In an interview with Forbes a few years ago, Matt Mullenweg told the story of how Automattic has “been proving them wrong since 2005”. Dame Stephanie Shirley paved the way by proving them wrong way back in the 1960s with Freelance Programmers, a remote-working company she started on her dining room table that was eventually valued at over three billion dollars.

And who would have guessed that the programming of the black box flight recorder of Supersonic Concord would have been done by a bunch of women working in their own homes.

I owe so much to people like Dame Stephanie Shirley, amongst the first pioneers of remote work, and her story is a great inspiration to me. I admire her determination, eloquence, and courage. Hers may just be my favourite TED talk.