Full Transcript for 583: Jason Fried - Growing Without Goals, Earning An Investment From Jeff Bezos, Making Tough Decisions, Keys To A Great Partnership, Hostin

right one because 74 00:03:58.659 --> 00:04:00.060 I don't know what the right one is. And I 75 00:04:00.080 --> 00:04:03.240 don't want to worry that I'm making the wrong one. Right. 76 00:04:03.539 --> 00:04:06.340 So yeah, The opposite of right is wrong in that sense. 77 00:04:06.360 --> 00:04:08.180 And then that's where people get nervous. Like, oh my God, 78 00:04:08.199 --> 00:04:10.780 what if I make the wrong decision? I'm basically trying 79 00:04:10.800 --> 00:04:14.120 to place a bet, essentially. And the bet is never 80 00:04:14.159 --> 00:04:17.189 going to be 100% right. It could be sometimes, I suppose. 81 00:04:17.250 --> 00:04:20.149 But really, it's about probability. It's like, how close to 82 00:04:20.209 --> 00:04:23.689 right can we get? Like, how does this feel? How 83 00:04:23.709 --> 00:04:26.170 do we feel about it? What are the things we're considering? 84 00:04:26.490 --> 00:04:28.860 How important is this really? Because, I mean, if it's 85 00:04:28.879 --> 00:04:31.509 not that important, let's not like deliberate forever on it. 86 00:04:31.600 --> 00:04:33.399 And let me not like beat myself up over it. 87 00:04:34.300 --> 00:04:38.879 And also, what's the likelihood that we could make a 88 00:04:38.920 --> 00:04:41.040 different decision about the same thing in two weeks if 89 00:04:41.079 --> 00:04:45.550 we need to? I'm trying to always reduce the criticality 90 00:04:45.589 --> 00:04:48.069 and seriousness of the decision so it's not as big 91 00:04:48.110 --> 00:04:50.810 of a deal. That way we don't get paralyzed and 92 00:04:50.870 --> 00:04:53.110 not wanting to make it. So those are the things. 93 00:04:53.790 --> 00:04:58.689 But really, I'm trying to feel... my way through what 94 00:04:59.110 --> 00:05:03.600 seems to be the best possible choice out of, out 95 00:05:03.639 --> 00:05:05.420 of the things that I, that I, that I can 96 00:05:05.459 --> 00:05:06.779 choose versus trying to be right. 97 00:05:07.720 --> 00:05:10.930 Is, is there a framework you use? Let's, let's, let's 98 00:05:10.990 --> 00:05:13.329 use a different example when it comes to decision-making. One 99 00:05:13.350 --> 00:05:15.370 of the ones is, okay, you know, I'm thinking about 100 00:05:15.410 --> 00:05:18.009 taking this job or leaving my company and going over there. 101 00:05:18.550 --> 00:05:20.769 Let's make a pros and cons list, right? You've heard 102 00:05:20.810 --> 00:05:21.350 this before. 103 00:05:21.389 --> 00:05:21.879 I'm curious. 104 00:05:22.730 --> 00:05:25.029 When let's say you're advising somebody and they come to 105 00:05:25.050 --> 00:05:26.430 you with a question like that, or maybe it's somebody 106 00:05:26.449 --> 00:05:28.209 who works for you, because I know you guys are 107 00:05:28.269 --> 00:05:31.269 so open with everything. I'm sure those types of conversations 108 00:05:31.310 --> 00:05:34.089 probably actually happen when they probably wouldn't in most companies. 109 00:05:34.430 --> 00:05:37.550 What's an overall framework somebody could use, you think, to 110 00:05:37.610 --> 00:05:39.269 help them make decisions? Yeah. 111 00:05:39.470 --> 00:05:41.649 So I don't like the pro-con list thing, because I 112 00:05:41.689 --> 00:05:44.300 think that here's why I don't like it personally. I'm 113 00:05:44.339 --> 00:05:46.629 sure it works for some people, but It's never a 114 00:05:46.649 --> 00:05:48.620 complete list. It's nowhere near a complete list. It's just 115 00:05:48.649 --> 00:05:50.500 the things you can come up with. But there's probably 116 00:05:50.899 --> 00:05:53.040 hundreds of other things that are at play that you 117 00:05:53.160 --> 00:05:54.959 may be aware of or may not be aware of. 118 00:05:55.000 --> 00:05:57.660 And so I'm not, it's not like balancing the list 119 00:05:57.680 --> 00:06:00.860 because you're just balancing the things you can come up with. 120 00:06:01.500 --> 00:06:05.420 What I would usually think or feel is like, what 121 00:06:05.439 --> 00:06:07.959 does it matter? That's honestly like, what does it matter 122 00:06:07.980 --> 00:06:12.699 which one you choose? And because oftentimes, like both are 123 00:06:12.720 --> 00:06:15.819 probably OK, like there's different outcomes probably or maybe the 124 00:06:15.870 --> 00:06:18.610 outcome might be the same. But but but both branches 125 00:06:18.629 --> 00:06:22.269 can lead you somewhere interesting. So I just try to 126 00:06:22.290 --> 00:06:24.209 get away from the right and wrong thing in terms 127 00:06:24.250 --> 00:06:25.730 of I mean, there are, of course, like a moral 128 00:06:25.790 --> 00:06:29.100 right and wrongs. Perhaps you might argue that's a philosophical conversation. 129 00:06:29.120 --> 00:06:31.720 But in most of these sort of business decisions, you're 130 00:06:31.759 --> 00:06:34.449 just making a call one way or the other. And 131 00:06:34.589 --> 00:06:38.689 unless it's highly, highly, highly critical, like something that we 132 00:06:38.730 --> 00:06:42.470 call internally concrete. If you're pouring concrete, you better make 133 00:06:42.509 --> 00:06:43.949 sure you're putting it in the right place and pouring 134 00:06:43.970 --> 00:06:45.389 it the right way because it's going to be very, 135 00:06:45.449 --> 00:06:49.439 very painful to bust up. So recognizing like, are we 136 00:06:49.480 --> 00:06:52.160 dealing with a concrete conversation here or a decision or 137 00:06:52.220 --> 00:06:54.639 mostly just like, are we moving dirt around? If we're 138 00:06:54.660 --> 00:06:56.339 moving dirt around, like you can move it around a 139 00:06:56.360 --> 00:06:58.019 bunch of different ways and the outcome might be fine 140 00:06:58.120 --> 00:07:01.139 either way. So I just, again, try to reduce the criticality. 141 00:07:02.019 --> 00:07:04.699 so people don't get too caught up in how serious 142 00:07:04.720 --> 00:07:07.959 this is when it isn't. That's basically my framework because 143

00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:09.339 I'm trying to get to the point where I can 144 00:07:09.360 --> 00:07:11.620 tell someone, I don't know, like, what do you think 145 00:07:11.639 --> 00:07:14.560 makes sense? And they're like, well, I think this makes sense. 146 00:07:14.579 --> 00:07:16.759 I go, that sounds pretty good. Why don't you try that? 147 00:07:16.959 --> 00:07:18.649 You know, it's more of a try than it is 148 00:07:18.689 --> 00:07:22.490 like a, I'm going down this branch no matter what. Now, 149 00:07:23.439 --> 00:07:25.389 to your point, like there are times in life where 150 00:07:25.410 --> 00:07:27.509 you're like, do I move to New York or do 151 00:07:27.550 --> 00:07:29.670 I go to LA? Or like, there's some big things, 152 00:07:29.750 --> 00:07:32.790 but still, even in those things, which are big things, 153 00:07:34.050 --> 00:07:35.980 you could say like, you could pick either one. You're 154 00:07:36.009 --> 00:07:38.259 just going to have a different, the life, your life 155 00:07:38.319 --> 00:07:40.860 might be different, but they both might be great outcomes. 156 00:07:40.959 --> 00:07:44.540 So pick the one you feel is right versus like 157 00:07:45.300 --> 00:07:47.600 New York would be wrong for you. How do you know? 158 00:07:47.779 --> 00:07:48.019 You know? 159 00:07:48.110 --> 00:07:50.339 So I guess I'm not... I know I'm not like 160 00:07:50.540 --> 00:07:52.779 in some ways giving people actionable advice in a sense, 161 00:07:52.819 --> 00:07:54.680 but the only thing that would be actionable about this 162 00:07:54.740 --> 00:07:57.980 is try to reduce the severity and criticality of these 163 00:07:58.160 --> 00:08:01.220 decisions so they're easier to make and you don't feel 164 00:08:01.259 --> 00:08:04.220 regret if you pick one and not the other. 165 00:08:04.879 --> 00:08:07.720 Well, speaking of a decision that you've made, I saw 166 00:08:07.759 --> 00:08:10.399 the dream home you built for yourself and your family 167 00:08:10.439 --> 00:08:11.139 in Chicago. 168 00:08:11.459 --> 00:08:15.279 Looked through the listing a few times. Amazing pictures. It's just... 169 00:08:15.790 --> 00:08:17.110 It's unique. It's different. 170 00:08:17.129 --> 00:08:20.310 It looks like almost a commercial building, but then it's beautiful. 171 00:08:20.430 --> 00:08:23.350 It's amazing, but you're, you're selling it, right? So, uh, 172 00:08:23.430 --> 00:08:26.779 and I know you decided to move. That's a huge decision, right? 173 00:08:26.800 --> 00:08:29.579 A guy with a family, you, you built a dream home. 174 00:08:29.660 --> 00:08:33.220 It's very expensive for most people and you decide to move. 175 00:08:33.340 --> 00:08:34.539 What went into that decision? 176 00:08:35.220 --> 00:08:37.720 It's so funny that you mentioned this because it is 177 00:08:37.779 --> 00:08:39.259 like the way you mentioned it, it is a pretty 178 00:08:39.279 --> 00:08:42.120 big decision, but strangely we didn't treat it that way. 179 00:08:42.220 --> 00:08:44.309 So this is like during COVID. So I don't, I 180 00:08:44.330 --> 00:08:47.830 built the house 10 years prior. Love the house. House 181 00:08:47.870 --> 00:08:49.690 is great. During COVID, we're like, we don't want to 182 00:08:49.710 --> 00:08:52.269 be locked in Chicago because it's really cold. Winter's going 183 00:08:52.289 --> 00:08:54.389 to be bad. We're all going to be stuck inside. 184 00:08:54.409 --> 00:08:59.259 And a few years before that, we bought this place 185 00:08:59.279 --> 00:09:02.000 we had to renovate in California. It was an old 186 00:09:02.299 --> 00:09:05.159 house built in the 50s, and it needed some renovation. 187 00:09:05.200 --> 00:09:07.100 So we were working on that kind of slowly on 188 00:09:07.120 --> 00:09:09.820 the side. And it turned out that it was sort 189 00:09:09.840 --> 00:09:12.360 of kind of ready to go, like right in the 190 00:09:12.379 --> 00:09:15.929 middle of COVID. I guess maybe it was 2020. July 191 00:09:15.950 --> 00:09:19.700 of 2020 or so, or August, something like that. And 192 00:09:19.759 --> 00:09:22.120 we're looking forward, like winter's coming in Chicago in a 193 00:09:22.139 --> 00:09:24.279 few months. Maybe we'll just go out to California for 194 00:09:24.299 --> 00:09:26.250 a bit and figure it out and see what happens. 195 00:09:26.330 --> 00:09:28.750 No one kind of knew what was happening at this time. 196 00:09:28.789 --> 00:09:30.610 You know, now you can look back on that. But 197 00:09:30.629 --> 00:09:32.549 back then it was like, who knows what's the future? 198 00:09:32.809 --> 00:09:34.470 Is this going to be a 10-year thing? Like no 199 00:09:34.529 --> 00:09:36.289 one knew anything. Like are people going to be dropping 200 00:09:36.330 --> 00:09:38.690 like flies everywhere? We don't know. So let's go to 201 00:09:38.710 --> 00:09:43.820 California and be outside at least, you know, and not 202 00:09:43.840 --> 00:09:47.960 feel cooped up inside. And so we did that. Now, 203 00:09:48.659 --> 00:09:50.519 We had a place, but we could have rented a place. 204 00:09:50.559 --> 00:09:52.419 There could have been other ways to deal with this, perhaps, 205 00:09:52.480 --> 00:09:54.490 but we had a place to go. And as we 206 00:09:54.509 --> 00:09:56.350 were just we're here, we just decided never to go 207 00:09:56.389 --> 00:09:58.850 back to Chicago. It wasn't like there was a moment 208 00:09:58.909 --> 00:10:02.500 where we decided to move. It was just this transition 209 00:10:02.559 --> 00:10:05.139 between like, we kind of like it here. Let's keep staying. 210 00:10:05.159 --> 00:10:08.720 And even now I'm like, do we live here? I mean, 211 00:10:08.759 --> 00:10:10.779 we're living here now. Does this mean we're going to 212 00:10:10.799 --> 00:10:12.700 be here forever? I don't need to make that choice. 213 00:10:13.460 --> 00:10:15.820 I mean, we have kids in school, but they're in school. 214 00:10:15.899 -->

