, especially like as we do it, like, you know, remote first, like there's no office. No work times and stuff like that. That's a really like huge paradigm shift and cultural shift.

And I think just like jumping in and doing this, that is not something that I recommend. So what I would actually recommend is like maybe, you know, do like remote one day per week or like two days per week and then like upgrade it gradually instead of just taking a huge jump into the unknown. And yeah, so that's one thing. And the other thing is basically that you actually need to come up with whole new ways to communicate, to document stuff. I mean, because you just can't go over and tap somebody on the shoulder You don't really see people. I mean, it's kind of like it has huge amounts of implications and maybe actually changing the current companies to work fully remotely.

I'm actually unsure if that is a good idea or that works that well. Like maybe what you need to do is create a new company where you like build stuff from scratch and where you actually hire people for that kind of like mindset because also like remote work isn't for everybody. And, you know, some people don't really like it and some people are not very good at these positions because like you have to have a lot of like independence. You have to kind of be self-managed, self-motivated. There's also huge amounts of social implications on this. Yeah, so I would say that, you know, it's kind of a paradigm shift and like normal companies, I doubt they can actually convert that easily to this new paradigm.

[31:19] Paul: Yeah, that's the feeling I get too. I just think the, the kind of embedded beliefs are just so hard to overcome, but it seems you'd have to be at least smaller or at least somewhat mobile or technology-based already.

[31:36] Amir Salihefendić: Yeah, I mean, something that I see that is maybe going to be a trend is like the way that Stripe is kind of like doing this, like they are basically creating like a remote internal remote team of like 100 or 150 people that are just going to be run by like the remote-first principles. And that is also a way you can do it is like maybe, you know, like you're creating like an iOS team, like maybe make that remote-first and try that out first. And instead of like moving everybody over to this new paradigm.

[32:09] Paul: So Doist has two pieces of software. First one was a to-do list productivity app called Todoist. And the second one was Twist. I'd love to dive into Twist, which is an asynchronous chat. So that just means whenever you're sending messages, it doesn't mean it's real-time communication. You're going to be receiving it at a later date, or there are certain times you can check in.

On the communication. How did that tool arise? Was that something you built internally for your team at first?

[32:47] Amir Salihefendić: Yeah, I mean, actually, like, the way that we do product development is, is we, we build stuff for ourselves. So that's the secret. And Twist is the same. It's kind of like we actually were using Slack at the beginning But we could see like huge amounts of issues with Slack and the way that it was designed and the way that it worked that really didn't resemble the way that we wanted to work. So that's how we actually came up with this tool and where especially like as a remote-first company, like asynchronous is very important if you actually want to scale across time zones. But it's also actually very critical for deep work because in Twist the messages aren't only one-liners.

They are more like emails, so like emails type of messages you send around. So those are the two things and the history of the product.

[33:51] Paul: Yeah, do you teach people certain ways of writing or help them develop those skills? Just to communicate clearer.

[34:00] Amir Salihefendić: I mean, something also to note is, you know, you can kind of like design software in different ways that promote different type of interactions. So if you look at like the Slacks or like chat apps in general, the way they are designed is kind of like for these quick liners.

[34:19] Paul: Yeah, just send whatever you're thinking.

[34:22] Amir Salihefendić: Exactly. And like, it's basically like, you know, one-line thinking all the way through. And that's what they promote. And what we actually want to promote is kind of like thoughtful and deep communication. So that's what we actually built around the app for. It's basically like it promotes that kind of interaction.

And you can see that people actually do this because the software kind of like promotes this. That's the default that people actually do. So like on Twist, you don't just send like one-liners, you actually try to create like thoughtful content and share that with others.

[34:59] Paul: Yeah, it seems like Slack solved the real problem when it was emerging. It made people realize, oh, we should actually like categorize, sort, make things searchable. But then it seems people also realize a couple years later, oh wait, I'm spending all my time just slacking rather than— it's kind of funny, its name Slack, but slacking rather than actually doing the work. How have you had a lot of reaction or interest in your app recently because of this?

[35:39] Amir Salihefendić: I mean, honestly, like for us, this is kind of like a battle. You know, like, and we are kind of like radical in this way of thinking. And the market itself, they have not really like, you know, figured this out that it's actually like real-time chat communication and one-line thinking isn't like the way to go. So we do have like some interest in this, but I would also say that it's not kind of like like we don't really have like product market fit because the market doesn't really value this that much right now. We hope of course like this changes, but it's kind of like fighting against like the human nature because the thing to note is like real-time communication and chat with emojis and stuff. Like it's really, really fun and addictive.

So when you actually remove this from users, they actually feel like, you know, you have like really removed something great away from them.

[36:47] Paul: Yeah. Taking away those dopamine hits.

[36:50] Amir Salihefendić: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of like, imagine like if you had just like free cocaine and it didn't really have like big amounts of like negative aspects, that's basically like Slack. And then you try to kind of tell people that maybe like cocaine all the time isn't that good.

[37:04] Paul: Yeah. So you're offering them the spinach instead of the cocaine.

[37:11] Amir Salihefendić: Exactly. And like the only, and it's hard, you know, to kind of like promote this kind of mindset because it's only thing you can see like long-term. Yeah. So what I actually hope is like the work that we do at Doist on, for instance, like Todoist and even Doist itself kind of speaks for itself of like the effectiveness of this method.

