Transcript from 361: Have a Dog For the Day with Christelle Rohaut, Elecia White, and Christopher White.

Welcome to Embedded. I am Elecia White, alongside Christopher White. We'll be talking to Christelle Rohaut about her company, how cities should work, and being on the Forbes 30 under 30 list.

CW (00:21):

Hi Christelle. Thanks for joining us.

CR (00:23):

Thanks a lot for having me. I'm glad to be here.

EW (00:26):

Could you tell us about yourself?

CR (00:29):

Sure. So I'm the CEO and co-founder of Codi, the first company to provide daytime workspaces in private homes. Our mission is to allow literally anyone to walk or bike to work wherever they may live. I grew up in France. My background is environmental engineering and city planning. I was also a fellow with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, specialized on circular economies. My passion is to make our neighborhoods a sustainable place to work and live. And that's why I founded Codi.

EW (01:02):

Cool. Well, we have lots of questions about almost everything you said. But before we do that, we want to do lightning round, where we ask you short questions, and we want short answers. And if we're behaving ourselves, we won't ask "Why?" and "How?" And "Are you sure?" Are you ready?

CR (01:18):

Yeah, I'm ready.

EW (01:20):

What's the most important department in a business?

CR (01:23):

Ooh, that's tricky. Management.

CW (01:29):

Alright. What's your favorite fictional robot?

CR (01:32):

The Bicentennial Man.

CW (01:37):

Okay.

EW (01:38):

If you could teach a college course, what would you want to teach?

CR (01:41):

Love to teach urban innovation.

CW (01:44):

Favorite part of the city you live in.

CR (01:48):

The Italian neighborhood where I live. My neighborhood.

EW (01:53):

And do you have a favorite animal?

CR (01:55):

I actually don't. I'm not a big animal person.

EW (01:59):

That's fair.

CW (02:00):

Do you like to complete one project or start a dozen.

CR (02:03):

Complete one. But it needs to be impactful.

EW (02:07):

Okay. So I want to ask you about Codi, which, mentally I keep thinking it's like Airbnb for home offices. Is that the right mental model? Or, I know that that's not the explanation you give, but am I close?

CR (02:23):

It is close. Yeah. A lot of people describe it as Airbnb for coworking Airbnb for offices, or Airbnb for home office. That's a good one as well. Or Airbnb meets WeWork. There's a lot of different ways to put it. But yeah, so the gist is that. It's basically about unlocking access to workspaces, in private and beautiful homes, right in your neighborhood.

CR (02:47):

So the model on the host side is pretty similar to Airbnb. On the member side, it's pretty different though, because it's a local platform. So it's for locals by locals, so that you can go and have more privacy, more focus when you work remotely.

EW (03:05):

This seems like it's a really good idea except for this whole pandemic thing. Is it still running?

CR (03:15):

Yes, it is. We actually pivoted during the pandemic. We were born two years and a half ago, so we've been around for a little while before the pandemic. And we've always served remote workers in their own neighborhoods, always been the vision. With the pandemic, obviously the coworking model was more challenging.

CR (03:34):

So we shut down operations for a couple of months during shelter-in-place, and we created OSHA-certified guidelines for hosts, so that they are able to reopen their homes as safely as possible for the community. What happened as well, is that, during the pandemic, the way we work changed forever, and we just made a leap in the future of five, ten years.

CR (03:57):

Remote work is usually excluding. 50% of US workers currently work from home. And a lot of stats show that 72% of those people want to stay in a hybrid work model, where you spend a couple of days at home, and a couple of days somewhere else. And that creates a boost for our model as well. So we actually accelerated our growth with companies. We still had 29x increase in enterprise partnerships within a few months.

EW (04:26):

So how does the money work? The hosts I imagine get paid. Do they get paid much? I don't know how much it would cost for me to want to open our house to someone.

CR (04:40):

It depends on your location and who your customers are. Our hosts make between from a few hundred dollars a month to a few thousand dollars a month. And part of our mission is to help them afford and stay in the home they love by covering on average 30% of the rent or mortgage.