00:10:18.929 That's fine. I can work remotely. My wife does what 215 00:10:18.970 --> 00:10:21.149 she does. She can do that remotely. And it's like, 216 00:10:21.929 --> 00:10:27.289 we'll just keep doing this. So strangely, in my mind, 217 00:10:27.429 --> 00:10:30.509 it didn't feel like a decision as much as it 218 00:10:30.549 --> 00:10:34.350 felt like, let's try something, which I guess is a decision, 219 00:10:34.370 --> 00:10:36.870 but it didn't feel final. I think maybe this is 220 00:10:37.269 --> 00:10:41.509 sort of what, as we dig into this, a lot 221 00:10:41.529 --> 00:10:43.889 of people are nervous about making decisions because they feel final. 222 00:10:44.330 --> 00:10:44.509 Yeah. 223 00:10:45.080 --> 00:10:46.440 And it could have been that like we stayed here 224 00:10:46.460 --> 00:10:48.399 for a year or six months and decided to go 225 00:10:48.440 --> 00:10:50.059 back to Chicago and that would have been fine too. 226 00:10:50.240 --> 00:10:51.940 We could have done that. Could have done all the 227 00:10:51.980 --> 00:10:55.019 different things. There were different outcomes that were possible. We 228 00:10:55.059 --> 00:10:57.000 just felt like this one made the most sense for 229 00:10:57.039 --> 00:10:58.480 us right now. And here we are, we're still here. 230 00:10:58.620 --> 00:11:02.090 So I know it's, yes, now I'm selling the house. 231 00:11:02.110 --> 00:11:03.970 So that means we're like, now at this point, we're like, 232 00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:08.149 we're leaving Chicago and we're making that decision if the 233 00:11:08.169 --> 00:11:10.840 house sells. If the house doesn't sell, I still have it. 234 00:11:11.029 --> 00:11:15.059 But now that a few years have passed, we can 235 00:11:15.080 --> 00:11:17.620 sort of stretch the decision out over a few years 236 00:11:17.759 --> 00:11:19.379 in this case, because we didn't know what we were 237 00:11:19.399 --> 00:11:20.860 going to do. And now we feel comfortable that we 238 00:11:20.899 --> 00:11:24.389 can make this decision versus like freaking out about leaving 239 00:11:24.610 --> 00:11:27.750 home and going somewhere else where it would feel so final. 240 00:11:27.769 --> 00:11:30.580 Like we are saying goodbye to Chicago like three years ago. 241 00:11:30.590 --> 00:11:31.730 We didn't say it that way. We're like, we're just 242 00:11:31.750 --> 00:11:32.610 going to go out here for a while and see 243 00:11:32.629 --> 00:11:34.549 what happens. Is that helpful? 244 00:11:34.570 --> 00:11:34.850 I don't know. 245 00:11:34.889 --> 00:11:37.059 It's, It's kind of amorphous, but it really is how 246 00:11:37.080 --> 00:11:37.799 I think about it. 247 00:11:37.899 --> 00:11:39.720 You know what it is, Jason, is the fact that 248 00:11:40.179 --> 00:11:44.500 most of the elements of life are very nuanced and gray. 249 00:11:44.779 --> 00:11:47.299 They're not black and white. And I think sometimes we 250 00:11:47.360 --> 00:11:49.179 try to bifurcate everything. 251 00:11:49.259 --> 00:11:51.490 It's either a pro or a con. It's a yes 252 00:11:51.990 --> 00:11:52.610 or a no. 253 00:11:53.049 --> 00:11:56.610 But in reality, with most things, including even a decision 254 00:11:56.629 --> 00:12:00.580 to move or whatever, it's not a. 255 00:12:01.049 --> 00:12:03.370 yes or a no, it's, it's just, we're going to 256 00:12:03.389 --> 00:12:04.850 go try this. We're just going to go do it. 257 00:12:05.070 --> 00:12:07.309 We want to be outside, you know, like we don't 258 00:12:07.330 --> 00:12:10.190 need to overcomplicate the thing. And it's almost like in 259 00:12:10.230 --> 00:12:12.600 alignment with how you run your business as well. Like 260 00:12:12.629 --> 00:12:15.639 we don't need to overcomplicate this thing. We're just going 261 00:12:15.659 --> 00:12:17.980 to go do it and then kind of figure it out. 262 00:12:18.019 --> 00:12:22.399 And that feels because let's transition to goal setting, because 263 00:12:22.440 --> 00:12:25.759 I feel like you guys, I loved reading about your 264 00:12:25.799 --> 00:12:29.740 process when it I'll pause and I want you to 265 00:12:29.779 --> 00:12:34.049 describe your overall philosophy both personally for yourself as well 266 00:12:34.129 --> 00:12:37.610 as now running a company when it comes to the 267 00:12:37.850 --> 00:12:39.490 idea of goal setting. 268 00:12:40.250 --> 00:12:43.129 Yeah, so I'm not a goal-driven person. I tend not 269 00:12:43.169 --> 00:12:47.179 to set goals. I set directions. So like I'll go 270 00:12:47.220 --> 00:12:49.440 in a direction. We'll take an idea in a direction. 271 00:12:50.100 --> 00:12:51.919 We have an idea for where we want to head 272 00:12:51.980 --> 00:12:55.309 with this thing. And I mean, the goal of course 273 00:12:55.330 --> 00:12:56.990 is implicit in a sense, like we want to ship 274 00:12:57.049 --> 00:13:00.070 this thing and make it great, but that's not like a, 275 00:13:00.309 --> 00:13:03.169 it's not like we need to do it and measure 276 00:13:03.230 --> 00:13:05.980 it based on revenue or number of customers we signed 277 00:13:06.009 --> 00:13:08.179 up in the first three weeks or any of these 278 00:13:08.220 --> 00:13:10.899 sort of numbers that really, frankly, most people are making up. 279 00:13:11.539 --> 00:13:13.139 And then you've got to hit these targets and you 280 00:13:13.159 --> 00:13:15.360 set these targets out for you that are so precise 281 00:13:15.399 --> 00:13:17.139 that you either hit them and you feel good, or 282 00:13:17.179 --> 00:13:20.850 maybe you should have had a more ambitious target, or 283 00:13:20.909 --> 00:13:22.730 now you just set another target. Like you just keep 284 00:13:22.769 --> 00:13:25.200 setting target after target after target after target versus like, 285 00:13:25.519 --> 00:13:28.600 how about just doing the best you can and seeing 286 00:13:28.620 --> 00:13:31.039 where things end up. That's kind of how I've always 287

00:13:31.620 --> 00:13:34.179 approached these things. And this whole thing kind of came 288 00:13:34.220 --> 00:13:37.700 to me through running actually. So I was trying to 289 00:13:37.720 --> 00:13:40.500 like run a six minute mile or something, whenever this was. 290 00:13:40.759 --> 00:13:45.590 And I remember like aiming for this time and then 291 00:13:45.629 --> 00:13:47.470 I'd run and I'd run on, what it was, 605 292 00:13:47.470 --> 00:13:50.990 or whatever, 606 or something. And it kind of dawned 293 00:13:51.029 --> 00:13:53.330 on me that like, I was actually upset. I was upset. 294 00:13:53.370 --> 00:13:56.210 Like why, why I didn't get my, I didn't hit 295 00:13:56.250 --> 00:13:59.070 my goal. Now you could say, well, that's more motivation 296 00:13:59.210 --> 00:14:01.830 to hit it next time. But like, okay, so let's 297 00:14:01.850 --> 00:14:05.110 say I hit it, but then what? So what I 298 00:14:05.169 --> 00:14:09.009 realized was that hitting the goal is for me, the 299 00:14:09.049 --> 00:14:12.149 wrong thing to aim for. The real questions I should 300 00:14:12.169 --> 00:14:14.840 be asking at that point is not, did I run 301 00:14:15.039 --> 00:14:17.320 a six-minute mile? It's like, did I enjoy the run? 302 00:14:18.059 --> 00:14:20.139 How do I feel? Did I get some fresh air? 303 00:14:20.159 --> 00:14:23.220 Is my heart pumping? Is my heart rate up? Did 304 00:14:23.240 --> 00:14:25.360 I get some good exercise today? It's all of that. 305 00:14:25.480 --> 00:14:28.159 And that is true at 6.04, and it's true at 6, 306 00:14:28.159 --> 00:14:32.139 and it's true at 5.57, and whatever. Those are the 307 00:14:32.179 --> 00:14:34.759 kind of questions, and those are not goal-based things. Those are, again, 308 00:14:34.960 --> 00:14:39.690 result-feeling-based directional things that are amorphous to some degree, but 309 00:14:39.730 --> 00:14:43.610 also very specific. I can answer those questions. Yeah, I 310 00:14:43.610 --> 00:14:46.250 feel pretty good. I'm glad I did this today. Like, 311 00:14:46.289 --> 00:14:49.710 I feel like I got a good workout in. Yeah. 312 00:14:49.789 --> 00:14:51.210 How do I measure if I got a good workout in? 313 00:14:51.250 --> 00:14:53.990 I mean, some people would measure with their Fitbit or 314 00:14:54.029 --> 00:14:57.690 their Garmin or their Apple Watch. Like, I just like, yeah, 315 00:14:57.750 --> 00:14:59.490 I feel like I worked out pretty well today. That's 316 00:14:59.529 --> 00:15:01.990 good enough for me. So I don't wear the things 317 00:15:02.389 --> 00:15:05.250 that give me the statistics because I'm not after the statistics. 318 00:15:05.289 --> 00:15:08.970 I'm after the feeling. Again, same as business, same as decisions. 319 00:15:08.990 --> 00:15:11.730 I'm after a feeling. And I know when something feels 320 00:15:11.789 --> 00:15:13.490 right or when something doesn't feel right. I think we 321 00:15:13.610 --> 00:15:16.529 all actually do. But for some

