This Week In Startups - Ep 626 with Wade Foster — Jason and Zapier CEO/Co-founder on the future of work

Jason chats with Wade Foster, CEO and Co-founder of Zapier, about automation and how it will effect the future of work. The episode features some product demos, which surprisingly work in an audio-only format due to clear narration. Wade shows off Zapier's new "Multi-step Zaps" (if this, then that, then that...) and Jason attempts a mid-show feature name rebrand to "Zap Bots" and somehow the subject of Kanye's recent Twitter meltdown comes up. 😂 Entertaining as ever. They get into some interesting details like how to know your remote team is doing work and there are some hard stats on Zapier's business in there, too. As commentary, I'd add that integrations and automation aren't just for "white-collar workers" or administrators. Startup founders get really clever with Zapier to build functional prototypes of user experiences without needing to build out infrastructure just to test market demand. Pretty much any task that can be automated with the apps you use will be eventually, so everyone's work will be impacted by this evolution of technology. Personally, it's surreal to hear a good friend on the show after following since episode #1 back when it was in LA. 🙌

Listened to the first half of this in the morning. I didn't realize Zapier had 35+ people and profitable. Congrats, @wadefoster!

I loved this conversation. Makes me think that Zapier should invent a bizarre way to originate content and then challenge Zappers to craft the most interesting way to propagate that content across the internet using a series of Zaps.