EW (05:00):

And why go to somebody else's house? Why not stay home? I mean, that's the closest commute I can imagine.

CR (05:10):

Yeah, for sure. There's always been big challenges with work from home full-time. And I think this pandemic has actually created one more, even worse. One of the biggest challenges of working from home every day is that you're very isolated. That has always been the number one issue with remote workers, is that you become very separated from any other human beings.

CR (05:39):

And so that social component is really missing in your life when you're a remote worker. And so Codi helps recreate that, and connect you with the local or remote work community, or your coworkers if they live nearby. Second, a lot of people actually find it challenging to work from home because they don't have the right space or the right housing situation.

CR (06:00):

If you have children, partners, roommates, if you live in a tiny studio in New York City,...it doesn't create the right conditions to be productive and feeling balanced. And so you'd need to get out of your house a couple of days a week. And that's what we provide, some kind of flexibility so that you can have a space to go a few days a week nearby.

EW (06:24):

You said you like to work on things that are impactful. I can see how this would be impactful for reducing commuting, but I think you mean more than that. How is how is Codi impactful?

CR (06:43):

It's a great question. I founded Codi when I was still doing a master's in city planning at UC Berkeley. And I was also a Fellow at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation on Circular Economies. I'm a European. And then when I came here to the US, I got kind of a cultural shock, between the way cities are made in the US, and the way they function in Europe. Here, it's much more difficult to access things in general.

CR (07:10):

And so commute is part of it. A lot of people are indeed wasting a lot of time every day in the car. And that's creating really negative impact for the environment. Just to go downtown, sitting at a desk with Wi-Fi. We have that around us, and homes are spaces where you can actually work productively. It's been proven.

CR (07:31):

Now, there's mental health issues with that, if you stay in your own home every day without seeing anybody. And so, having that kind of separation, physical separation, between your home and your work life is very important for that. Plus your physical health, you get a couple of steps a day to get out of your space. So that's one part. A big part of Codi is also to actually boost local economies.

CR (07:55):

If you stay, work in your neighborhood, you're going to boost the local economy, because you're going to consume locally. And so any $1 that you invest in Codi is actually going to the host, and to the local businesses that the members go to during the day, to consume food, coffee, happy hours, and things like that. And the last one is, and not the least, is housing affordability.

CR (08:16):

Our hosts can make up to 30% of their rents and mortgages, and they live in the home, because it's only daytime sharing. And that's a very meaningful impact in their lives and overall for cities to be able to have an affordable housing model.

EW (08:36):

And so you were getting a degree in environmental engineering? Or is that your undergraduate degree?

CR (08:45):

That's a master degree that I have from France. And then I have master degree in city planning from the US.

EW (08:52):

How did you get from engineering to CEO?

CR (08:57):

I think I just like to make things and have an impact fast. And so when I was studying engineering, I was specializing in environmental sciences, very passionate about sustainability, right? And how can we make our neighborhoods a more sustainable place to live in? There's a lot of waste and a lot of resources that are underutilized, like our home. It's typically sitting empty all day long. It doesn't make sense to me.

CR (09:20):

And I think there's a logical way to see things when you're an engineer. When things don't make sense, you want to kind of fix them. And that's how I saw that wide underutilized supply that is homes every day, sitting empty, and people are suffering from not being able to pay their rent or mortgages. And on the other side, people suffer to commute long hours to a downtown office, when they can have those resources locally.

CR (09:47):

And so I think that's the mindset of an engineer that helped me think that way. And it got me into city planning because I'm passionate about cities, and I wanted to study things in a different way from just the climate change kind of angle that I had with my engineering background.

EW (10:09):

What makes for a good city?

CR (10:12):

A lot of things, a city is very, very complex. It's like a body...or a human being. It's extremely complex. Ideally a good city is a city where you can access what you need easily and locally. And I create a sustainable virtual circle. So it's about kind of affordability, having access to those resources.

CR (10:38):

And I'm talking about transportation, housing, energy, work, food, those things are the basic needs for any human being. And they should be available to anybody in their own neighborhood.

