Ep. 28 - Jason Fried, Co-founder/CEO of 37signals
Ep. 28 - Jason Fried, Co-founder/CEO of 37signals
Author of Rework and It Doesn't Have To Be Crazy At Work
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This week, we were lucky to talk to Jason Fried, co-founder and CEO of 37signals (the company behind Basecamp and HEY) and a co-author of Rework, Remote and a few other books.
Jason and his co-founder David Hannemeier Hanson have played a great influence on me and Arnab for over a decade. So, we were very excited to have Jason on the podcast. This is our most over-researched and over-prepared episode!
Segments
[01:56] Introduction of Jason and 37signals
[04:32] Founder role vs. CEO role
[07:50] Working with the same co-founder for 20 years
[10:45] Disagreements between founders
[13:42] Disagree and commit principle
[15:38] The business side of things (numbers, accounting, etc.)
[19:22] On costs and profitability
[22:28] Intentionally keeping the company small
[26:05] Managing risk
[28:36] Jeff Bezos’ investment
[36:01] Working on several products at the same time
[37:12] Six-week cycles vs. long-term projects
[43:27] Evolution of 37signals
[50:40] Keeping products until the end of the Internet
[53:31] Calm companies
[53:56] Listening to customer feedback
[01:01:31] Jason's email is public. Is this a good idea?
[01:05:47] Employee performance reviews and fixed salaries
[01:07:53] Can the "calm company" mindset work in big companies?
[01:14:59] How does one find a calm company to work for?
[01:17:18] Publishing books
[01:20:53] On being contrarian and no politics at work
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Show notes
Podcasts
#496: Marc Randolph on Building Netflix, Battling Blockbuster, Negotiating with Amazon/Bezos, and Scraping the Barnacles Off the Hull on The Tim Ferriss Show
Books
Maverick by Ricardo Semler
Blog posts
Founder & CEO is kinda a BS title by Jason Fried
Basecamp's new etiquette regarding societal politics at work by DHH
But what if you're wrong? by DHH
Get in touch
We’d love to hear from you!
Email: hello@metacastpodcast.com (both of us get it)
Arnab’s Twitter: @or9ob
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Bye for now.