The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work

Chapter 1

The Hotel Electra

When Mike Adams wrote code, he put the back of his laptop on his legs and looked down at the screen. His fingers hung over the edge of his keyboard as if his wrists were broken. He looked like a happy astronaut writing in space, whimsically violating the rules of conventional physics. His brilliance reflected this independence as he regularly found his way through challenges with a grace matched by only a handful of engineers in the world. At twenty-nine years old, he was young enough not to have repetitive stress injuries to his body, but watching him work in comical contortions across various sofas and couches made it hard to believe this would last. Behind his thick glasses and fuzzy beard resided an iron will for ...