Ask RJ Anything

Every year we hold our “Take Your MatterKids to Work Day,” but this year had to be a little bit different with everyone working from home. So, we decided to celebrate the children of Matterport remotely! 

Our CEO, RJ Pittman, and his family sat down to Zoom with our wonderful MatterKids. They were allowed to “ask RJ anything,” challenging him with their unfiltered questions. Believe us when we say, they did not go easy on him, with questions like “Do you think you are a good boss?” and “Can Matterport 3D images export to other 3D platforms like Roblox or Minecraft?” 

To say the least, we all had a great time learning more from the perspective of not only our CEO, but the brilliant minds of our MatterKids. Here is what we learned. 

Mira: Does the company have a theme song?

RJ and David: If Matterport had a theme song it would be “Space Oddity” by David Bowie or “Walking on the Moon” by The Police.

Zachary: Can Matterport 3D images export to other 3D platforms like Roblox or Minecraft?

RJ: Matterport has been used for all kinds of things, even Minecraft! Check out the YouTube video of two middle schoolers who used Matterport to recreate an ancient Roman site in Minecraft.

Ashba: What do you do at work, like what do you do?

Everyone: Yeah tell us RJ, we have been trying to figure that out. Everybody would like to know, RJ.

RJ: I have a lot of responsibilities and a lot of things I think about every day – how to make the Matterport product better, how to sell more Matterport...how to make sure that the customers that have Matterport are happy and that they like it. And if we need to help them be more successful with Matterport...then there's this whole thing called operations which are making sure that the company is running well: that all the employees – all the MatterPeeps, as we call them – are happy, successful, and able to do a good job at their jobs as well. That's really important – as Jean talked about – and so I work with a lot of the leaders on the team like Jean and Dave and David and Jay and JD and Damien, and together we work as a leadership team to do all of those things for the whole company...We're here in Sunnyvale, California but we have an office in Chicago, we have an office in Kansas, and we have an office in London, England which is really cool. So we do all kinds of Matterporting all over Europe and we now have an office for Matterport in Singapore and that's great because that gives us the ability to do Matterport or run the business everywhere from New Zealand, Australia, even Fiji – all the way up to Singapore, China, and all across Asia. The other part of my job is making sure that it all comes together and all of the different offices around the world are working together as a team to help each other be successful.

Cassie: Do you think you are a good boss and why?

RJ: That is probably the most thoughtful question. You know, I think as a CEO you have to have the mindset that you can always get better. So for me, I don't know if I'm a good CEO or a good boss but I remind myself every day to keep working on improving and being the best leader I can be for the company. I am sure not to forget that because there's something that I could learn from everyone in this company, but also out there in the world. With my family, I especially learned that since I became a dad and discovered just how little I did know about the world. So these are all good reminders for me to keep that in perspective. The best that I can do is work really hard, and give everything I can to Matterport and the people and hope that's enough to make a great company.

Mira: Can you use Matterport underwater?

RJ: Yes, 3D tours can even be done underwater!

Alexi: I tried this before, it has this underwater case and if you put the 360 camera in the case you can swim around and take the camera with you and you can explore the depths of your pool.  

RJ: We Matterported the inside of the hot tub underwater, just to see if it could and it did.

Alexi: But if it didn’t we would lose a $300 camera. 

RJ: It made it to three feet.