In this video Nathan Barry takes viewers to Kit’s 17th biannual retreat in Mexico, using the event to illustrate why company culture—rooted in trust, accountability, and a shared mission—should be the primary factor when choosing an employer. He argues that while salary matters, sustainable satisfaction comes from being trusted to do work without micromanagement, having leaders who act consistently, and receiving honest feedback. The retreat showcases how remote teams build personal connections through in‑person activities (games, meals, beach dinner) while also diving into 2026 project planning. Employees share testimonials about the unique, non‑competitive atmosphere, the freedom to operate without rigid roles, and the impact of Kit’s generous profit‑sharing model, which many have used to pay off debt, fund personal goals, or purchase luxury items. The company’s mission—to help creators earn a living and build viable businesses—is highlighted through stories of creators whose lives were transformed, reinforcing why the team is passionate about their work. Nathan also discusses remote‑work benefits such as output‑based evaluation over hours logged, the importance of accountability through clear metrics and feedback, and hiring practices like providing interview questions in advance. The video concludes with a wrap‑up of project progress (Kit Studios, scaling email infrastructure) and a reminder that a company is essentially a collection of people united by a shared mission.
Chapters
People usually make a decision on what company to join based on salary or industry or things like that. And I'd argue that you should actually do it based on culture.
Kit has something that I've never seen before. It does not feel like a job.
I've had so many experiences in my past where I've viewed things as just a job, and I feel like here I love it so much.
The caliber of resumes on this team is mind-blowing.
And yet there's this complete absence of competition. Like, this is not typical for a company.
I truly feel that people trust me.
I feel like I'm part of a professional sports team. We're all going to the Super Bowl.
It was almost like too good to be true.
We're here in Mexico for the 17th KITT team retreat. We do these twice a year in the summer and in the winter. What we've got planned for this week is diving in on our big projects for 2026 and just seeing how can we accelerate them and make them go as fast as possible. But interspersed with all that work is going to be a lot of fun over meals, games, playing volleyball. We've got a golf course here. Some people are going on a hike and just generally enjoying the pool and the warm weather here in Mexico.
Let's go.
I just joined about 3 months ago. This is my first retreat.
I think this is my 8th retreat. Oh my God.
We all see each other on Zoom, but then we get to meet up like twice a year and it feels like we already know each other.
You have like 6 months of built-in inside jokes that come out of like Zoom and come out of Slack, and then you come to the retreat and it makes all the difference.
I'd argue that you should make a decision on what company to join based on culture. 'Cause here's the thing, you might enjoy the top salary or all of that for a minute, but like at some point if you start to hate your job, when your job feels like a job, then it's not gonna be long-term sustainable. The other thing is that I'm not saying you need to sacrifice anything on salary. Often these companies with great culture, they end up with great compensation as well because they have really, really good results. But what actually is culture? It's a word that you can throw around, but what does it mean? In the in-person companies, it might be the beanbag chairs or ping pong tables or the free lunches. Or maybe a remote company, they're talking about the amazing Mexico team retreats they have. But that's not culture at all. To me, culture comes down to trust. Are you trusted to do your job effectively without someone else looking over your shoulder? Do you trust your leaders to show up consistently, have your best interests in mind, and effectively run the company? Do you trust your coworkers to give you feedback and tell you, hey, here's where you need to improve in your work on a day-to-day basis?
Kit has something that I've never seen before, which is allowing us to be our best selves.
Truly here, I think everyone leans on each other to be the domain expert in what they do and trusting each other to get things done.
I really feel like at Kit, we have the best of every position that we've hired for.
I'm like, I can't believe I get to work with you. So now we get to work together and collaborate on this for creators.
Now, the foundation here isn't actually about collaboration or anything with the team. It comes down to the mission. So that's something where this week we spent a lot of time aligning and centering everyone around the mission of why we do what we do at Kit. For us at Kit, that is all about helping creators earn a living and build viable businesses. When I grew up, money was really scarce and that was a challenging thing. But what I learned is that through building an audience, you can actually earn a fantastic living. And I felt like I had discovered the cheat code and I wanted everyone else to learn that as well.
We work with such cool creators. I was at this food blogger conference recently in, in LA and just meeting people and getting to see that this is their livelihood, building these incredible businesses, chasing their dreams. And I get to have a personal stake and investment in making that dream happen for them that make this feel like less like a corporate job and more of like almost of a passion and something that I love.