reason, when things are 322 00:15:16.610 --> 00:15:20.309 easy to measure or easy to set a target on, 323 00:15:20.409 --> 00:15:22.850 we tend to want to do that and aim for 324 00:15:22.870 --> 00:15:25.669 this degree of precision that I think is unnecessary and 325 00:15:25.789 --> 00:15:26.740 perhaps not even helpful. 326 00:15:27.460 --> 00:15:30.220 So the real question we should be asking ourselves, I think, 327 00:15:30.600 --> 00:15:33.659 it feels like from what you're saying is, what are 328 00:15:33.700 --> 00:15:35.000 you optimizing for? 329 00:15:35.019 --> 00:15:36.220 Yeah. 330 00:15:36.240 --> 00:15:39.700 Right? When you think about running, the question is, what 331 00:15:39.740 --> 00:15:42.950 are you optimizing for? And you can answer that question. 332 00:15:43.019 --> 00:15:46.509 And that becomes the goal, so to speak, right? Of 333 00:15:46.629 --> 00:15:51.049 heart rate or how you feel or getting exercise as 334 00:15:51.090 --> 00:15:53.850 opposed to a six minute mile. Yeah. 335 00:15:53.889 --> 00:15:57.750 And so you could say that the goal is to 336 00:15:57.789 --> 00:15:59.809 have a good workout, right? I wouldn't call that a 337 00:15:59.870 --> 00:16:02.789 goal though. Like to me, a goal, typically most people 338 00:16:02.840 --> 00:16:05.279 think of it as like a six minute mile. Like 339 00:16:05.320 --> 00:16:11.470 I'm aiming for something a singularity. I'm aiming for this point. 340 00:16:12.090 --> 00:16:14.669 I need to get to this point and hit it exactly. 341 00:16:14.690 --> 00:16:17.740 That's a goal. That's how most people, I think, think 342 00:16:17.750 --> 00:16:21.120 of goals. I think like, did I have a good workout? Now, 343 00:16:21.820 --> 00:16:23.399 I can still push myself harder if I want to. 344 00:16:23.419 --> 00:16:24.360 I'll go, yeah, I had a good workout, but I 345 00:16:24.379 --> 00:16:27.200 think I got some left. And if I push myself 346 00:16:27.279 --> 00:16:28.940 and I ended up, if I did time it and 347 00:16:28.960 --> 00:16:32.100 I was under six, that'd be great too. But it 348 00:16:32.379 --> 00:16:35.159 wouldn't feel any better to me. It would just feel like, 349 00:16:35.820 --> 00:16:39.970 Because the time and the precision isn't the feeling. It's 350 00:16:39.990 --> 00:16:43.370 like the action, the act of the thing, doing the 351 00:16:43.470 --> 00:16:48.330 work or the workout in this case is the result. 352 00:16:48.629 --> 00:16:51.230 It's not the time or the number. Now, if I'm 353 00:16:51.289 --> 00:16:54.399 training professionally for, which I'm not, but like for like 354 00:16:54.440 --> 00:16:58.500 a marathon or a race, And there's targets you got 355 00:16:58.509 --> 00:17:00.480 to hit that other people set or you set for yourself. 356 00:17:00.779 --> 00:17:02.679 I can totally see how that would be very, very, 357 00:17:02.740 --> 00:17:05.180 very useful. So if someone's like, I'm running a triathlon, 358 00:17:05.200 --> 00:17:07.640

I want to finish in the top quartile. I got 359 00:17:07.660 --> 00:17:09.160 to get past this number. I'm going to train a 360 00:17:09.200 --> 00:17:11.859 certain way to get past this number. Totally understand that. 361 00:17:12.160 --> 00:17:14.380 I don't do that. So for me, I don't want 362 00:17:14.420 --> 00:17:17.019 to act as if I do that. I'd rather just 363 00:17:17.099 --> 00:17:19.259 do the workout and push harder if I feel like 364 00:17:19.279 --> 00:17:19.779 I have some left. 365 00:17:21.180 --> 00:17:24.789 What type of impact or effect, I guess I should say, 366 00:17:24.809 --> 00:17:27.170 do you think it would have on your company if 367 00:17:27.529 --> 00:17:31.170 all of a sudden, January 2nd, you have a town 368 00:17:31.230 --> 00:17:34.309 hall or whatever, you gather everybody together and you say, okay. 369 00:17:34.950 --> 00:17:36.950 Here's what I want us to accomplish by the end 370 00:17:36.990 --> 00:17:37.470 of the year. 371 00:17:37.529 --> 00:17:39.509 And you have a revenue number and you have a 372 00:17:39.589 --> 00:17:42.359 profit number and you have some other things about how 373 00:17:42.390 --> 00:17:44.880 you're doing in the market against competitors, whatever, the stuff 374 00:17:44.900 --> 00:17:48.680 that most CEOs do. What type of impact or effect 375 00:17:48.700 --> 00:17:50.359 would that have on your company if you did that? 376 00:17:51.279 --> 00:17:51.579 I don't know. 377 00:17:51.660 --> 00:17:55.059 I mean, it could work. We could perform better. Why 378 00:17:55.119 --> 00:18:00.039 don't you choose to do that? I wouldn't enjoy it, frankly. Like, honestly, 379 00:18:00.079 --> 00:18:03.829 I wouldn't enjoy working for that. 380 00:18:04.410 --> 00:18:04.589 Yeah. 381 00:18:04.910 --> 00:18:09.549 Like, I just, it doesn't matter in a sense to me. Like, 382 00:18:09.690 --> 00:18:11.809 what I want to get to and where I think 383 00:18:11.849 --> 00:18:14.250 we are and where I hope we stay is that 384 00:18:14.289 --> 00:18:15.859 we just want to do the best work we can. 385 00:18:16.500 --> 00:18:17.519 Yeah. 386 00:18:17.920 --> 00:18:21.529 And I don't think putting a target in front of 387 00:18:21.589 --> 00:18:25.039 you makes you do better work. I think what makes 388 00:18:25.059 --> 00:18:28.920 you do better work is the inherent motivation of caring 389 00:18:28.940 --> 00:18:31.259 about your craft, caring about the people you're working with, 390 00:18:31.339 --> 00:18:33.920 understanding what you're making, being proud of the work itself. 391 00:18:34.460 --> 00:18:36.680 And you're going to take that as far as you can. 392 00:18:36.700 --> 00:18:40.029 And we're going to end up in a place and 393 00:18:40.069 --> 00:18:42.029 the market is going to tell the truth. Like, did 394 00:18:42.069 --> 00:18:43.150 we do good enough? 395 00:18:44.630 --> 00:18:45.000 Yes or no. 396 00:18:46.200 --> 00:18:50.079 Again, it's not to beat the competition because the competition 397 00:18:50.099 --> 00:18:51.940 can have their business and we can have our business. 398 00:18:51.980 --> 00:18:53.859 I don't need to beat anybody. I'm not out for 399 00:18:53.900 --> 00:18:58.259 domination or taking market share. There's enough for us. There's 400 00:18:58.279 --> 00:19:01.279 enough for them. Of course, there are zero-sum game businesses. 401 00:19:01.559 --> 00:19:03.589 We're not in one of those. There's lots and lots 402 00:19:03.609 --> 00:19:06.430 of tools in our world that people use that are 403 00:19:06.470 --> 00:19:08.730 not ours. We can build a great business. They can 404 00:19:08.750 --> 00:19:11.930 build a great business. It's very insular in a sense. 405 00:19:11.990 --> 00:19:15.319 What do we need to do to function well, to 406 00:19:15.359 --> 00:19:18.940 sustain our business, to be profitable. That is the one 407 00:19:19.000 --> 00:19:20.700 goal I would say that we have, but there's not 408 00:19:20.740 --> 00:19:23.029 a number attached to it. It's not like we need 409 00:19:23.049 --> 00:19:26.269 to be this profitable or have this exact margin, but 410 00:19:26.289 --> 00:19:28.309 we want to be profitable and have healthy margins. 411 00:19:28.509 --> 00:19:29.609 Again, range. 412 00:19:29.809 --> 00:19:33.049 It's about a range. And we've been doing that for 413 00:19:33.049 --> 00:19:36.460 25 years straight, every year for 25 years, doing it 414 00:19:36.519 --> 00:19:42.190 without targets, without specifics to aim for, but instead kind 415 00:19:42.210 --> 00:19:44.109 of going inside and going, let's just do the best 416 00:19:44.150 --> 00:19:48.089 work we can together. Now, there are moments where I'm like, 417 00:19:48.109 --> 00:19:49.990 we need to ship this. So we're going to ship 418 00:19:50.029 --> 00:19:53.150 this by January 1st. And so is that a goal? 419 00:19:53.170 --> 00:19:55.450 It's more of a deadline, really. We are going to 420 00:19:55.490 --> 00:19:57.200 do this. And we're going to take some things out 421 00:19:57.240 --> 00:19:58.420 if we can't get it done because we need to 422 00:19:58.440 --> 00:20:01.460 get this thing out the door. So it's not like this... 423 00:20:02.000 --> 00:20:03.819 as long as it takes kind of mentality. It's certainly 424 00:20:03.880 --> 00:20:06.759 not that there's more discipline here, but fundamentally it is 425 00:20:06.799 --> 00:20:09.599 about doing good work that we're proud of and letting 426 00:20:09.619 --> 00:20:10.460 the chips fall where they may. 427 00:20:11.400 --> 00:20:13.319 At one point earlier in your career, you caught the 428 00:20:13.460 --> 00:20:16.940 eye of Jeff Bezos and I believe he came to 429 00:20:16.960 --> 00:20:19.380 you and said he wanted to invest. Can you take 430 00:20:19.400 --> 00:20:22.039 me back to that moment? What caught his eye and 431 00:20:22.079 --> 00:20:24.259 what was it like working with him when he decided 432 00:20:24.299 --> 00:20:25.319 to invest in your

