Interview with Alex Bouaziz (co-founder & CEO of Deel) and Anish Acharya (General Partner at a16z)

<p>Back in 2018, <a href="https://twitter.com/Bouazizalex" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>Alex Bouaziz</strong></a> and his co-founder <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/shuooo/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>Shuo Wang</strong></a> picked up on the trend of remote work and founded <a href="https://www.letsdeel.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>Deel</strong></a>, a startup that helps companies of all sizes compliantly hire and pay talent remotely all around the world. Over a year into COVID, it's clear that remote work is here to stay and has become a new norm, particularly for tech companies. With this shift in work behaviour, Deel has seen their business explode with 20X growth in the past year, reaching a $1.25 billion valuation after a $156 million Series C funding led by the YC Continuity Fund and existing backers Andreessen Horowitz and Spark Capital.</p><br><p>In this episode, we dive into the story of the newly-minted unicorn with its co-founder <a href="https://twitter.com/Bouazizalex" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>Alex</strong></a> and one of its first investors, <a href="https://twitter.com/illscience" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>Anish Acharya</strong></a><strong> </strong>of <a href="https://a16z.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>Andreessen Horowitz</strong></a>. We discuss the future of work, learn about their VC-founder encounter, and —with Alex and Anish both having founded successful companies— pick up lots of founder wisdom along the way.</p><p><br></p><h3><strong>Topics:</strong></h3><p><strong>00:23 —</strong>&nbsp;Introduction with Cindy Yang</p><p><strong>01:24 —</strong>&nbsp;Alex Bouaziz on the origin story of Deel</p><p><strong>03:16 —</strong>&nbsp;Anish Acharya's macro-analysis of work and employment</p><p><strong>04:14 —</strong>&nbsp;How Alex and Anish met through Ryan Hoover (Product Hunt, Weekend Fund)</p><p><strong>06:34 —</strong>&nbsp;Growth and unicorn sta