Our 2026 Company Retreat was in Toyama Prefecture. As a totally remote company, this is our main chance to get together and remember that we’re working together with other humans with their own problems, likes, dislikes, situations, and hobbies and whatnot. “Look at you! You’re a whole person!” It’s good to get that reminder.
We don’t do a lot of actual, planned work (though, a big thank you to the customer support team who lugged their laptops with them and answered emails during the retreat). Teams and groups and people do get together and work does organically happen, but the main point is to increase the depth of our relationships.
As always, it was really great to come together and to see everyone. And, this was the first retreat since we decided to switch to a yearly retreat cadence.
Meeting Space
We have a welcome meeting and a sayonara meeting. Kanae does a fantastic job finding incredible meeting venues for these. Really the only rule is we it shouldn’t be a table in a room with flourescent lighting that looks like something straight from Severence.
Our welcome meeting was held in the Zuiryuji Temple in Takaoka, Toyama Prefecture. We had our meeting in a designated National Treasure, for goodness sake.
Our second meeting venue was the Zuisenji Temple in Inami, Toyama Prefecture.
Not a national treasure, yet, but they’re working on it. As one of the Inami woodworkers told us, though: “the only reason Zuiryuji is a national treasure is because it’s old.” And, I have to agree — Zuisenji is the more incredible of the two. Both the town, and the temple—highly recommend visiting. It’s a quiet place with very few tourists, but quite splendid.
Company Photos
In our 2025 company retreat, we stumbled upon a new tradition of taking group photos so that when Netflix picks up the WaniKani cult mini-series in twenty-five years, they’ll have plenty of photos to work with. This time, we hired a photographer to come and take our group at Zuiryuji temple.
Our photographer had this idea of doing a long exposure and having everyone shake their head “no” for a few seconds while the photo took. I thought that was a fun idea.
I like to think the photographer had a good time with all our requests and poses.
Next Year’s Retreat
There’s a lot of cool stuff in Toyama Prefecture. The sushi is fantastic, the temples beautiful, and at least in Takaoka and Inami, not a lot of tourists. I’m not sure where we’ll end up next year, but wherever we go, it’s the people that make these so fantastic.
