20+ years ago I started my professional career. For the first 10 years, spent an hour or more shlepping back and forth; because there was no other option. Then 15 years ago I saw a job post that changed my life. The job description was irrelevant but at the bottom it said “work from home.” I applied to that job and I’e never looked back.
I helped scale InVision from $0 —> $100M in ARR, and grow from hire #1 to 1000 employees across the world. Proving remote work is just as good and experiencing real remote work. Before COVID gave a false illusion of what remote work wasn’t. I hosted a podcast on remote leadership.
I've also mentored more than 2,500 founders.
I thought I had a pretty complete picture of what the future of work looked like. Because the data and use cases have been crystal clear that employees want workplace flexibility and will leave their company if forced RTO.
50% of companies lost some—>a lot of talent during one of the most difficult job search periods
Then I found the neurodiversity tech/work world.
Founders who are neurodiverse themselves building tools for the neurospicy community. Founders building impactful companies to better the world. Founders who sat across from me in a Zoom window — and started telling me stories.
I heard stories about talented people who never got the chance to show off their superpowers — not because they lacked the skills, but because the environment was working against them. Constant interruptions in open offices. Meetings structured for speaking rather than thinking. Communication norms that rewarded being always-on over doing great impactful work. Work environments that weren’t built for their brains. And underneath it all: companies with no systems and procedures to ensure every employee has the opportunity to thrive. The talent was always there. The environment just made it invisible.
I kept nodding. Not because I was being polite but because something sounded quite familiar.
The aha! moment
Here's what clicked for me, somewhere in the middle of one of those conversations: the failures these employees were experiencing at work are exactly the same failures companies made when they tried to go remote during the pandemic.
When COVID hit, most companies did something predictable. They took everything they did in the office — the meetings, the real-time communication norms, the synchronous stand-ups, the assumption that being present meant being productive — and they moved it to Zoom & Slack. They didn't redesign how work happened. They relocated it.
A tiny handful of companies were different. The old-school remote companies like InVision, Buffer, Help Scout, GitLab, and Doist have been practicing the best of (remote) work for years. An even smaller number of companies like HubSpot, Atlassian, Dropbox, & Airbnb did exactly what was needed. During COVID they invested the time, effort, and $ to become digital first companies. Implementing those systems and SOPs like measuring output instead of hours, documenting everything, protecting deep work. These companies didn't just survive the remote experiment. They thrived. They now have more qualified applicants for every open role than they know what to do with. People are desperate to join their ranks.
The difference wasn't where people worked. It was how the company was designed to operate.
Now look at what neurodiverse employees need to do their best work. Less synchronous noise. Predictable communication rhythms. The ability to work in an environment they can control. Time to go deep before being interrupted. Being measured on what they actually produce — not whether they seem engaged in a meeting or make eye contact in the hallway.
Sound familiar?
It's the same list. The best remote-first companies accidentally built the the v1 neuro-inclusive operational model for work. They just didn't know it yet. 💡
Two asteroids. One blind spot.
Most companies don't see either asteroid coming.
Asteroid One — The RTO trap
The belief that getting people back into the office will restore the productivity and culture that disappeared since 2020. It won't — not because offices are bad, but because the problem was never where people worked. And there’s already plenty of data proving the false hopes. It was that most companies never redesigned how work happens. They continue to measure presence and called it productivity. And you can’t tell a parent that commuting 60+ minutes each way to spend less time with those you they love improves culture. It actually does the opposite. Unless companies become digital first who have workspaces as a perk, not where work gets done, will die off once the economy improves and power swings back to the employee. Because few companies will survive 70%+ of their team leaving.
Asteroid Two — The neurodiverse workforce wave
Each year the statistics of people with neurodiversity increases. For example, the rate of child diagnoses of Autism jumped 300% between 2000-2020. A significantly higher proportion of Gen Z identify as neurodiverse than any previous generation. This is not a rounding error. This is the generation entering the workforce right now — joining companies built around operating norms designed for neurotypical workers in 1960s office environments. Most HR departments don't have systems or policies for this. Most CEOs aren't thinking about it. The companies that don't get ahead of it will experience something confusing and expensive: productivity gaps, disengagement, and retention problems they can't explain. Because the cause won't be visible. 💣
That's the collision course. Two asteroids. Most companies don't see either one.
Who I am — and why I'm the weird choice to write this
I should be clear about something: I'm not neurodiverse. I'm not writing this from the inside of that experience.
I'm a company builder. Someone obsessed with leadership — not management, leadership — and with the systems and operations that allow people to do their best work. I spent years at the intersection of remote work and high-growth startups. I experienced what happens when companies got it right, and in the rooms when they got it wrong.
And I'm a parent. 3 of my kiddos are neurodiverse. I watch them navigate school systems that weren't designed for how their brains work. 1 of my kiddos has dyslexia, dysgraphia, etc who struggles in a 1:Many class environment; especially copying from the board. But thrives 1:1 with tutors. I see the gap between what they're capable of and what those systems allow them to demonstrate. Another child has high-functioning Autism. He’s brilliant, entrepreneurial, and will change the world one day. But the rigid education system isn’t built for his success. And I can't stop seeing that same design failures everywhere I look — in every open-plan office, in every synchronous-by-default communication culture, in every performance review that mistakes stillness for engagement.
That's why I'm writing this. Not as an activist. Not as a researcher. As an operator who has built the systems that actually work — and who can't unsee how urgently those same systems need to become standard practice everywhere.
The Future of Work is Neurospicy is not a DEI newsletter. It's not a feel-good celebration of neurodiversity. It's not "10 tips for being more inclusive."
It's an operator's guide to building companies that work — for everyone.
Every issue will sit at the intersection of two things: the best practices of the leading remote-first companies, and what research and real-world experience tells us neurodiverse employees need to thrive. Those two bodies of knowledge overlap more than almost anyone has noticed. That overlap is where I'm building.
I'll bring data where it exists. I'll name the open questions honestly where it doesn't — and there are real gaps in what we know. I'll share founder and employee stories that put faces on the research. I'll give you language and frameworks you can actually use — whether you're a CEO trying to understand a growing risk on the horizon, an HR leader trying to make the case internally, or someone who is neurodiverse and has spent years knowing something was wrong with the system but couldn't find the words for it.
I'll also be honest when I'm wrong, when the evidence is thin, and when the answer is still being figured out. I have strong opinions. I hold them loosely when the data says to.
The future of work is neurospicy. The companies that figure that out first will have an enormous advantage. The ones that don't will wonder for years what happened.
Welcome. Let's build this together. 🙏
I'd love to hear what brought you here. Reply directly — I read every message.
If this resonates, share it with someone in your network who needs to read this. The conversation needs to start somewhere.
And if you're past the conversation stage and ready to actually build the systems — reach out. That's exactly what I do.