[37:34] Paul: Yeah, and it's almost like the product market fit for you might be the market that's emerging of the remote companies to be created who are starting and saying, okay, Slack doesn't look perfect. How do we actually do something from the start that's a little bit different?

[37:52] Amir Salihefendić: Yeah, but honestly, like we are not really seeing that, like even like the remote companies They just say, okay, like being online all the time and chit-chatting all day long, that's perfectly fine. Like, that's what they do. Like, and there's no, like, there's very few that actually go in and challenge the status quo and like challenge, you know, this line of thinking. And yeah, so unfortunately, like, I don't really think like people have woken up yet. To this fact. And maybe, you know, we are also wrong.

That could also be an option. And like, this asynchronous model is kind of the wrong model of the future. It's very hard to know. Yeah.

[38:41] Paul: Yeah, it's interesting. Well, hopefully I can spread the word a little, but you hear from individuals that they're frustrated with this, but I think, like you said, it's just so addictive and so rewarding to people. That it's just going to be hard to change those behaviors.

[38:59] Amir Salihefendić: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, also, like, if you look at who actually designed, like, this model, like, it's a gaming company.

[39:07] Paul: I did not know that.

[39:09] Amir Salihefendić: Like, their first product was a game. Oh yeah. Like, they pivoted away from a game to Slack.

[39:16] Paul: Wow. That's a great fun fact.

[39:19] Amir Salihefendić: Yeah. So that Yeah, so that kind of also tells you a bit like, like, like what kind of elements are used to kind of like create a product like that.

[39:30] Paul: I'm really energized by companies like yours who really seem to be giving power back to individuals, but in the same sense, you're really aligning with unleashing kind of people's creative potential, their freedom to live the lives that's as they please, what, like, what advice would you give people that are either in traditional organizations or other remote companies for some of the things you guys have done really well that you wish more people knew about?

[40:05] Amir Salihefendić: I mean, that's a great question, Paul. I think definitely like asynchronous communication and lifestyle is kind of a huge part And I really hope like people actually take this more seriously. So that's one aspect. Another aspect, and it's like maybe Todoist related, it's kind of like that most people just wing things and they don't really have like the personal productivity system where they can actually like, you know, plan their days, execute their days, and have like prioritization of like the stuff that they actually want to spend time on. And plan that and execute that. And for me personally, that's kind of like the mission that we are on is kind of like enabling better communication, but also like better organization, because I think that can really unlock a ton of human potential.

[40:59] Paul: Yeah, that's great. I'd love to hear what influence Denmark has had on your mindset around work. So I did some work in Denmark and Copenhagen for a bit, and I'm forgetting the word now, but my colleagues introduced me to this word that had something to do with work-life integration or just bringing joy to kind of all aspects of your life. Totally forget what the word is, but it was one of these untranslatable words and ideas that seemed to really be embraced and led to a lot of a lot different perspectives than some of the American offices I was working in at the time.

[41:45] Amir Salihefendić: I mean, honestly, like, I think the stuff that Scandinavia does is really, really well, and it's not like only Denmark, but also like Norway and Sweden and Finland. So I think like a lot of other countries could actually, and people could get inspired by that. Because in Denmark, like, you actually don't really work all the time. I think, like, the, the standard work week is 37 hours. And the thing to note about that is kind of like they work those hours, but it's like really, really efficient and there's like no fooling around. And that's something that really impressed me a lot because And a lot of other cultures, like, maybe people work like 50 hours, but most of that work is kind of like very unfocused and it's like very, you know, like it's not very efficient.

So that's one aspect. And I think the word that you're probably looking at is maybe hygge.

[42:49] Paul: I'm unsure, but yeah, it sounds right.

[42:52] Amir Salihefendić: Yeah, that's kind of like the It's very hard, like, it's hard to translate it, but it's kind of like that you're just enjoying the little stuff and like the moment, the atmosphere. And you usually do that with other people, you know, people that you care about. But you can also do it like solo, like you can actually, you know, create a cup of coffee and like just, you know, do some coding and then that is kind of like a great moment. And they— the society really like celebrates those kind of moments and tries to kind of optimize towards that.

So like the whole way that you actually structure like, I mean, for instance, like Christmas upcoming, and they— I didn't like— some of the nicest like Christmas decorations can be found like in, in in Denmark, and it kind of creates this atmosphere, and then it's much easier to kind of get into the mood of like, you know, spending time with your family and like, you know, like with a hot cup of cocoa or something like that and enjoying the moment. Oh yeah.

[44:05] Paul: Wow, I love that. Where would you like to point people if they want to learn more about your apps, Twister, Todoist, or just more about your writing on running a remote company?

[44:23] Amir Salihefendić: Yeah, honestly, like, the thing with us is like we share a ton of stuff with, with people. So we have a blog called Balance and Ambition on doist.com. You can access it from there. And we have basically shared a ton over the years. We also have like a remote work academy where we have basically collected the best tips from us and from also some of the other companies such as like Buffer and created guides of various different things that are remote work related. So those are, I think, the best resources we have.

And then I also like tweet, maybe not a lot, but I tweet sometimes on @amix3k. So yeah, you can also like follow me there and like I usually post stuff about work and like productivity, deep work. Yeah.

[45:22] Paul: Fantastic. Well, it was a pleasure to talk to you today, Amir. I wish you continued luck with the company and appreciate the work you're doing.

[45:32] Amir Salihefendić: Paul, it was a pleasure speaking with you, and thanks a lot for having me here. I hope people will find this—