All throughout the Kit customer base, we have tons of examples of creators who have had their lives absolutely transformed because they got control of their finances. I think of my friend Kelsey, who is a single mom, really not sure how she's going to raise a kid and earn a living as a creator. And then she ended up building this amazing financial life through the power of an audience and running your own business. And at Kit, we get to build the platform that's behind her 100% of the way. The idea of creating financial independence isn't just for our customers. It's something that we try to do for our team as well. And so that's why we do this thing where we give out over half of the profit in the entire company to the team members in the form of profit sharing. It's really, really special. And over the years, I've just had so many people come up to me and say how sharing the profit in the company has made a life-changing difference for them in their finances, in their life.
We always open up every retreat with like everyone opening up their profit sharing check and talking about it.
Is that 5 figures? Is that 5 different numbers out of here?
Yeah, I was shocked.
It's very generous. Like, this is not typical for a company.
Over the course of my in 4 years at Kit, I've been able to pay off all my student loans just using profit sharing. And now I'm going and skiing in Japan for the winter, and I'm going to use a little bit of profit sharing for that.
It's going to go towards my wedding this year because Indian weddings are very expensive.
If the Chicago Bears are good enough to go to the Super Bowl, this is going to be enough for a Super Bowl ticket and then some.
For myself, I have a partial home gym, and I'm planning on using some of my profit sharing to build that out a little more.
And I might have 1 or 2 really cool LEGO sets on my wish list that I'm going to be using it Team Retreats are so important because as a remote company, we are super focused and productive when we're all at our own homes all around the world, but we need that time for personal connection, to collaborate, to get together, and to just make big things happen. So that's why we do them twice a year. It's totally worth it to fly people in from all around the world, collaborating, building relationships, and doing all that in person.
We all see each other on Zoom, but then we get to, you know, meet up like twice a year, and it feels like we already know each other, even for the people we're meeting for the first time in real life. I don't even I don't even think I can put into words. Like, you really have to experience it.
The trade-off with working remotely is I don't just get to like run into Stephanie in the morning and ask her like how life's been. And so I think that's why retreats are so valuable.
Going back to the idea of trust, it's hard to trust people that you don't know, and the best way to know them is to spend time together in person.
Getting to connect in person just forges and fosters those relationships. The real great thing is, is then you're able to carry that momentum into your daily work going forward.
And I get to just sit down and have lunch and catch up with engineers that are building the tool that is making the biggest impact for creators right now.
Working from home, one of the cool things is we can focus on output rather than hours. So people get to work their own schedules in their own time zone, and they're really just measured on, did you do important work that moved the company forward? Rather than this idea of, were you working at the exact right number of hours that you should be?
What is your favorite thing about be working remotely.
Without having to take off time from work, I actually just bring my job alongside me.
I really enjoy it because it gives me the flexibility to contribute and help out with our family logistics and dynamics. I've got 4 children.
And not having to spend that time commuting, I get to spend time in the way that's most valuable.
Now, one of the hardest and most important parts of company culture comes down to accountability. There's so many teams that say, hey, we're building a high-performing team, we only work with 8 players, and then they don't actually manage performance. And so something that I've had to grow in a lot as a leader is getting good at holding people to the standards that we say we value. That means clear feedback, letting people know when they're not rising up to the standard, measuring based on metrics rather than just the vibes or feelings of the work that they're doing. And then finally, if you're not able to get someone to the level that they need to be, you have to let them go. And it's the hardest thing to provide accountability and part ways with some of these team members, but it's so important. Otherwise, you're creating a culture where you say one thing and your actions mean something different.
What is something that has surprised you about working at Flash?
Ah, that's a good question.
I'm gonna have to think.
I have to tell you nothing. Everything I thought that it was going to be, it really was.
To have no limits, not feel restricted to a specific role. I think that's the biggest difference.
One thing Kit does is they give you the interview questions ahead of time. It was so refreshing because we don't put our candidates on the spot. You get time to prepare your answer. I think it's indicative of like how we work here in general.
It's the last day of the retreat and we're doing kind of a wrap-up session right now. And so people are sharing what they worked on for the week. We had some great projects related to rolling out Kit Studios, content plans, how to scale our email sending because we're at billions and billions of emails sent every month right now and it's wild. And just so many more projects. It's so much fun to see everybody working in person, having a great time. And having this big impact for customers all at the same time. So for the rest of the day, we've got a little more work to do and then we're going to do a pool party, play some volleyball, and then we have dinner on the beach tonight, which will be a ton of fun. I think these are so important for the culture that we build. And ultimately every company is really just a collection of people in pursuit of a shared mission. And we've got a really great group of people here.
This is a great end to a really, really good retreat.