CW (10:53):

You've mentioned the term circular economy a couple of times, and I think that relates to what you're saying, but I've never heard that term. Could you describe what that means?

CR (11:02):

Sure. So we tend to live...on a take-make-waste industrial model. A lot of innovations have been made...on that model, and circular economy is aiming to create a closed loop system that basically eliminates waste and continually uses the same resources.

CR (11:26):

So you make more and more value out of the same things basically. And so you can draw the circular economic process as a circle instead as linear line. And so it's important because you see growth in a different way, and you see innovation in a different way. And then you can measure your success based on how much positive society-wide benefits you made for that system.

EW (11:54):

How does this circular economy concept apply to technology and consumer goods? Does it apply it all, or is it just the opposite?

CR (12:05):

It depends what the product or the service is. For us, it is from an economic standpoint. If you give $1 to Codi hosts,...you're basically helping the local economy grow, and then as a member, you're also giving a dollar to local business instead of a Starbucks downtown. It's just that difference where you are investing your money as a local resident and how it can boost local economy in your neighborhood.

CR (12:39):

That's a way of seeing it. And a lot of platforms, or tech platforms, have been helping that. Another big topic in circular economies are plastic and products that typically used...to create a lot of waste. And now, that you can see in a more virtuous way where the materials are never wasted, you can always reuse them, recycle them. And that creates even more value for the product or the service itself.

EW (13:12):

I'm trying to figure out of the projects I'm working on what things could be part of a circular economy. I guess, a self-driving car could, because it reduces that as a single owner thing. The car can just drive around on its own, taking people place to place. Are there other examples?

CR (13:36):

We need to see the autonomous vehicle as part of a bigger energy flow, I would say. Where does that electricity come from if it's an electric car, right? And then,...so there's different angles, right? Is it providing value to the users? Not in a linear way, but in a circular way, where the energy used is somehow given back to the community or something.

CR (14:03):

Other examples is typically sharing economy platform. Have that same intention about sharing our resources, that for maximizing the use of a specific resource, that regard, Getaround, Turo, it's about renting other people's car. That car is an underutilized asset, and it's wasted during X hours per day, right?

CR (14:33):

So you're increasing the value of that asset by, I know that Danone and other companies like that have a lot of new models in place to avoid wasting all the plastic. So you can imagine a startup where it's about just glass containers, that people can refill, I don't know, milk every day at the local store with the glass containers. That is actually very circular because you're never wasting...the glass container to get your milk, plus there's no shipping and things like that.

EW (15:13):

That sort of thing requires a lot more effort. And so it seems like the sort of thing people who are privileged not to have to scramble, can do. It seems like it's a very limited set of people who can have the luxury of engaging in a virtuous economy.

CR (15:37):

That's a fair point. I think I would recommend anyone to check out the Ellen MacArthur Foundation website. There's a lot of work being done in developing countries as well. Because that's where you have the most wastes and that's brought by corporations coming from foreign countries. So those corporations have the luxury and have the money to deal with those issues, right?

CR (16:03):

And the idea of the foundation is to better educate those big corporations, so that they have circular economy in mind where they work in those countries, so that it creates less waste and it's more creating value for the community. That's one way of kind of replaying those concepts in a developing country, for instance.

CR (16:25):

But you can also say that actually there's a lot to learn from developing countries, for the Western countries, because they typically have very virtuous loops already in place, that are way more sustainable than the way we are living in the United States, for instance. And so we have a ton to learn from them and apply those models here.

EW (16:52):

Can you give an example or two?

CR (16:54):

Well, the milk, for instance, I think I took it from a startup in India, where it's based on minimizing the costs, right? Of getting the bottle of milk. And because you're getting that milk from local farmers...it's cheaper. And it's also less wasteful. You don't need to pay for transportation and things like that.

CR (17:23):

So I went to check again that specific project, but I remember that startup and was very impressed by it, because it's about really creating a virtuous loop for milk delivery in India. And here we get delivered by Amazon, our food, and we don't know where it comes from. We are creating way more waste than they are. And so if we can learn things from them and apply it here, that would be a big step actually.

