Another interesting aspect to a globally distributed team like this is how it's inherently uncertain how the business will be impacted by dynamic geopolitical changes/rules across the world.
Here it's about China and Russia. But the next day it could be government pressure on hiring bans in Pakistan or Indonesia or South Africa or Peru based on whatever countries are in a spat at the moment.
What happens to the current employees then? "Sorry, you're fired"?
When ukraine was starting it's revolution in 2013/4, and it was unclear what was going to happen in the country, if it would break into war, or just become some place we could no longer keep our 250 employees, my HR team came to talk to me.
I had 12+ employees there and they asked me to write down the names of 3. Those 3 would be the ones we would try to extricate from a country descending into war should that happen. Them, their wives, and their children.
In December 2018, news broke that Charlotta Turner, Professor in Analytical Chemistry at Lund University in Sweden, arranged for mercenaries to rescue a doctoral student and his family from the Islamic State.
Here it's about China and Russia. But the next day it could be government pressure on hiring bans in Pakistan or Indonesia or South Africa or Peru based on whatever countries are in a spat at the moment.
What happens to the current employees then? "Sorry, you're fired"?