company? 433 00:20:26.400 --> 00:20:30.220 Yeah. So historically we had, um, uh, been approached by 434 00:20:30.240 --> 00:20:33.000 a lot of different investors and it was never interesting 435 00:20:33.039 --> 00:20:35.259 to us and still isn't today. To this day, we 436 00:20:35.279 --> 00:20:38.160 still get approached all the time. I was speaking in 437 00:20:38.220 --> 00:20:42.119 San Diego at this conference called E-Tech in 2005 and 438 00:20:42.289 --> 00:20:44.970 Jeff was speaking there also. And what was cool about Jeff, 439 00:20:44.990 --> 00:20:46.150 I don't know if he still does this, but when 440 00:20:46.170 --> 00:20:47.890 he goes to a conference, he actually attends the conference, 441 00:20:48.289 --> 00:20:50.269 which is cool. A lot of people kind of come 442 00:20:50.309 --> 00:20:52.809 in and leave, especially like someone like him, you think 443 00:20:52.849 --> 00:20:54.190 he's in and out, but he was sitting in the 444 00:20:54.210 --> 00:20:56.809 front row, listening to all the speakers. And I think 445 00:20:56.829 --> 00:20:58.690 he liked what I had to say. And I think 446 00:20:58.730 --> 00:21:01.509 a few of his companies that he'd invested in were 447 00:21:01.569 --> 00:21:03.589 using Basecamp at the time. Basecamp was only a year 448 00:21:03.650 --> 00:21:06.230 old at the time, basically, when I was giving this talk. 449 00:21:06.809 --> 00:21:09.670 And I think he just kind of liked our irreverent 450 00:21:09.730 --> 00:21:11.490 point of view, which is kind of sort of how 451 00:21:11.539 --> 00:21:14.420 he is in general. And so he has people reach 452 00:21:14.480 --> 00:21:16.420 out to us, say, you know, Jeff wants to catch 453 00:21:16.519 --> 00:21:18.640 up and kind of had an inkling this was about 454 00:21:18.660 --> 00:21:20.660 investment of some sort. Otherwise, like, why would you want 455 00:21:20.680 --> 00:21:23.440 to do that? And I was hesitant, but it's like, 456 00:21:23.460 --> 00:21:27.029 it was Jeff Bezos, it was 2005. I mean, yeah, sure. 457 00:21:27.769 --> 00:21:30.150 Let's get together. I'd love to. Oh my God, I'd 458 00:21:30.170 --> 00:21:32.599 be honored to do that. So flew out to Seattle. 459 00:21:33.380 --> 00:21:35.539 We had a conversation and really going into it, I'm like, 460 00:21:35.880 --> 00:21:37.440 in my head, I'm like, we're not taking anyone's money. 461 00:21:38.920 --> 00:21:42.240 Not even his money. Not even his money. I didn't 462 00:21:42.319 --> 00:21:44.799 want the money. I don't need the money. And I 463 00:21:44.940 --> 00:21:47.740 don't want what the money costs. Right. 464 00:21:47.849 --> 00:21:49.450 Having to answer to somebody else, right? 465 00:21:49.529 --> 00:21:52.150 Yeah. There you go. So people think like you get money. Well, 466 00:21:52.170 --> 00:21:54.269 guess what? You pay for that. You pay for that 467 00:21:54.329 --> 00:21:57.690 money in other ways. You lose your independence. You're on 468 00:21:57.730 --> 00:22:00.309 someone else's schedule in a sense to sell the company 469 00:22:00.769 --> 00:22:03.900 or go IPO or whatever. Like, Funds need their money back. 470 00:22:03.940 --> 00:22:06.240 Investors need their money back, understandably so. So I went 471 00:22:06.279 --> 00:22:08.059 in not wanting to do this, but we just had 472 00:22:08.099 --> 00:22:10.759 some really good conversations. And what became clear was like, 473 00:22:10.779 --> 00:22:13.859 he was just interested in supporting a handful of entrepreneurs 474 00:22:14.160 --> 00:22:17.809 that he thought were doing interesting things. He was not 475 00:22:17.829 --> 00:22:20.849 looking for an exit. We don't have a board. He 476 00:22:21.029 --> 00:22:22.910 didn't want a seat. We don't even have one, right? 477 00:22:23.029 --> 00:22:25.190 And he didn't want to create one. So he wasn't 478 00:22:25.210 --> 00:22:29.069 looking for control. He was looking to support some people. 479 00:22:29.130 --> 00:22:33.099 And part of the support was liquidity. So- Jeff didn't 480 00:22:33.180 --> 00:22:35.480 really invest in our business. What he did was he 481 00:22:35.579 --> 00:22:39.119 bought secondaries. He bought some shares from me and from David. 482 00:22:39.660 --> 00:22:42.130 And we put that money in our own personal bank accounts. 483 00:22:42.190 --> 00:22:44.509 So we took some risk off the table early on. 484 00:22:45.109 --> 00:22:47.150 But none of his money ever went into our business. 485 00:22:47.210 --> 00:22:50.470 Our business is 100% always has been funded by customer revenues. 486 00:22:51.509 --> 00:22:53.660 So it was kind of this ideal situation where he 487 00:22:53.680 --> 00:22:55.440 didn't have a board seat, didn't really have any controls, 488 00:22:55.480 --> 00:22:57.809 a very straightforward, simple thing. We got to take a 489 00:22:57.809 --> 00:22:59.710 little bit of money off the table early on when 490 00:22:59.730 --> 00:23:01.450 we're like, this thing could be a fluke. This base 491 00:23:01.470 --> 00:23:04.190 camp thing has taken off sort of, but like, I mean, 492 00:23:04.210 --> 00:23:06.109 I don't know what's going to happen. Like we could 493 00:23:06.130 --> 00:23:08.589 get crushed in a year. I'd like to have something 494 00:23:08.609 --> 00:23:11.930 to show for the effort we made. And it all 495 00:23:11.970 --> 00:23:15.650 just kind of like magically came together in a way 496 00:23:15.710 --> 00:23:18.809 where he was sort of the ideal partner. And what's 497 00:23:18.849 --> 00:23:21.930 interesting is, so he still owns a piece, the same piece, 498 00:23:22.619 --> 00:23:26.619 although he had to split it up with his ex-wife, like, 499 00:23:27.250 --> 00:23:30.150 There's just that, those are the rules. So, but anyway, 500 00:23:30.170 --> 00:23:35.069 still owns a slice and she does. And we're an LLC. 501 00:23:35.250 --> 00:23:38.630 So we make distributions every year to member unit holders. 502 00:23:39.190 -->

00:23:41.529 He is one, she's one. So he gets paid every 503 00:23:41.569 --> 00:23:43.710 year on this investment without having to exit the company. 504 00:23:44.029 --> 00:23:46.869 So he's made his money many, many, many, many times over, 505 00:23:46.950 --> 00:23:49.910 still has all of his equity. And it turned out 506 00:23:49.930 --> 00:23:52.390 to be a pretty good deal for him. So that's great. 507 00:23:52.410 --> 00:23:57.190 But he's, to your other point, he is... The most 508 00:23:57.230 --> 00:23:59.319 positive person I've ever met in my life, like by 509 00:23:59.359 --> 00:24:02.839 a long shot. And that really made an impression on me. 510 00:24:03.740 --> 00:24:07.660 I've never been around someone so optimistic, ever. And I've 511 00:24:07.680 --> 00:24:09.880 been around a number of optimistic people. He just has 512 00:24:09.980 --> 00:24:14.880 a can-do optimistic spirit about him that it's always sort 513 00:24:14.900 --> 00:24:19.369 of anchored in like humor and like the silliest ideas 514 00:24:19.410 --> 00:24:22.170 are the most interesting. And I just loved that about him. 515 00:24:22.230 --> 00:24:23.829 We really got along in that way. So we went 516 00:24:23.849 --> 00:24:24.069 for it. 517 00:24:24.569 --> 00:24:27.789 Most positive person ever. How did that come out in 518 00:24:27.809 --> 00:24:30.930 the meetings and your conversation? How did you sense this overwhelm? 519 00:24:30.950 --> 00:24:32.460 I mean, what a great trait, by the way. But 520 00:24:32.519 --> 00:24:35.920 how did you sense it in him through your conversations? 521 00:24:36.460 --> 00:24:38.920 Yeah. And I wish I had that because I'm not... 522 00:24:39.220 --> 00:24:42.720 Maybe inwardly, I feel optimistic and confident about things, but 523 00:24:42.960 --> 00:24:45.880 I don't have that cheerleader spirit that he has, in 524 00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:49.019 a sense. First of all, if you've ever seen any 525 00:24:49.039 --> 00:24:51.019 interviews with him or met him, I don't know, but 526 00:24:51.599 --> 00:24:58.400 massive laugh. Like just... deep, fun, fun laugh. His laugh 527 00:24:58.460 --> 00:25:01.099 is fun and it's never faked. You can tell it's 528 00:25:01.240 --> 00:25:03.500 super genuine when he does it because it's so deep. 529 00:25:04.700 --> 00:25:07.490 You could imagine a fake version of it, but when 530 00:25:07.509 --> 00:25:10.069 you hear the real version of that, that's real. That's 531 00:25:10.230 --> 00:25:14.009 all in. And every time we asked him a question 532 00:25:14.049 --> 00:25:17.049 about like, what would you do or whatever? He's always like, 533 00:25:17.069 --> 00:25:18.650 what would you do? Well, what would you do? And 534 00:25:18.670 --> 00:25:20.269 we'd sort of get in this conversation. He's like, I 535 00:25:20.269 --> 00:25:22.299 love that. You should do that. Because if you guys 536 00:25:22.319 --> 00:25:25.859 think that that's good, you should do that. Like he's very, now, 537 00:25:25.880 --> 00:25:27.200 I don't know what it's like to work for him 538 00:25:27.259 --> 00:25:29.920 in his own company. So I can't comment on that. 539 00:25:30.019 --> 00:25:31.920 I heard he can be quite tough as you'd expect. 540 00:25:32.480 --> 00:25:35.220 But with us, he's always been very supportive and positive 541 00:25:35.329 --> 00:25:42.529 and like encouraging and an extraordinarily good listener. Um, and this, again, 542 00:25:42.569 --> 00:25:44.140 one of these people who are, when you're talking to me, 543 00:25:44.150 --> 00:25:45.619 I feel like you only, you're the only person in 544 00:25:45.640 --> 00:25:48.880 the room and he just has that quality, but it's, 545 00:25:49.279 --> 00:25:51.480 it's always like, it feels to me always rooted in 546 00:25:51.880 --> 00:25:59.329 genuine curiosity and excitement for novelty and, uh, cleverness and, 547 00:25:59.569 --> 00:26:03.210 and fun ideas. And, um, We were kind of spinning 548 00:26:03.250 --> 00:26:05.670 those kinds of things out early on, and we still 549 00:26:06.150 --> 00:26:08.509 do that. But back then, especially, we were kind of 550 00:26:08.569 --> 00:26:11.990 new on the scene. We were very irreverent, doing things 551 00:26:12.069 --> 00:26:14.329 totally different than everybody else. And I think he just 552 00:26:14.349 --> 00:26:18.250 kind of came into that and loved that. And we 553 00:26:18.309 --> 00:26:19.609 felt that vibe from him. 554 00:26:20.789 --> 00:26:22.529 It's also got to feel good, I would imagine, to 555 00:26:22.609 --> 00:26:25.039 prove that. early supporters. Right. 556 00:26:25.119 --> 00:26:25.299 Yeah. 557 00:26:25.319 --> 00:26:26.480 That was early in the game. 558 00:26:26.799 --> 00:26:29.619 Yes. You give a speech, he supports you. And what 559 00:26:29.640 --> 00:26:32.960 a great feeling, especially now what he's become too, but 560 00:26:33.099 --> 00:26:35.140 proving early supporters. 561 00:26:35.220 --> 00:26:35.440 Right. 562 00:26:35.619 --> 00:26:38.420 I think is, is just a really amazing. 563 00:26:38.460 --> 00:26:40.099 Cause like now he's made all of this, not that 564 00:26:40.119 --> 00:26:41.740 he needs the money, but he's made it all back 565 00:26:41.799 --> 00:26:45.599 in a lot more. And you prove that person, right. 566 00:26:45.640 --> 00:26:47.900 As opposed to, I think that's more fulfilling than proving 567 00:26:47.960 --> 00:26:51.509 haters wrong or proving doubters wrong is proving supporters. 568 00:26:51.690 --> 00:26:51.950 Right. 569 00:26:51.970 --> 00:26:54.559 You know, That's a good way of thinking about it. 570 00:26:54.599 --> 00:26:58.380 I mean, I've always been fueled by people who don't 571 00:26:58.400 --> 00:27:00.460 think I can do something for a reason like that. 572 00:27:00.500 --> 00:27:00.640 Yeah. 573 00:27:00.680 --> 00:27:02.380 That has always kind of been a bit of a 574 00:27:02.980 --> 00:27:05.980 chip my shoulder kind of feeling around that. It started 575