EW (17:55):

You said that a class you would want to teach would be urban innovation...What is that?

CR (18:02):

I actually took a similar class at Berkeley. Urban innovation is kind of a mix between tech and public policy, let's say. So it's about driving innovation that can have a business model, so it can be an actual business, a for-profit. But having always in mind the impact on cities, and actually ideally, the whole mission of the company is to have a beneficial impact for cities and help solve one of the challenges that cities have.

CR (18:37):

So urban innovation is kind of a mix of that. What are the top issues in those cities, right? And then understanding, "Okay, what are the innovations that can arise from those challenges?" And typically it does sort of need to work closely with city officials, and city planners sometimes, and community organizations, to make a change. And one of my investors is Urban Innovation Fund, for instance. And they specialize in investing in those types of startups that are about solving issues in cities.

EW (19:15):

I worked at ShotSpotter, which makes a gunshot location system. You sprinkle sensors around a city, and then automatically call the police when there's a gunshot. Is that the sort of thing you mean?

CR (19:28):

Yep, definitely, definitely. That's an innovation from a for-profit corporation or startup that directly benefits the city.

EW (19:38):

What other examples could you give?

CR (19:42):

I actually worked myself for a company around the quality of air and air monitoring. So it's about deploying sensors across the city, block by block sometimes, to better understand what's the air quality in that specific street, and then it measured the impact our policy. In some countries, for instance, they can ban access from one street entirely and make it pedestrian only.

CR (20:11):

And so what's the impact of that policy on CO2 emissions and the particulate matter, for instance. And that helps drive better decisions for cities about where are the places in the city where you should actually implement those policies in a way it's going to have the highest impact for the population.

EW (20:32):

Are cities very excited about data-driven decision-making, or is it maybe not quite yet?

CR (20:42):

Really depends on the city. European cities are, I tend to see them...being there already. There's a lot of organizations around smart cities and trying to get more data-driven decision. At the end of the day, having the data helps you save a lot of money, taxpayers' money, and make better decisions for the residents. So I do think it's very, very impactful.

CR (21:11):

Now, not every city has luxury to think about it yet, right? And to have the right infrastructure in place yet. But as sort of I was talking about, it's called Clarity, and I worked also for, they have actually a pilot program in New Delhi, in India, and Mexico City. The cities that are extremely polluted, and need to do something about it because every day they're losing money with that pollution. And so I do think, yes, cities are more and more excited about being more data-driven.

EW (21:44):

And being data-driven usually means having more sensors or having more ways to get the data from traffic, to particulates in the air, to gunshot sound.

CR (21:59):

I think it's about getting the data, as you said. First, a lot of cities are not collecting the right data at all. And so collecting the data is the first step. Second is understanding the data, and third is making the right decision based on that data.

CR (22:13):

And that's a level of complexity that's actually very exciting for engineers, I think. But yeah,...and just for instance, measuring the impact of a policy through data is very challenging, because there's a lot of different factors you need to account for that may be noisy, to understand the data. And there's not a lot of things being done right now yet, but I think it's a thriving field.

CW (22:42):

How much do existing large companies work with cities today? I'm sure they do, but I have no knowledge of this. So is Google in say, Mountain View, do they work really closely with Mountain View to help with the impact that hundreds of thousands of employees make? Or is it more of an after the fact thing? Like, "Okay, we moved in here and now we're doing all this, and now we have to scramble to kind of address the impact."

CR (23:09):

It's a very, very good question. I can't talk for Google. I know that Google has Sidewalk Labs as part of Google. It's an innovation lab that was based in Toronto for a little while, and they're doing good work in terms of innovating in cities and measuring the impact of what they're doing on cities, in communities.

CR (23:33):

But in general is a company tied to a city and working closely with the city about their own impact in terms of kind of housing, for instance? That's a big problem in the Bay Area. Not really, I think it happens after the fact, but also it goes the other way around. There's a lot of cities that tried to attract Amazon for their new HQ, by giving a lot of tax benefits, and incentives.

