A decade that changed the way we work
When we started out, artificial intelligence was mostly talked about as science fiction. It was a topic for films and for debates about whether machines would one day take over the world. Nobody imagined it as a tool we would use in our everyday work.
Today we write code with it. We’ve grown so used to it that we get genuinely annoyed when it gets something wrong.
The same goes for the way we work. Working from home used to be something people dreamed about, an exception that had to be specially arranged. Today Factory X is a fully remote company, and many people in the industry turn down jobs that ask them to come into the office even one day a week.
None of these changes happened overnight. But when we line them up side by side, it’s hard to believe only ten years have passed.
Change doesn’t announce itself
If this decade has taught us anything, it isn’t that things change.
It’s that you almost never notice change while it’s happening.
Nobody sends an email to say the old way of working has stopped working. There’s no date in the calendar and no official announcement. One day you simply look up and realise that the thing you were great at three years ago isn’t what anyone needs anymore.
In our line of work, this is felt especially strongly. We build custom software, and the systems we work on often live for years. Over that time, technologies, tools and client expectations change, sometimes faster than the product itself. If we don’t notice in time, the consequences don’t show up right away, but only once they’re hard to fix.
That’s why we keep checking whether we’re doing things the best way we know today, rather than the way that was best when we started. We don’t always get it right, but without it we wouldn’t be here.
The people who make it worth celebrating
Behind our ten years are thousands of decisions, hundreds of mistakes and a lot of people. That’s why this birthday is, above all, a chance to say thank you.
To the team here today: thank you for caring. Thank you for speaking up when you disagree, for handling the chaos that sometimes comes with the job, and for making Factory X a place we still look forward to working.
To everyone who has passed through our company, whether you were with us for a year or much longer: part of what Factory X is today is here because you were.
To our clients and partners: thank you for your trust. You’ve trusted us with your ideas, your problems and sometimes a surprisingly large part of your business. A special thank you to those who took a chance on us when we were small, and to those who are still with us today, years later.
We used to think a good company was a logo, a website and a few smart decisions. Now we know it’s the people who chose to be part of our story.
Happy tenth birthday to us!