00:27:06.009 --> 00:27:07.980 out when I was a web designer way back when 576 00:27:08.029 --> 00:27:11.769 I first started my career, I'd submitted some, some work 577 00:27:11.809 --> 00:27:15.049 to this award thing that was like kind of the preeminent, 578 00:27:15.089 --> 00:27:17.990 like web design award guy at the time, David Siegel 579 00:27:18.009 --> 00:27:20.710 was his name. I forget what, what the award was 580 00:27:20.769 --> 00:27:24.160 called at the time, but Anyway, I submitted some work 581 00:27:24.200 --> 00:27:26.740 to him and he wrote me back. He's like, you suck. 582 00:27:27.259 --> 00:27:29.819 He's like, you should get a new job. Like, this 583 00:27:29.880 --> 00:27:32.059 is not your career. He's like kind of a real, 584 00:27:32.140 --> 00:27:36.000 you know, chippy guy. And I loved it. I honestly 585 00:27:36.039 --> 00:27:39.390 just loved it. Like, I'm like, okay, all right, let's go. 586 00:27:39.410 --> 00:27:41.990 And I think this comes from like, I'm five foot seven, 587 00:27:42.029 --> 00:27:45.210 so I'm not a tall person. And I've always been 588 00:27:45.230 --> 00:27:47.210 good at basketball and I can jump. And I used 589 00:27:47.230 --> 00:27:48.759 to be able to like touch the rim and I 590 00:27:48.779 --> 00:27:50.039 can't do it anymore, but I used to be able to. 591 00:27:50.259 --> 00:27:52.140 And so like, I love this sort of notion, like 592 00:27:52.420 --> 00:27:54.140 someone looking at me thinking I can't do something and 593 00:27:54.160 --> 00:27:58.440 then doing it always has fueled me. But so haters, 594 00:27:58.480 --> 00:27:59.990 like I kind of don't. 595 00:28:03.009 --> 00:28:03.509 A hater. 596 00:28:04.539 --> 00:28:07.279 It's kind of fueling when a bunch of people gather 597 00:28:07.400 --> 00:28:09.779 or pile on, like, I don't really pay attention to that. 598 00:28:10.200 --> 00:28:10.480 Yeah. 599 00:28:10.559 --> 00:28:12.859 But I do agree with you though, that it's nice 600 00:28:12.900 --> 00:28:15.549 to people who are really by your side in the 601 00:28:15.650 --> 00:28:19.250 early days who believed in you, who saw something others didn't. 602 00:28:19.509 --> 00:28:23.730 It is very rewarding to, um, to your point, prove 603 00:28:23.750 --> 00:28:27.039 them right. Or, or more so like, Find a deep 604 00:28:27.079 --> 00:28:30.960 satisfaction in making them feel good about their decision. So 605 00:28:30.980 --> 00:28:32.609 I'm with you on both sides here. 606 00:28:32.630 --> 00:28:34.150 I agree. 607 00:28:34.309 --> 00:28:38.609 And as you know, there are so many great, great 608 00:28:38.730 --> 00:28:42.690 examples of the Michael Jordans of the world and very 609 00:28:42.769 --> 00:28:47.819 Tom Brady's where. they, Aaron Rodgers have this permanent chip 610 00:28:47.900 --> 00:28:50.839 on their shoulder. And if there isn't a person there 611 00:28:50.900 --> 00:28:52.740 to put it there, they'll create it. 612 00:28:52.759 --> 00:28:55.400 They'll make it up. And so I do think, I mean, 613 00:28:55.440 --> 00:28:57.869 we're humans, like we're human beings. We're not perfect. Like 614 00:28:58.329 --> 00:29:00.269 I think there is something real. 615 00:29:00.289 --> 00:29:02.329 Like I still think about people when I was in college, 616 00:29:02.369 --> 00:29:05.069 I played a quarterback and I got beat out for 617 00:29:05.089 --> 00:29:07.329 a starting quarterback job by a guy who ended up 618 00:29:07.349 --> 00:29:07.990 being really good. 619 00:29:08.049 --> 00:29:09.970 Played for the Steelers named Ben Roethlisberger. 620 00:29:10.029 --> 00:29:12.730 And I remember people from my hometown when I transferred, 621 00:29:12.750 --> 00:29:14.819 because after I got beat out for that job, saying 622 00:29:15.220 --> 00:29:16.900 yeah he's a really good high school player just not 623 00:29:16.980 --> 00:29:19.019 not good enough to start in division one college football 624 00:29:19.380 --> 00:29:21.460 i still remember the actual names of some of those 625 00:29:21.500 --> 00:29:23.799 people that said that to me when i transferred and 626 00:29:23.819 --> 00:29:25.440 yeah i thought about it when i was not only 627 00:29:25.460 --> 00:29:27.220 the starter but team captain and had a chance to 628 00:29:27.269 --> 00:29:28.930 play after college like i thought of some of those 629 00:29:28.950 --> 00:29:30.450 people i want to prove my. 630 00:29:30.390 --> 00:29:32.470 Parents right right my supporters. 631 00:29:32.089 --> 00:29:35.130 Who love me but yeah dude like there's a little 632 00:29:35.150 --> 00:29:37.170 bit i'm thinking of those that saying like yeah good 633 00:29:37.210 --> 00:29:38.730 high school not good at playing college. 634 00:29:38.769 --> 00:29:41.059 I was like, well, what's up now? You know, like 635 00:29:41.099 --> 00:29:43.160 there is a little bit of that that happens, you know? 636 00:29:43.819 --> 00:29:46.079 I think it's healthy on both sides. And I've always been, 637 00:29:46.099 --> 00:29:47.920 you know, I grew up in Chicago. So Jordan was 638 00:29:47.960 --> 00:29:49.859 like kind of, you know, my idol kind of guy. 639 00:29:49.940 --> 00:29:52.480 And he is like all the way at the end 640 00:29:52.539 --> 00:29:54.880 of insane when it comes to chips on your shoulder. 641 00:29:54.900 --> 00:29:57.500 I mean, which is amazing for someone who's so accomplished, 642 00:29:57.539 --> 00:30:01.769 of course, to remember that Every single slight ever that 643 00:30:02.009 --> 00:30:06.970 anyone ever slighted him, talked shit, whatever it was, anything, 644 00:30:07.150 --> 00:30:10.009 like a little shove, a little, what, like, and you, 645 00:30:10.130 --> 00:30:12.009 you know, if you, if you've paid attention to him, 646 00:30:12.109 --> 00:30:14.119 he'll always talk about the, I remember that one thing. 647 00:30:14.130 --> 00:30:15.480 And that one guy said this thing to me and 648 00:30:15.500 --> 00:30:18.880 I dropped 60 on

him. Like, that's how I've always felt. 649 00:30:18.980 --> 00:30:21.680 I couldn't drop 60 on someone like in that way. 650 00:30:21.960 --> 00:30:24.410 But I do, I do look for those things. Uh, 651 00:30:24.519 --> 00:30:27.039 and they do give me some momentum and some, some 652 00:30:27.279 --> 00:30:29.710 sort of purpose in a sense that Kind of, not 653 00:30:29.750 --> 00:30:34.539 really purpose, but enjoyment, frankly. And we've done, you know, 654 00:30:34.839 --> 00:30:37.259 I think this manifests itself in our business in that 655 00:30:37.500 --> 00:30:39.500 we've been very early on a lot of things. So 656 00:30:39.539 --> 00:30:41.420 we were very early on remote work. We were very 657 00:30:41.539 --> 00:30:44.339 early on four-day work weeks. We were very early on 658 00:30:45.079 --> 00:30:47.420 small teams. We were very early on bootstrapping, although, of course, 659 00:30:47.440 --> 00:30:49.759 many companies have bootstrapped over the years. But in our industry, 660 00:30:49.799 --> 00:30:52.970 like pitching, bootstrapping, and talking about it seriously, we were 661 00:30:52.990 --> 00:30:56.039 very early on SaaS. Now we're very early on this 662 00:30:56.079 --> 00:30:58.859 thing called ONCE, which we're doing, which is one-time payment software, 663 00:30:58.900 --> 00:31:01.720 not subscription-based anymore. And people are like, but that's stupid. 664 00:31:01.759 --> 00:31:04.579 And I go, yeah, it is stupid. It is stupid. 665 00:31:05.339 --> 00:31:06.819 Right now it is, but let's see where it is 666 00:31:06.880 --> 00:31:08.460 in five years or whatever. And we're going to put 667 00:31:08.480 --> 00:31:12.309 some products out and see what happens. So I do 668 00:31:12.349 --> 00:31:15.549 like that. But yeah, I mean... I also think about 669 00:31:15.670 --> 00:31:18.029 like my parents being at every track meet I ran track. 670 00:31:18.049 --> 00:31:20.609 So every track meet I was ever at and my 671 00:31:20.650 --> 00:31:22.650 dad yelling at me in a positive way about get 672 00:31:22.670 --> 00:31:24.450 your knees up and all the things he would teach 673 00:31:24.490 --> 00:31:27.390 me about running speed, you know, I was a sprinter and, 674 00:31:27.569 --> 00:31:30.369 and finally being really damn good at that. And like 675 00:31:30.390 --> 00:31:33.299 being really happy to, to, I know how happy he 676 00:31:33.359 --> 00:31:37.119 was that I got really good. And so you can 677 00:31:37.140 --> 00:31:38.980 play both sides of it. I think it's, look, you 678 00:31:39.000 --> 00:31:43.309 gotta look for motivation. anywhere you can sometimes, you know? 679 00:31:43.339 --> 00:31:43.970 Yeah, no, no, 100%. 680 00:31:43.970 --> 00:31:48.059 Being early, I think, feels to me like a skill, 681 00:31:49.319 --> 00:31:53.380 something you've developed. How does one, this is a tough one, 682 00:31:53.539 --> 00:31:56.339 how does one develop the skill of being early? 683 00:31:57.359 --> 00:32:04.700 Well, I think part of it is not second-guessing yourself 684 00:32:04.759 --> 00:32:06.529 when you have an idea that you want to pursue. 685 00:32:06.549 --> 00:32:10.309 I think it's, I'm not suggesting we're the first ones 686 00:32:10.349 --> 00:32:11.849 to think of any of the things that we were, 687 00:32:11.869 --> 00:32:14.009 let's say early on, and we weren't the only ones, 688 00:32:14.150 --> 00:32:16.410 but there was, you know, a collection of companies that 689 00:32:16.430 --> 00:32:18.849 were early. And I think those are the ones that 690 00:32:18.890 --> 00:32:21.630 just do the thing and not like worry about what 691 00:32:21.650 --> 00:32:23.930 everyone else thinks they're going to do or be or 692 00:32:24.009 --> 00:32:26.029 how it's going to work out. But they're like, we 693 00:32:26.049 --> 00:32:27.930 believe in this, we're going to go for it. So 694 00:32:27.950 --> 00:32:29.750 I think a lot of it is just like allowing 695 00:32:29.769 --> 00:32:33.660 yourself to do the thing. Um, and sometimes you're really 696 00:32:33.720 --> 00:32:36.140 early and it doesn't work. I mean, for example, we 697 00:32:36.180 --> 00:32:39.160 made this, this product, this group chat tool back in 698 00:32:39.160 --> 00:32:44.009 2007 called, or six called campfire, um, which we've since 699 00:32:44.049 --> 00:32:47.430 re-released as this under this once umbrella. But back in 2006, 700 00:32:47.430 --> 00:32:51.289 I couldn't shove the idea of group chat down people's throats. 701 00:32:51.390 --> 00:32:54.210 Nobody understood it. Um, they're like, why would we chat 702 00:32:54.309 --> 00:32:56.430 like at a company? Like what? I don't, I don't, 703 00:32:56.470 --> 00:32:57.970 we can just talk to each other. Like, why would, 704 00:32:58.309 --> 00:33:00.680 so no one understood this at all. We couldn't sell it. 705 00:33:00.750 --> 00:33:07.019 It was like, Our least worst selling product we've ever made, essentially. 706 00:33:07.700 --> 00:33:10.839 And then along comes Slack, I don't know, it was 707 00:33:10.880 --> 00:33:13.529 eight years later or whatever it was. And we'd sort 708 00:33:13.549 --> 00:33:15.299 of given up on it because we just couldn't move it. 709 00:33:15.730 --> 00:33:20.109 And they just crushed it, right? Now, essentially, the products 710 00:33:20.130 --> 00:33:22.869 were the same. They did a few things really, really 711 00:33:22.930 --> 00:33:25.250 well that really, really mattered. They deserve all the credit 712 00:33:25.269 --> 00:33:28.980 in the world. But that idea, literally, if Slack had 713 00:33:29.039 --> 00:33:31.900 launched Campfire in 2006, it would have died on the 714 00:33:31.940 --> 00:33:34.519 vine too, essentially. It just was too early. So you 715 00:33:34.559 --> 00:33:37.420 can be wrong. Sometimes it takes a while for something 716 00:33:37.460 --> 00:33:39.950 to make sense. And sometimes it never makes sense. But 717 00:33:39.970 --> 00:33:43.150 I do think it's