CR (24:03):

And so the city is involved with those big companies when they choose their location, and tax is, typically, kind of an argument for a city to attract that new company, but then you have backlash from the communities about gentrification and all those different issues.

CR (24:22):

So you can see cities in two ways, top-down and bottom-up. And that's what makes it so complex. And I think bottom-up, it's not there yet in terms of involvement from companies with communities. Top-down, I think there is a growing relationship for sure, between the company and city officials.

EW (24:43):

Going back to sensors and data. One of, I thought of two things, as you were mentioning the data. One is that it's really easy to lie with statistics and just giving me more data, just giving me more things to lie about, and with -

CW (25:00):

Or well, I mean, to be slightly less -

EW (25:04):

Cynical.

CW (25:04):

- cynical, it's hard to analyze data in a way that -

EW (25:07):

That's truly fair.

CW (25:07):

- necessarily can extract meaning that's useful sometimes.

EW (25:11):

Well, I mean the meaning is one thing. It's the innate bias -

CW (25:16):

Sure.

EW (25:16):

- that I'm more worried about. Do you worry about that sort of thing, or do you have relative confidence that with cities, we can get data that's relatively objective?

CW (25:29):

Oh, I think you're totally correct. That's a big downside of data and ethics. I think, ethics should be always part of any kind of data department, or company that is trying to help cities, or even in general. The ray is that I do think you're getting closer to the truth if I may call it that way, by being informed.

CR (25:54):

And so at the end of the day, data is trying to give more knowledge to the decision makers. And I think you're absolutely right. They should be aware that the data is not a hundred percent objective. It's been built...with certain biases that they need to be aware of. And have probably a couple of people working on ethics, to make sure that the data is as close as possible to representing the reality.

EW (26:25):

And then the other part is, one of the problems we had over the ShotSpotter is, that people don't like their privacy invaded and tend to be very vocal about that. And for all that I say sensors, of course there were microphones involved, but they were always on the top of buildings. They never listened to anybody. And yet,...that's a very hard case to make. Are you concerned about the privacy of having more monitoring in cities?

CR (27:01):

I think that's definitely part of the agenda for city planners and city officials. Whoever's working on that at the city level. I know for sure that in Europe it's a very sensitive issue. In France, they didn't want to do the COVID tracing because of the privacy elements of it. So even for cases where it's public health, there's pushback and there's backlashes.

CR (27:29):

So it's a very difficult question. I think it really is the job of the city, and makes it also exciting in the sense of, there's a lot of things to think about and be done. And with the right involvement of the community, I think you can get there. If it benefits people, and you involve them in the process of designing that service, if it's a private service or even public service, I do think you run into less backlash. There will always be concern.

CR (28:04):

But you need to kind of block the noise sometimes. As you said, the intention may be very good, and...there won't be any negative views of the data. So when it's really truly helping the population, like public health with COVID, it should actually be implemented and not be blocked every single time there's a complaint.

CR (28:26):

So yeah, I think I do worry about that and I'm sure cities worry about that as well. And there's a lot of great work being done on that side.

EW (28:37):

Changing the topic entirely. The Forbes 30 under 30, you were an honoree. What does that mean?

CR (28:45):

Well, it means that I got lucky, and I am very grateful for their recognition. They basically choose 30 entrepreneurs that are under 30 years old per category, there's a few categories. And you need to be nominated, so one of my coworkers nominated me. So I'm very grateful to be recognized among other really incredible entrepreneurs working on exciting innovations.

EW (29:13):

Did the coworker nominee you at your request? No. Is that not a good question? I mean, because I see these awards, and I don't really understand, a lot of them do ask you to apply.

CW (29:32):

Oh, okay.

EW (29:32):

And I don't know about the Forbes one.

CR (29:37):

So, yeah, Forbes, once you're nominated, then you actually have to fill an application yourself.

EW (29:42):

Okay.

CR (29:42):

So you are part of the process, and they can reach out to you and ask you more questions. It's definitely helping the company get more exposure, and yourself as an entrepreneur, get more legitimacy and credibility in the space.

