I’m Scott Olechowski, Co-Founder of Plex, and This Is How I Work
Plex is a great way to organize media and transfer it between devices wherever you are, and as it turns out, co-founder Scott Olechowski applies a similar mindset to his workflow. With a distributed team that collaborates on the Internet, Scott and his team take over the development of the application wherever they are. We contacted Scott to learn a little about his mobile workflow and how the team works across time zones and platforms.
Location: Los Gatos, California. Current position : Chief Product Officer / Plex, Inc. One word that best describes how you work: Scattershot (are those two words?) Current mobile device: iPhone 6. No +, that’s just silly. Current computer: Retina Macbook Pro 15-inch
What apps / programs / tools can’t you live without? Why?
There are several tools that I need because they allow me to achieve something that was not possible a year or two ago. Number one is Slack . This is the communications operating system that Plex runs on. We have a remote and global team. Slack helps shorten time zones and gives us the productivity and family feeling that most startups can only hope for. We will even force ourselves to use it, even if we sit next to each other, so that everyone on the team (regardless of location) feels engaged in conversations.
Google Docs is one of my favorite tools because of its collaboration features. PowerPoints are never fun, so it makes things easier. We also use Hangouts all the time. It may sound mundane, but just like Slack, it helps create the feeling of a close-knit team, even from all over the world.
GitHub is also invaluable to me. We started using it in Plex because all of our developers already lived in this world to code, track issues, create milestones and the like. Plex is a unique product that supports so many platforms. Tracking the progress of product development across all of these platforms can be quite challenging. Based on their API, we have created our own control panel, which further simplifies management.
How is your workplace arranged?
Extremely mobile. I rarely visit the same place two days in a row, even within our workplace. I get bored quickly so I need to change the environment as much as possible. My “office” is any place where there is connectivity and there is even a little life in my laptop battery.
What’s your best time-saver or life hack?
Boxing time . I realized that I used to do this naturally when I traveled by plane a lot. I would be forced to do as much as possible on a single laptop battery charge, without internet. Now I force myself to do it for an hour a day in order to achieve what I am putting off. If I know it won’t take more than Y minutes, I’m more likely to solve it – things like this questionnaire. 🙂
What’s your favorite to-do list manager?
I definitely don’t understand this issue: I use my inbox as a to-do list – if it’s unread I need to do something with it. I send myself to-do emails all the time.
What device, besides a phone and a computer, can you not live without and why?
I read quite greedily, so this should be the e-book reader, which is the iPad mini now.
What are some of the things you do best in everyday life? What’s your secret?
Doing more things in one go than most people do in a day is all bad. I am an early generation MTV product, and my attention is proof of that.
What do you listen to while you work?
I’m a big music lover, but I often find myself not listening to anything when I work – I just forget to turn on the music, I think. I’m either absent-minded or lazy, I don’t know what exactly. I listened more on weekends as we prepared our new music product for the launch. New technologies inspire me.
What are you reading now?
I read fiction like candy for my mind, but I mostly gravitate towards nonfiction, and these tend to be books about periods of time in history when big changes took place. I am currently reading The Innovators by Walter Isaacson and just finished Billy Joel by Fred Schruers. I am interested in people who are resilient and do things that I thought were unlikely. I am interested in learning the life stories of those who have achieved success through major innovations. I find it both inspiring and insightful.
Are you more of an introvert or an extrovert?
I go both ways, but I tend to lean even more towards the extrovert if you ask those who have dealings with me.
What is your sleep pattern?
I wouldn’t sleep all night if I could get it to work on the schedule I wanted.
But let’s be realistic: I work at a startup for many hours and have five children. So if it’s dark and quiet, I sleep. I probably would never have woken up without an alarm clock on my phone.
Fill in the blank: I would like _________ to answer these same questions.
Howard Stern.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
“We only have a certain number of days here, let them all count.” – Old friend.