not being afraid to just try 718 00:33:43.230 --> 00:33:46.390 something because I think most people talk themselves out of 719 00:33:46.450 --> 00:33:49.430 the early ideas they do have. Like it's not, we're 720 00:33:49.450 --> 00:33:50.950 not ready for prime time or no one's going to 721 00:33:50.970 --> 00:33:52.369 buy it or it's not going to work. And so 722 00:33:52.390 --> 00:33:55.289 they just don't. So I think we just do. That's 723 00:33:55.630 --> 00:33:57.769 kind of maybe how you are early with things. 724 00:33:57.789 --> 00:34:00.309 One of the other unique parts about your story, I 725 00:34:00.329 --> 00:34:04.559 feel like, Jason, is your relationship with David. You mentioned 726 00:34:04.579 --> 00:34:07.500 David earlier. To some, he's known as DHH. I've had 727 00:34:07.539 --> 00:34:11.139 him on the show. Super interesting dude. What's been the 728 00:34:11.300 --> 00:34:15.400 key to you guys having a good partnership? 729 00:34:15.699 --> 00:34:20.369 So a few things, probably. Luck, number one. The fact 730 00:34:20.389 --> 00:34:22.130 that we even met. He was in Denmark. I was 731 00:34:22.190 --> 00:34:24.699 in Chicago. We met on the internet. because I had 732 00:34:24.739 --> 00:34:26.619 a programming issue I didn't know how to solve. He 733 00:34:26.820 --> 00:34:29.139 wasn't a programmer, but I was trying to learn PHP, 734 00:34:29.179 --> 00:34:31.550 and he happened to read our blog somehow and happened 735 00:34:31.570 --> 00:34:35.170 to see my question, and that's how it all happened. 736 00:34:35.849 --> 00:34:40.690 So that was super unusual. Shouldn't have happened, but it did. 737 00:34:42.130 --> 00:34:44.650 So let's say the connection was made, then what, right? Well, 738 00:34:45.030 --> 00:34:48.070 first of all, he's on the technical side. I'm on 739 00:34:48.090 --> 00:34:51.239 the design side. So we are primarily doing very, very 740 00:34:51.420 --> 00:34:55.059 different things. So we're not... stepping over each other and 741 00:34:55.539 --> 00:34:59.380 constantly headbutting over the same thing. We'll headbutt over other 742 00:34:59.440 --> 00:35:02.260 things that are on the business side or product side 743 00:35:02.280 --> 00:35:06.849 because we both kind of share that. We're about 90% 744 00:35:06.849 --> 00:35:09.050 aligned on many of these things, but there's some differences 745 00:35:09.090 --> 00:35:10.869 there and we both have to make some of these decisions. 746 00:35:11.730 --> 00:35:14.789 So sometimes we'll argue there, which is totally healthy and good, 747 00:35:15.349 --> 00:35:17.820 but the majority of the work we do is different work. 748 00:35:18.010 --> 00:35:22.320 So we compliment each other rather than get tripped up. 749 00:35:22.400 --> 00:35:23.960 So that's number one. Or number two, I don't know 750 00:35:23.980 --> 00:35:26.159 what number this is. But the other thing is like, 751 00:35:26.920 --> 00:35:28.949 and I'll speak for myself, you'd have to ask him, 752 00:35:28.989 --> 00:35:32.409 but I just admire David's abilities. I admire him as 753 00:35:32.449 --> 00:35:35.760 a person, his skills, his writing ability, his technical ability, 754 00:35:35.800 --> 00:35:38.239 his ability to make decisions. his ability to see things 755 00:35:38.280 --> 00:35:40.219 other people don't see, his ability to be early on 756 00:35:40.280 --> 00:35:43.920 technical stuff, his willingness to just go for it and 757 00:35:43.940 --> 00:35:47.119 just be able to simplify. I admire that. And I 758 00:35:47.159 --> 00:35:51.639 think in any partnership, you must admire your partner. You 759 00:35:51.659 --> 00:35:53.559 should like them, but you should also admire them and 760 00:35:53.599 --> 00:35:56.119 be like, wow, they're good. They're really good at what 761 00:35:56.159 --> 00:35:59.409 they do. I admire their skill. I'll never have that ability. 762 00:35:59.449 --> 00:36:02.610 I'm not that. They are, and I admire that. So 763 00:36:02.630 --> 00:36:05.670 I think there's this admiration, different skillset, but then we 764 00:36:05.730 --> 00:36:09.760 see enough eye to eye on the core business side 765 00:36:09.780 --> 00:36:11.860 of things and how to run a business. So we're 766 00:36:11.880 --> 00:36:14.940 not constantly arguing about that either. Neither of us want 767 00:36:14.960 --> 00:36:16.760 to raise money from the outside world. Both of us 768 00:36:16.780 --> 00:36:18.440 want to keep the company as small as possible. Both 769 00:36:18.480 --> 00:36:21.010 of us believe in profitability. You know, both of us 770 00:36:21.030 --> 00:36:22.789 don't think growth is the be all end all. So 771 00:36:22.809 --> 00:36:25.369 like all the real things that matter that founders often 772 00:36:25.409 --> 00:36:27.929 hit their head over or butt heads over in a 773 00:36:27.989 --> 00:36:30.349 painful way. We don't, we don't have those, those interactions. 774 00:36:30.369 --> 00:36:33.989 We'll argue about the execution of something or the quality 775 00:36:34.030 --> 00:36:36.929 of something, whatever, but that makes it better. We never 776 00:36:36.969 --> 00:36:39.289 come away from that feeling like hurt and injured. Like 777 00:36:39.489 --> 00:36:41.190 I know a lot of founders do, and they just 778 00:36:41.409 --> 00:36:44.090 radically disagree about fundamentals in their business. 779 00:36:45.050 --> 00:36:49.190 Most people out there want to scale and grow at 780 00:36:49.250 --> 00:36:51.989 all costs, do whatever it takes. And so it's interesting 781 00:36:52.010 --> 00:36:54.829 that both of you are fully aligned when at the 782 00:36:54.869 --> 00:36:57.579 beginning you there couldn't have been any way of knowing 783 00:36:57.659 --> 00:37:00.320 that you would have been both against like growth at 784 00:37:00.360 --> 00:37:03.320 all costs or not, or, or both so focused on 785 00:37:03.409 --> 00:37:06.070 profitability and building a company that's going to do

that 786 00:37:06.230 --> 00:37:09.070 every single year and not just try to raise money and. 787 00:37:09.510 --> 00:37:11.929 Build, build, build, build, build big exit. Right. 788 00:37:12.010 --> 00:37:14.070 So is that part of the luck or have you 789 00:37:14.110 --> 00:37:17.349 influenced him more about that? Has he influenced you more 790 00:37:17.389 --> 00:37:20.110 about that? Or were you guys just, just perfectly aligned 791 00:37:20.150 --> 00:37:20.789 from the beginning? 792 00:37:21.849 --> 00:37:25.639 Well, I'm sure we've influenced each other. Yeah. Many, In 793 00:37:25.659 --> 00:37:29.300 many different ways, clearly. So David was a fan of 794 00:37:29.360 --> 00:37:32.000 our company in the early days. And our company was 795 00:37:32.119 --> 00:37:34.260 based on ideas. So if you were to look at 796 00:37:34.300 --> 00:37:39.449 our early website, if you actually go to 37signals. com slash manifesto, 797 00:37:39.750 --> 00:37:43.090 I think is the original site that's still available. You 798 00:37:43.110 --> 00:37:44.469 have to double check that. I'll get you the right 799 00:37:44.489 --> 00:37:46.409 link if that's not exactly that. I think it is 800 00:37:46.449 --> 00:37:48.570 that though. That was the original site. And we were 801 00:37:48.590 --> 00:37:51.260 a web design company. And the site was black and white. 802 00:37:51.469 --> 00:37:55.289 And it was text only. And it was 37signals. weird 803 00:37:55.349 --> 00:37:59.630 ideas about stuff. So if you're a fan of the 804 00:37:59.670 --> 00:38:02.869 company after looking at that, like all that stuff was 805 00:38:02.909 --> 00:38:09.340 about being small, focusing on quality, the value of design, 806 00:38:09.420 --> 00:38:12.679 people who inspired us, good writing, all these things. And 807 00:38:12.719 --> 00:38:15.139 David fell in and liked that stuff. So I think 808 00:38:15.179 --> 00:38:19.059 we had this shared understanding of what we thought was 809 00:38:19.099 --> 00:38:21.739 good to begin with, which was helpful. But yeah, we 810 00:38:21.760 --> 00:38:25.440 didn't like talk about profitability or any of these things 811 00:38:25.559 --> 00:38:28.019 early on. But I think like the sensibilities were there 812 00:38:28.119 --> 00:38:34.809 because the foundational, our foundational interests were aligned. And then 813 00:38:34.849 --> 00:38:38.199 I think, I mean, it's pretty hard to probably be 814 00:38:38.219 --> 00:38:41.139 in a business that is profitable and throwing off cash 815 00:38:41.460 --> 00:38:44.619 to the owners and think it's a bad direction. So 816 00:38:44.639 --> 00:38:47.250 I think like, you kind of ultimately fall in behind 817 00:38:47.289 --> 00:38:49.030 each other in a sense. And then you, you push 818 00:38:49.050 --> 00:38:51.150 and pull each other in different ways. And we've been 819 00:38:51.170 --> 00:38:52.849 influenced by one another in a lot of different ways. 820 00:38:53.469 --> 00:38:55.489 But yeah, I, like if he would have come from 821 00:38:55.530 --> 00:38:57.800 a world also, I would say he had similar experiences. 822 00:38:57.900 --> 00:39:01.000 So he'd worked for a VC backed company. I think 823 00:39:01.039 --> 00:39:02.699 it was in video games or something like that. And 824 00:39:02.739 --> 00:39:06.000 just saw like the sort of the, the tragedy that 825 00:39:06.039 --> 00:39:08.469 that was. And I had done the same thing. I'd 826 00:39:08.510 --> 00:39:11.510 worked on a contract basis for a company called Quokka 827 00:39:11.530 --> 00:39:14.739 sports in San Francisco and, And I was only there 828 00:39:14.780 --> 00:39:16.519 for a few months. And in those few months, I 829 00:39:16.539 --> 00:39:18.920 think they doubled or tripled their head count. Like they 830 00:39:18.940 --> 00:39:20.659 had ended up having hundreds of people that raised a 831 00:39:20.699 --> 00:39:23.690 bunch of money. And I could just see waste everywhere. 832 00:39:24.570 --> 00:39:26.769 And like, this doesn't make any sense. And everyone's like, no, 833 00:39:26.789 --> 00:39:28.150 this is the future. And like, they went out of 834 00:39:28.170 --> 00:39:29.969 business in a handful of years. It was like so obvious. 835 00:39:30.219 --> 00:39:32.539 to me that was going to happen. And David, so 836 00:39:32.559 --> 00:39:34.239 David has similar experience. I had a similar experience. We 837 00:39:34.280 --> 00:39:36.380 came to this, he saw the kind of our point 838 00:39:36.400 --> 00:39:38.760 of view that was very clear and, and, and out front. 839 00:39:39.420 --> 00:39:41.719 And so I think we had enough in common early 840 00:39:41.800 --> 00:39:44.039 on to make it all kind of coalesce. 841 00:39:44.639 --> 00:39:47.539 You mentioned one of the important things was good writing. 842 00:39:48.329 --> 00:39:50.449 I read everything you write. You're one of my favorite writers, 843 00:39:50.590 --> 00:39:55.849 both online and books too. And that, I think great 844 00:39:55.909 --> 00:39:58.300 writers make it look easy. I think you make it 845 00:39:58.320 --> 00:40:00.340 look really, I read them like, yeah, that's easy. 846 00:40:00.380 --> 00:40:01.579 I could do that. And then you go try to 847 00:40:01.619 --> 00:40:03.719 do it. You're like, that doesn't look the same. 848 00:40:04.539 --> 00:40:07.559 I love to hear more about one, the importance of 849 00:40:07.639 --> 00:40:11.179 writing from a leadership perspective, right? And how you view 850 00:40:11.219 --> 00:40:16.530 that as well as beyond repetition, how you've gotten so 851 00:40:16.610 --> 00:40:17.050 good at it. 852 00:40:18.579 --> 00:40:20.380 Well, first of all, I'll take the second part first 853 00:40:20.400 --> 00:40:23.800 because I hated writing growing up. I hated it. Absolutely 854 00:40:23.820 --> 00:40:25.539 hated it. And I hate it because I was asked 855 00:40:25.559 --> 00:40:27.800 to write things I didn't care about. Like I had 856