EW (29:59):

And so I guess that kind of is, why are the awards like this important, it's to help you get the credibility to build your business?

CR (30:08):

Yeah, definitely...It's my first startup, and I come from friends. Five years ago, I was nobody here. And so you need to go from zero to one, and build some credibility for investors, and hosts, and companies, to trust you to give a service to them and grow your idea into a reality.

CR (30:36):

So yeah, it's definitely part of, it's very helpful for an entrepreneur to get those kinds of labels. It's similar than going to a good college. It's about giving more credibility to your kind of professional profile.

EW (30:54):

So going back to Codi, is it all just software, or is there an app?...How would people get involved, and what kind of technology are you using?

CR (31:08):

Yeah, so it's a web app and mobile app. And an individual can apply to become a host, wherever you live in the US, and then we have kind of a process in place to vet the space, screen the person, and then potentially import you as a Codi host.

CR (31:28):

And on the other side, so we are a double-sided marketplace, members can buy an individual membership and then book any space on the platform, unlimited per month. And if you're a company, you can sign up your own employees, and then we go and unlock workspaces in their own neighborhoods.

EW (31:49):

You mentioned you were doing more enterprise B2B, that's the companies buying spaces for their employees?

CR (31:56):

Yes. They buy a monthly membership so that they can provide an employee benefit that's about access to a local workspace.

CW (32:04):

So there's a lot of difference, I mean, working from home is a broad term, and there's a lot of different spaces that people need. People writing web software, they might need just a desk and some place to plug in their laptop.

CW (32:17):

Other people might want three monitors or someplace with a equipped lab for, I don't know, some hardware. Is there that kind of thing, where people advertise different kinds of spaces for different use cases, or is it just here's a space in this district, and it's open from 12-5?

CR (32:40):

It's a good question. So the difference between us and a regular kind of Airbnb is that we actually have standards in place -

CW (32:48):

[Affirmative].

CR (32:48):

- so that the experience is seamless for the member. And people go there to work. It's a very important part of the day and life. So we want to make sure they have everything they need and are very productive. So the Wi-Fi is above a hundred megabytes in any of our spaces. There's Nespresso Keurig coffee machines, so that's easy to use, et cetera, et cetera.

CR (33:09):

So there's a set of amenities where you go and you know you have kind of the "quality quality" and that's typically what people like in the coworking space, right? You have peace of mind when you go, you know you're going to be, you have everything you need to work. And then with the company, they have the opportunity to actually add additional amenities.

CR (33:31):

As you said, sometimes it's about...providing spaces for engineers. And so an engineer needs a specific chair and a specific monitor. And then we work with our host who delivers that quality for the members.

CW (33:47):

Is there spaces that are large enough where a small team comes in or is it always individuals?

CR (33:54):

It's mostly teams.

CW (33:56):

Oh, okay.

CR (33:56):

So it's typically on average five people, six people per space.

CW (34:01):

Oh.

CR (34:01):

Yep...We also now allow individual seats so that there's less kind of interactions between people, but typically a company will to Codi to open satellite hubs, so that if you have 10 employees living in similar neighborhoods, they can go to one hub, with five seats for instance, and they can go meet there. And it becomes the company-only Codi workspace.

CW (34:30):

This may sound like a silly question, but do some of the spaces offer dogs?

CR (34:36):

Well, we had a crazy stat one day. I think it was 30% of our spaces at some point had pets, and that was very popular among our members. So yeah, you can potentially have a dog for the day if you choose the right Codi.

EW (34:52):

Do you have a favorite host that you go to or that you have checked out?

CR (34:58):

Yeah, definitely. I love all our hosts in general, because they all have different stories, and they're obviously very hospitable. And so they have these different types of personalities that I love. But yeah, there was a host, prior to COVID, that I used to go a lot to. She's a single working mom, and it's very rewarding when you work on something with a mission, to feel that you actually helped that person, and you know them personally.

