In this blog post, Pablo Baldomá gives some examples of how the world is indeed changing and what we can do to stay ahead in today’s global marketplace. We hope that by reading this article, you have been inspired to take action on your own entrepreneurial journey!
The book that influenced me the most during my early stages as an entrepreneur was “The World is Flat”, written in 2005 by Thomas Friedman.
This marvelous piece was not referring — obviously — to the flatness of the earth, but to globalization 3.0 as a worldwide phenomenon. The author takes the flat earth concept as a metaphor for game-changing events like the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Internet, the growth of the Software industry, new outsourcing models, and how technology is putting almost everything on steroids.
Making contact with these revolutionary ideas, all at once, made me realize that Juan Salas and I wanted to be a part of it and revolve around some inefficient working areas. But, what could we do to take advantage of these new concepts?
In early 2015, after working together for a few years on different projects, we came up with an idea. First, we wanted to create a true global company without being limited to a particular area or country. Secondly, but most importantly, we needed to rethink the software delivery model making it more transparent, fair and easy.
We started playing a borderless game, where we just asked ourselves ‘What if?’. With that question as a leitmotiv, we searched without limits all the aspects of software engineering industry, finding interesting answers that further we would combine creating: Alto.
All the ideas we collected in that quest started to grow: solving real problems, finding real customers, and connecting real people. That was the turning point in our development as a company: the world agreeing to our idea. But also, something really unexpected was just about to happen: a worldwide pandemic.
This new external shock added #Remote to everything, skyrocketing our industry. Now, we were no longer rowing our boat, but rather riding the crest of the wave, a wave that we really knew how to ride.
Since the beginning of Alto, we wanted to do it 100% remote. As remoters, we understand that an office is just a place to work and nothing more. It doesn't matter where the company resides, but it does matter how transparent it is and, even better, how fast distributed teams can get things done. There has been a pivotal change in how we work, communicate, share knowledge and do business altogether by creating connections worldwide.
That's where the power of borderless hiring enables companies to find the best talents, wherever they are. It made us realize that there is no place for discrimination based on gender, age, race, sexual orientation, or location in a specific country or time zone. Instead, it's all about skills and how fast you can do things right!
At Alto’s platform, right now we are connecting experts from 39 countries — with experience in over 600 technologies and 5,000 experts registered — with start-ups and big companies in 9 countries on 4 continents. We know, we make it as a team, each one of us made a contribution from its own field of knowledge, creating easy-useful tools for employers and tech talents to accomplish their goals faster by developing better and scalable teams.
This Borderless culture has been moving so quickly because it allows everybody to get closer, increases individual and collective well-being, creates economic development, and delivers real value.
So, Thomas Friedman was right, The World is Flat. But remote is the last flattening force that he never got to mention in his book.