00:40:27.820 --> 00:40:29.320 to write a report on, you know, I don't know, 857 00:40:29.880 --> 00:40:32.800 Rome or something. I mean, Rome's cool now, but when 858 00:40:32.840 --> 00:40:35.260 I was 15, I could care less, right? You know, 859 00:40:35.280 --> 00:40:37.119 all the things, whatever, right? You're asked to write these 860 00:40:37.159 --> 00:40:39.699 reports and they have to be 10 pages. And it's 861 00:40:39.719 --> 00:40:41.800 like all about page count and subject you don't care about. 862 00:40:41.880 --> 00:40:43.420 Or maybe you get to pick a subject, but what 863 00:40:43.440 --> 00:40:45.159 do you know when you're that age and you just, whatever. 864 00:40:46.099 --> 00:40:47.820 I just hated it. I hated the formality of it. 865 00:40:47.820 --> 00:40:51.619 I hated the, the process around it, the length requirements, 866 00:40:51.659 --> 00:40:54.300 like the whole thing, the way it was supposed to 867 00:40:54.340 --> 00:40:55.880 be done, which is like you write a draft and 868 00:40:55.900 --> 00:40:57.519 you hand a draft and the teacher gives you feedback 869 00:40:57.579 --> 00:40:59.500 and you're doing other, I don't write that way. I 870 00:40:59.500 --> 00:41:01.840 don't like that. So anyway, hated writing until I got 871 00:41:01.880 --> 00:41:07.500 to write what's in my head. You, you and I 872 00:41:07.980 --> 00:41:10.699 are having a conversation right now. We're not struggling to 873 00:41:10.719 --> 00:41:13.969 have this conversation. You're asking great questions. Hopefully I'm providing 874 00:41:14.030 --> 00:41:18.929 decent answers. Um, If you could just write what you 875 00:41:18.969 --> 00:41:23.269 want to say, then writing isn't that hard. What's hard 876 00:41:23.309 --> 00:41:26.269 is when you think about having to write something. So 877 00:41:26.309 --> 00:41:27.789 the way I do is I just think about what 878 00:41:27.829 --> 00:41:31.150 I want to say. Instead of saying it, I write it. 879 00:41:31.840 --> 00:41:36.260 And so my writing is very conversational. And my head 880 00:41:36.300 --> 00:41:37.800 is always like, write it like you'd say it, write 881 00:41:37.820 --> 00:41:39.519 it like you'd say it. And this is true in 882 00:41:39.599 --> 00:41:41.139 business writing too. Like when I'm trying to come up 883 00:41:41.159 --> 00:41:43.380 with a marketing, like I write all of our marketing sites, 884 00:41:43.780 --> 00:41:46.039 all the copy on our pages and the headlines and everything. 885 00:41:47.150 --> 00:41:49.889 And I can find myself sometimes falling into that trap 886 00:41:49.929 --> 00:41:52.539 of trying to like write a marketing-y headline or something 887 00:41:53.280 --> 00:41:57.219 or describing the product in a way that like, you know, 888 00:41:57.300 --> 00:41:59.199 is it like a marketing description of the product? 889 00:41:59.219 --> 00:42:01.769 I feel like you should say for like this grand 890 00:42:01.829 --> 00:42:04.530 audience when it's like, actually, that probably doesn't work as 891 00:42:04.570 --> 00:42:05.989 well as me just saying like what I think. 892 00:42:06.429 --> 00:42:09.329 Yeah. And also like, One thing I always catch myself 893 00:42:09.369 --> 00:42:11.230 doing when I'm in this rut is being like, would 894 00:42:11.250 --> 00:42:13.730 I ever say that? Would I ever say that out loud? 895 00:42:14.130 --> 00:42:17.030 Would I ever say Basecamp is a project management tool 896 00:42:17.070 --> 00:42:21.579 that's apt for... I would never talk that way. So 897 00:42:21.840 --> 00:42:23.519 I try to make sure I'm writing the way I 898 00:42:23.559 --> 00:42:26.320 would actually literally speak to a human being if I 899 00:42:26.360 --> 00:42:29.099 was talking about our product or if I was talking 900 00:42:29.119 --> 00:42:30.900 about an idea or like I am right now with 901 00:42:30.980 --> 00:42:35.179 answering your questions. My writing would sound just like I'm talking. 902 00:42:36.090 --> 00:42:37.909 And I just know, I know this because I've talked 903 00:42:37.929 --> 00:42:39.809 to so many writers about this who struggle with this. 904 00:42:40.929 --> 00:42:44.650 They can't quite, and I'll get, they'll send me a 905 00:42:44.659 --> 00:42:46.699 draft of a blog post or something like, what do 906 00:42:46.719 --> 00:42:48.679 you think? And I'm like, would you ever say this 907 00:42:48.719 --> 00:42:50.179 out loud? If you were to read this out loud, 908 00:42:50.219 --> 00:42:52.139 would this sound like you? And they're always like, no. 909 00:42:52.280 --> 00:42:54.059 I'm like, well, then why are you writing it like that? 910 00:42:55.619 --> 00:42:58.639 And I know why. It's sort of been ingrained in 911 00:42:58.699 --> 00:43:02.460 us to think about writing. I'm just trying to think 912 00:43:02.480 --> 00:43:05.300 about communicating And I don't care if it's verbal or written, 913 00:43:05.340 --> 00:43:07.139 it's going to be the same for me. So that's 914 00:43:07.360 --> 00:43:09.079 kind of, I'm not going to call it a secret. 915 00:43:09.159 --> 00:43:11.159 It's certainly not a secret, but that's like my approach 916 00:43:11.199 --> 00:43:13.019 that I think works well for me. At least other 917 00:43:13.039 --> 00:43:14.679 people are going to write in different ways, but that 918 00:43:14.719 --> 00:43:15.389 works well for me. 919 00:43:16.289 --> 00:43:19.510 Do you ever actually speak and then just have like 920 00:43:19.550 --> 00:43:22.789 transcripts written out and then you like edit the transcripts? 921 00:43:22.809 --> 00:43:24.369 So it's literally you speaking? 922 00:43:24.989 --> 00:43:27.639 Yeah. I don't do that. But what I will do 923 00:43:27.760 --> 00:43:30.219 sometimes is I'll use like the voice memo app on 924 00:43:30.239 --> 00:43:32.699 my phone to just, if I have an idea that 925 00:43:32.739 --> 00:43:35.420 I think is interesting, I'll just like speak it and 926 00:43:35.440 --> 00:43:39.840 just

record that. So I don't forget the idea. And then, 927 00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:42.380 and I want to say it versus writing it because 928 00:43:42.400 --> 00:43:45.820 I can just kind of like free wheel and just 929 00:43:45.860 --> 00:43:48.659 kind of go free associate for a little bit and 930 00:43:48.699 --> 00:43:50.860 not like worry about grammar and all this stuff. And 931 00:43:50.880 --> 00:43:53.019 it's just faster to talk it out loud. So I'm like, 932 00:43:53.489 --> 00:43:56.929 I might talk for 45 seconds into the mic just 933 00:43:56.969 --> 00:43:59.070 to record something and then I'll come back to it 934 00:43:59.090 --> 00:44:01.119 and I'll write it. But I've never tried to dictate 935 00:44:01.179 --> 00:44:06.280 an entire piece. I think I would probably be, spend 936 00:44:06.300 --> 00:44:08.920 more time editing out the ums and the ahs and 937 00:44:08.940 --> 00:44:13.400 the ands and the weird structure because speaking is still 938 00:44:13.420 --> 00:44:16.219 a little bit different than writing in a sense that 939 00:44:16.260 --> 00:44:17.739 it just, it's easier for me to just write the thing. 940 00:44:17.880 --> 00:44:19.840 And I also, by the way, I don't write in drafts. 941 00:44:20.119 --> 00:44:23.409 So I don't, I don't write a whole thing and 942 00:44:23.449 --> 00:44:25.750 then go back and revise the whole thing and then 943 00:44:25.789 --> 00:44:28.210 go back and revise the whole thing. I'm writing and 944 00:44:28.349 --> 00:44:32.050 editing as I go. So it's, I will finish a 945 00:44:32.090 --> 00:44:34.239 thing and then read it and go, I don't like this. 946 00:44:34.510 --> 00:44:36.960 And like, where can I tweak it? But I'll write 947 00:44:36.980 --> 00:44:39.260 a sentence or two and I'll come back and quickly 948 00:44:39.320 --> 00:44:41.920 modify that without moving on. So it's not a whole 949 00:44:42.019 --> 00:44:44.280 complete draft thing. I think that I found that that 950 00:44:44.519 --> 00:44:46.380 is a waste of my time to do it in 951 00:44:46.420 --> 00:44:48.159 that way. I'd rather just kind of edit as I 952 00:44:48.179 --> 00:44:51.210 go and get, get somewhere good as I'm going. And then, um, 953 00:44:51.869 --> 00:44:55.320 you know, proofread at the end and maybe revise it 954 00:44:55.340 --> 00:44:57.340 a bit more or usually cutting it down a little 955 00:44:57.360 --> 00:44:59.719 bit can be a bit wordy sometimes that way. So 956 00:44:59.980 --> 00:45:00.500 that's my. 957 00:45:00.920 --> 00:45:03.670 The Morgan Housel style of, of his writing. That's what 958 00:45:03.690 --> 00:45:03.969 he said. 959 00:45:04.010 --> 00:45:06.789 Sometimes he won't even, he won't even read the thing 960 00:45:06.869 --> 00:45:10.639 he'll he'll edit as he goes, press publish. And he's like, 961 00:45:10.659 --> 00:45:12.460 the quickest way you'll find a typo is just hit 962 00:45:12.519 --> 00:45:14.619 publish because all your readers will tell you, they'll tell you. 963