CR (35:35):

We actually helped her pay the mortgage of her home, and she was born and raised in San Francisco and struggling at that moment when we met her. She has a little girl, and we all know her in the Codi team. It was, yeah,...it's a beautiful story. And I really liked that host

CW (35:55):

Is Codi, do you have a headquarters, or is it bootstrapped with Codi itself, where you're actually using your own service as space?

CR (36:04):

Definitely using our own service, never had an office, and never will. The whole idea is that we don't want to waste resources by having offices, and so it should be more housing. And then we can work and live in our neighborhoods. So we do use Codi as our main workspace. And then my team members live in different areas of the city, or sometimes of the country. And so they can use their own local Codi hub.

EW (36:34):

I have two more questions that I probably should have put in lightning round. From Susan, who introduced us. First, do you have a favorite invention from the last five years?

CR (36:49):

Oh, wow. I didn't think about that one.

CW (36:53):

I'm not sure how I'd answer that.

EW (36:55):

I don't know how I'd answer it either.

CW (36:56):

Yeah, that's a hard question.

CR (36:59):

I don't know. It's very hard.

CW (37:00):

Let's make it ten.

CR (37:07):

10 years...Okay. So if it's last 10 years, it's probably communication platforms like WhatsApp and Slack. I'm far from my family, and just being able to call them and see their faces, and feel like they're close to me. That's amazing. I love that part of technology that makes people feel closer to each other physically.

EW (37:32):

And the other question was, do you have a most innovative leader that we've never heard of? These were hard.

CW (37:39):

These are hard questions.

EW (37:39):

I'm not sure she likes you.

CR (37:44):

Maybe the answer to that is Susan. But you probably heard about her. So you may have heard of him, but I would say Darren Murph. He's a leader on remote work. He's the head of remote at GitLab. He was probably one of the first to have that title in the company, Head of Remote. And now you see that flourishing in companies, Head of Dynamic Work was just a new title that Okta created last week.

CR (38:16):

And you see a lot...more companies now having Head of Remote, Facebook actually just created one as well. And I think that's very telling about the transformation that is happening in a company. And it's an amazing kind of title, because the whole goal of that person is, Darren compares that title to Chief Diversity Officer. The whole point is that you are in the section between ops and people, and real estate.

CR (38:44):

And your goal is to make sure that you are creating inclusive policies so that your employees have the same experience at work wherever they live. And so that means, if you live in a studio, and you want to be remote, how can the company support you?

CR (39:01):

If you want to go to the office five days a week, how can the company support you? And how can we make sure that those two people have a similar experience at work? Because that's typically very different, right? I's a very challenging role. And I think it's amazing that large companies are going in that direction and reshaping completely how we work and treat our employees.

EW (39:23):

Yes. I think that's a really good point, and I hope it continues because it makes sense to start working more in our neighborhoods and less far away. Christelle, it's been wonderful to talk to you. Do you have any thoughts you'd like to leave us with?

CR (39:40):

I would encourage engineers to go down the tech for social good type of road. I think...it's been very exciting for me. And your question about how did I go from engineering to entrepreneur, I think was actually very natural for me. And I have a lot of friends that can ,fit in that category and they just need a little push to go down that road. And I think engineers have a lot to offer in terms of innovation and entrepreneurship.

EW (40:13):

Our guest has been Christelle Rohaut, CEO and co-founder of Codi.

CW (40:17):

Thanks, Christelle.

CR (40:19):

Thank you. Thanks a lot for your time.

EW (40:22):

Thank you to Christopher for producing and co-hosting. Thank you to Susan Lovegreen at the Second Harvest Food Bank for connecting me with Christelle. And thank you for listening. You can always contact us at show@embedded.fm or hit the contact link on embedded.fm.

EW (40:37):

And now a thought to leave you with. Speaking of Second Harvest Food Bank, since COVID started, food distribution has doubled for the Santa Cruz Second Harvest Food Bank. Every dollar you give them is four healthy meals because they have wholesale purchasing power, and they work with partners and programs throughout the county. I'm not saying you should donate to them, but you should find your local, and make sure that the kids in your neighborhood, in your community have enough to eat.