At this point, every startup knows how important it is to build a community. Ridejoy included: Margot is all over cultivating ours.

But cultivating intention and purpose among our thousands of users isn’t our only community-building effort; we’re also building a strong community within Ridejoy, the company. We think of our growing team as a family (minus the crazy uncle).

And now we’re affirming our intention to build a great company culture by bringing onboard Camille. She emailed us out of the blue a couple months ago at 10PM, explaining her ideas on community and Ridejoy. Margot was so impressed by it she called Camille that night while driving home, just to chat. (We don’t usually work that late, but it happens.)

Check out the awesome email she sent us below. Curious about what’s next? Read the next entry by Camille on her role, and Ridejoy family dinners!

Date: Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 10:04 PM

Dear Margot,

Ridejoy is such a wonderful and refreshing company and product! The obvious care and dedication to ridesharing and community by you, Kalvin, Jason and Randy is contagious and I would like to ask you a question: would the Ridejoy team be interested in taking on an intern?

I found Ridejoy through the Hacker News “Who’s Hiring” thread a month ago, and yesterday I realized that the blog “The Art of Ass-Kicking” I’ve read on occasion was Jason’s, and I decided that I should just take the plunge and get in touch. Today, I learned all about your hiring through the Ridejoy blog and the email this evening, and I would love the chance to chat and if nothing else, get some advice! I hope to get some good use out of Ridejoy since I drive between Sacramento, Berkeley, San Jose, and Santa Cruz almost weekly, and I appreciate this interface much more than Zimride or Craigslist.

I believe in ridesharing, couchsurfing, freecycle, peer review, gift economies, and cooperative living and buying. I believe that by sharing and accepting what others share life can be more satisfying, sustainable, and safe. It’s a scary world out there when everyone is fending for themselves. Currently, I’m working as a bookkeeper, and pursuing art in my free time. Bookkeeping is interesting work solving big, meticulous puzzles with numbers, but it doesn’t inspire me. Ridejoy inspires me. Creating community inspires me.

As a student at UC Berkeley, I skipped the dorms to engage in one of the most interesting experiments in student living since the UC Davis Domes, and joined the Berkeley Student Cooperatives. If living and working with 60-150 of your best friends to create and maintain a community doesn’t inspire you to want to bring it to every aspect of your life, then you’re a zombie or a psychopath. After that experience, I’m seeking to bring the principles I learned to the greater world for the greater good.

I recently graduated from Cal with a BA in Anthropology focusing on research methods, applications, and critical analysis. Above all else, an anthropologist is a writer and translator of their experiences, and as a successful student researcher, I have proven myself an excellent writer and analyst, and capable of juggling multiple projects with grace across multiple disciplines. One of my favorite projects was on co-housing, a form of cooperative living, and after touring and interviewing a successful cohousing community, and a failed one, it was clear that without thoughtful intention, no cooperative community can flourish. Ridejoy is great because by signing up, referring friends, and utilizing existing networks (Facebook), you are reifying your intention to create a rideshare community, not just calling into the dark (as Craigslist can be).

[snipped for brevity]

Thanks so much! I attached my resume and I hope to hear from you soon!

Best regards,

Camille