Remote, hybrid, office? Yes.

One of my co-founder and I were recently interviewed by Les Échos (a French business daily) about remote work in 2025. The title chosen by the journalist was:

“The best want to be in the office”: four companies share their approach to remote work.

Obviously, our contribution in the overall interviews was short (out of four total interviews), and the overall article was framed in a way that would "spark feedback". I wouldn’t call it rage-bait… but let’s say it worked, by reading the comments on social networks. Anyway, I digress.

So rather than argue about headlines, let me rewind: here’s how we grew from three founders to 100 people, what we discovered about hiring, and how our culture sort of wrote itself in the process.

Cultural fit

We built this company because we were quickly bored (and frustrated) with how management worked elsewhere.

• I started out as a sysadmin in the medical industry, inside a company selling physical devices in hospitals. In 2011, I asked HR about remote work, the look on their faces said it all.
• My (future) co-founder, Nithida, worked in a large IT services company, coding backends in Java despite having a diploma in ergonomics. Equally unhappy.
• Julien was a freelance web dev and felt isolated working alone. You can guess it: unhappy too.

So in 2012, three of us (equal shares, no hierarchy) decided to create our own thing. Back then, launching a startup in France wasn’t really “à la mode” and the whole “startup nation” buzzword only appeared years later.

By the time we hired our first employee in 2015, we’d already set our own pace. Our tiny office fit five or six people max, and remote work was just… obvious ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That first hire lived 45 minutes away, so he came to the office maybe once a week — or not, depending on his mood. It worked, and we realized later that giving people the choice was a powerful way to attract talent.

As we scaled, we refined our workflow. Fun fact: we only hired a dedicated HR person this year, right around 100 employees. Until then, we, the founders, did everything ourselves. That means our company culture was home-grown, not imported from HR “best practices” or toolkits. Without realizing it, we had built a culture that valued autonomy, flexibility, and trust.

What it means in practice

Obviously, this culture of “having the choice” doesn’t come from nowhere or for free. It has concrete consequences in how we hire and how we work.

First, during the HR process, we make sure every candidate is really well aware of our culture. It may sound obvious, but what I’ve learned over time is that there is never enough time spent explaining how we work and intend to keep working as an organization. That’s why my associate, Nithida, spends at least two hours (often closer to four) with every candidate just talking about culture and expectations. In that meeting, no tech questions, no whiteboard tests, and yes, it’s worth it.

The goal is to make things crystal clear: you must be able to work autonomously, wherever you are. If you hit a problem, you have to ask for help: you can’t just stay isolated and hope someone will notice. The first step has to come from you. Because we’ve done this from the very beginning, we built a workforce that naturally communicates through our live chat (Mattermost) and switches to actual calls (BigBlueButton) whenever a “real” meeting is needed. That’s also why we can operate without middle management, but that’s a story for another time.

To reinforce this, we also put in place a mentorship program. Each new hire gets someone designated as a mentor (with their agreement, of course), but crucially this person is outside the newcomer’s everyday team. Ideally, it’s someone in the same region, but not involved in the same projects. This creates a safe channel to talk about anything (even sensitive topics) without worrying about daily pressure.

On top of that, we created a symbolic “virtual coffee machine”, a daily video call at the same time where anyone can drop by to chat about the weather, random topics, or even play games together. Attendance is 100% optional. The point is simply to offer an extra channel where people can connect if they want. Again, the responsibility lies with each individual: you decide if and how you want to engage.

Benefits

We also realized that hiring this way — leaving people free to decide what they want — gave us a huge advantage.

First, it opened up our hiring pool. When you’re building something as niche as a hypervisor and an entire virtualization stack, the right people are not always around the corner. By being open to remote work, we could hire across the whole country (and in some cases abroad), instead of limiting ourselves to whoever lived near the office. Without that, scaling our R&D and dev teams would have been nearly impossible, at least not within the same timeframes or budgets.

And yes, money is part of it. When you give people flexibility, they tend to be more flexible too, including on salaries. It’s a donnant-donnant (give-and-take) situation. You stay competitive by offering trust and freedom instead of trying to win the salary war with giants.

It’s not just a win for the company, though. For many employees, this flexibility is priceless. Need to pick up your kids after school? Go ahead. Started later today and need to catch up tonight? Nobody cares. We trust you, and you trust us.

I’m not saying our approach is a magic formula for everyone. It works because we’ve hired with this mindset from day one. Changing an existing, large organization with a completely different culture would be much harder. But I still think it’s a powerful edge:

Your company culture becomes a real competitive trait, both in the hiring market and against competitors.

I know some small or medium-sized companies in our field that simply don’t allow remote work at all. Honestly, I don’t see how they’ll ever scale the way we do.

More complexity

Of course, this freedom doesn’t come without complications. There are trade-offs:

• Offices. You still need them, even if they’re not full every day. And when teams grow in different regions, you may need several. These spaces won’t always be buzzing with activity, but they still have to exist. It’s a very different approach than the traditional “we’re here, you come here.”
• Regional salaries. Cost of living varies. Living near Paris is not the same as living elsewhere in France. Finding the right balance (ensuring fairness without distorting pay between people with the same experience and role) is tricky. It’s more work for HR, but unavoidable.
• Team spirit. Building a real sense of belonging is harder when people don’t sit together every day. That means extra effort: the company has to create opportunities (virtual coffees, mentorship, team events), and individuals can add to it with informal initiatives (regional dinners, casual meetups, etc.). Nothing is mandatory, but it makes a difference.
• Juniors. They’re a special case. We usually only hire them near an office, so they can experience things physically and learn by osmosis. Starting a career fully remote is a different challenge, and in my opinion, requesting at least a daily attention and plenty of time.

That’s also why we’ve chosen to invest in bigger offices, but with a different purpose: not as "daily attendance factories", but as welcoming spaces where teams can meet, work together occasionally, or run yearly gatherings. We want people to actually want to come.

So all in all, flexible (hybrid) work does add complexity. But for us, it’s a fair price to pay: we can hire talent globally, stay competitive, and (most importantly) preserve the very identity and culture that pushed us to create Vates in the first place.

Of course, this approach won’t fit everyone (that’s why the long job interview is so crucial). And yes, we’re biased: we grew from scratch with a strong culture that shaped everything along the way.

But here’s the thing: when you treat people like adults, they tend to act like adults.