00:45:14.980 --> 00:45:16.199 And then you just clean it up. He's like, and 964 00:45:16.219 --> 00:45:18.340 I just fixed it afterwards. And I'm like, he's a 965 00:45:18.340 --> 00:45:20.519 really good writer, but I read all of his stuff too. 966 00:45:20.639 --> 00:45:23.139 I've done that too. And it's funny because that is 967 00:45:23.239 --> 00:45:27.409 really how software works as well. So just briefly, there 968 00:45:27.469 --> 00:45:31.199 is nothing better than shipping something to figure out if 969 00:45:31.219 --> 00:45:33.489 something's working or not. You just ship it. And like, 970 00:45:34.230 --> 00:45:36.710 at that moment, you actually figure out what's really worth 971 00:45:36.829 --> 00:45:39.880 fixing and what really isn't worth fixing versus like, laboring 972 00:45:39.920 --> 00:45:42.539 over for three weeks to get it just right before shipping. 973 00:45:42.579 --> 00:45:44.260 I feel like you're better off shipping it and spending 974 00:45:44.280 --> 00:45:47.010 those three weeks, if there is even work to do 975 00:45:47.030 --> 00:45:49.530 over the next three weeks, refining and fixing the things 976 00:45:49.550 --> 00:45:51.989 that really needed fixing and refining, and not just fixing 977 00:45:52.010 --> 00:45:54.030 and refining things that didn't actually need it. And shipping 978 00:45:54.070 --> 00:45:55.550 is the best way, just like publishing. 979 00:45:56.070 --> 00:45:57.690 That goes for life. 980 00:45:58.329 --> 00:45:59.590 Yeah, 100% agree. 981 00:45:59.659 --> 00:46:02.599 If you just ship it, you'll... I mean, we learn 982 00:46:02.619 --> 00:46:04.260 who we are in practice, not in theory, right? The 983 00:46:04.300 --> 00:46:07.809 Herminia Barqua, but it's so true. for pretty much everything. 984 00:46:07.829 --> 00:46:11.090 Like we learn by doing, we learn by that one, one, 985 00:46:11.199 --> 00:46:13.360 one more point on writing from a leadership perspective, Jason, 986 00:46:13.420 --> 00:46:13.840 is that. 987 00:46:15.380 --> 00:46:17.079 Some leaders that I work with, they. 988 00:46:16.940 --> 00:46:20.420 Have like comms teams and, you know, like they're, they, they, 989 00:46:20.579 --> 00:46:22.119 they have something they want to say, then they got 990 00:46:22.139 --> 00:46:23.639 to go with the team and they go through it. 991 00:46:23.659 --> 00:46:25.579 And by the time the draft gets back out and 992 00:46:25.639 --> 00:46:27.860 it's sent to the whole company, it's like, what is this? 993 00:46:27.940 --> 00:46:31.210 Like it's plain and boring and generic. And it's obviously 994 00:46:31.269 --> 00:46:33.210 not from the voice of the leader. 995 00:46:34.260 --> 00:46:34.679 Two things. 996 00:46:34.889 --> 00:46:37.449 One, I think writing is the ultimate tool for clarity. 997 00:46:37.489 --> 00:46:39.429 You don't fully know what you think until you get 998 00:46:39.449 --> 00:46:41.300 it out of your head onto the page. And then two, 999 00:46:41.389 --> 00:46:43.780 for the reader, especially if you're leading a company like 1000 00:46:43.820 --> 00:46:48.300 you are, if they sense it's not your voice... you 1001 00:46:48.360 --> 00:46:50.500 might as well just delete it. It actually has a 1002 00:46:50.880 --> 00:46:54.260 negative effect, I think, because it's inauthentic. It's not real. 1003 00:46:54.280 --> 00:46:56.900 And they're like, well, what is he actually thinking? As 1004 00:46:56.960 --> 00:46:59.699 opposed to when they read your stuff, you're like, oh, 1005 00:46:59.900 --> 00:47:02.389 I can hear Jason saying this stuff. 1006 00:47:02.760 --> 00:47:04.429 So now I know exactly what he's thinking. 1007 00:47:04.469 --> 00:47:06.469 So I know there's two parts to that when it 1008 00:47:06.530 --> 00:47:08.989 comes to getting clarity of thought as the writer. But 1009 00:47:09.030 --> 00:47:12.269 then from a reader's perspective, it's actually getting your real 1010 00:47:12.309 --> 00:47:17.090 thoughts as opposed to some comms team edited draft that 1011 00:47:18.260 --> 00:47:21.409 I think could have negative consequences for a leader. Yes. 1012 00:47:21.610 --> 00:47:22.010 Oh my God. 1013 00:47:22.070 --> 00:47:25.010 I mean, so David and I will often talk about 1014 00:47:25.050 --> 00:47:26.630 how like the worst thing in the world would be 1015 00:47:26.650 --> 00:47:30.389 to have like a ghostwriter or, or a comms team or, 1016 00:47:30.550 --> 00:47:32.909 or anyone that has to filter our words and write 1017 00:47:32.949 --> 00:47:36.059 something for, you know, for our behalf and put our 1018 00:47:36.099 --> 00:47:38.199 name on it. Like there's no way in hell ever, 1019 00:47:38.800 --> 00:47:40.480 anything that comes out of this company with my name 1020 00:47:40.559 --> 00:47:42.119 on it is not written a hundred percent by me. 1021 00:47:42.880 --> 00:47:45.059 Or like, I might run it by somebody that I 1022 00:47:45.139 --> 00:47:47.429 choose to like, David can give me some feedback, whatever, 1023 00:47:47.469 --> 00:47:50.159 but like, No one's writing this for me. Absolutely not. 1024 00:47:50.199 --> 00:47:51.489 Same thing is true for David. Same thing is true 1025 00:47:51.510 --> 00:47:54.380 for anyone. There is no one writing things for anybody here. 1026 00:47:54.880 --> 00:47:58.340 And there's no filtering through legal or we don't have 1027 00:47:58.360 --> 00:47:59.840 a PR team. We don't have a PR. We don't 1028 00:47:59.860 --> 00:48:02.099 have a comms person. We don't have a lawyer on staff. 1029 00:48:02.119 --> 00:48:04.119 We don't have any of those things. We write what 1030 00:48:04.139 --> 00:48:08.860 we write. And that's what we do for us. Now, 1031 00:48:09.239 --> 00:48:12.139 can you do that at a company with 60,000 people? 1032 00:48:12.219 --> 00:48:14.179 I don't know. In your public company, maybe you can't. 1033 00:48:14.260 --> 00:48:16.199 Maybe you're not allowed to. But I'll tell you what's 1034 00:48:16.219 -->

00:48:19.599 very interesting is like Mark Zuckerberg's sort of transformation, I 1035 00:48:19.639 --> 00:48:22.289 think recently, like he's doing a lot more first person 1036 00:48:23.070 --> 00:48:28.190 sort of rough cut stuff. I find it really endearing. 1037 00:48:29.900 --> 00:48:33.300 And I can imagine maybe there's somebody at the company 1038 00:48:33.320 --> 00:48:36.800 who's nervous about that. I don't know, whatever, but. He's not. 1039 00:48:37.000 --> 00:48:39.300 And I think he realizes that like he needs to 1040 00:48:39.420 --> 00:48:41.000 connect with people. And the best way to connect with 1041 00:48:41.019 --> 00:48:43.980 people is to communicate directly to people in your own style, 1042 00:48:44.019 --> 00:48:46.159 in your own way. That is so a hundred percent 1043 00:48:46.260 --> 00:48:49.150 your words out of your mouth. Uh, so I, I'm 1044 00:48:49.170 --> 00:48:51.170 a big fan of that. And, and if that was 1045 00:48:51.230 --> 00:48:53.570 ever to change here, like I wouldn't be here. There's 1046 00:48:53.630 --> 00:48:55.110 no way in hell I could ever run a company 1047 00:48:55.130 --> 00:48:56.210 where I couldn't speak for myself. 1048 00:48:57.469 --> 00:49:01.329 Speaking of Zuckerberg, I mean, talk about a transformation I 1049 00:49:01.369 --> 00:49:04.800 mean I think a big part of why he's gone 1050 00:49:04.840 --> 00:49:06.179 from a guy that a lot of people did not 1051 00:49:06.219 --> 00:49:08.559 like and hated to now I think a lot of 1052 00:49:08.599 --> 00:49:11.460 people respect and like is because he's like yeah I'm 1053 00:49:11.500 --> 00:49:13.280 just gonna say it it's like the end of Kobe's 1054 00:49:13.340 --> 00:49:15.250 career you remember when Kobe kind of made that shift 1055 00:49:15.269 --> 00:49:17.670 where he's just going to tell the truth all the time. 1056 00:49:17.829 --> 00:49:20.019 And we all like, I just wanted to hear every 1057 00:49:20.119 --> 00:49:22.159 single time a microphone was in front of his face 1058 00:49:22.219 --> 00:49:25.199 because he kind of got comfortable enough to just say 1059 00:49:25.280 --> 00:49:25.880 what he thinks. 1060 00:49:26.380 --> 00:49:27.679 I feel like that's where Zuckerberg is. 1061 00:49:27.699 --> 00:49:30.019 And when he has his buddy with the goggles on 1062 00:49:30.119 --> 00:49:33.039 filming him and he just speaking directly to camera and 1063 00:49:33.099 --> 00:49:36.210 it's like, he's MK, a BHD, you know, where he's 1064 00:49:36.230 --> 00:49:38.989 just doing like the YouTube reviews, but he's doing it 1065 00:49:39.010 --> 00:49:41.570 of his own product versus Apple. I mean, you were like, 1066 00:49:42.210 --> 00:49:44.349 This is wild. I mean, this is wild that this 1067 00:49:44.369 --> 00:49:47.710 guy's doing it. And it's so connected with people. Like, 1068 00:49:47.730 --> 00:49:50.889 I think it's so worked because we felt this is genuinely, 1069 00:49:51.070 --> 00:49:54.449 he's really smart, but

this is genuinely what he thinks. 1070 00:49:54.510 --> 00:49:56.329 And it's a little bit raw and yeah, it's, there's 1071 00:49:56.349 --> 00:49:58.840 a little editing, but not much. It's pretty much just 1072 00:49:59.239 --> 00:50:02.500 him to camera giving you a product review. And I 1073 00:50:02.539 --> 00:50:06.829 found it super compelling. Yeah, and he's doing more of that. 1074 00:50:06.949 --> 00:50:08.309 I think he's coming into his own right now. 1075 00:50:08.369 --> 00:50:10.090 It's interesting. He's been doing this for a long time, 1076 00:50:10.110 --> 00:50:12.030 but I feel like he's having a resurgence and a 1077 00:50:12.070 --> 00:50:15.260 second wind in a sense. And partially because like the 1078 00:50:15.300 --> 00:50:17.820 industry is in the place that it is and he's 1079 00:50:17.880 --> 00:50:20.360 finding himself as an, I mean, there's nothing wrong with 1080 00:50:20.380 --> 00:50:21.880 being an opportunist. I feel like he's a bit of 1081 00:50:21.900 --> 00:50:25.929 an opportunist right now. Like Google or Apple is sort 1082 00:50:25.969 --> 00:50:29.110 of maybe fading a bit in some ways and clearly 1083 00:50:29.150 --> 00:50:31.929 like huge, powerful company making great stuff. But like their 1084 00:50:31.969 --> 00:50:35.039 reputation has sort of taken a hit. Um, Google's reputation 1085 00:50:35.059 --> 00:50:37.619 has taken a hit. Uh, all those companies are trying 1086 00:50:37.639 --> 00:50:39.900 to do like a lot of closed stuff and he's like, well, 1087 00:50:39.920 --> 00:50:42.360 I'll take the open road. I'll go the open route. And, uh, 1088 00:50:42.400 --> 00:50:45.900 which has not historically been actually their approach, but, uh, 1089 00:50:46.340 --> 00:50:47.710 I think you kind of want to root for that 1090 00:50:47.809 --> 00:50:51.170 and you're kind of glad that he exists. And, um, uh, 1091 00:50:51.409 --> 00:50:53.429 I think, I think it's great. I think he wasn't 1092 00:50:53.510 --> 00:50:56.409 the most comfortable communicator like early in his career. I 1093 00:50:56.449 --> 00:50:58.989 think he was pretty stiff and, and maybe not comfortable 1094 00:50:59.010 --> 00:51:01.079 in front of a camera. But he's been working on 1095 00:51:01.099 --> 00:51:03.079 that clearly. And I think when he's at his best, 1096 00:51:03.119 --> 00:51:05.980 when he's just not scripted. And when you see him 1097 00:51:06.039 --> 00:51:08.599 do scripted stuff, it's still cringeworthy, in my opinion. And 1098 00:51:09.260 --> 00:51:12.969 you're like, dude, just talk. Don't read a script. You 1099 00:51:13.010 --> 00:51:15.150 know your stuff. You know your product. You know your pitch. 1100 00:51:15.190 --> 00:51:17.630 You know how this goes. Just be yourself. You can 1101 00:51:17.710 --> 00:51:20.010 really feel when someone is just going off the cuff 1102 00:51:20.030 --> 00:51:23.429 versus reading a teleprompter, as good as they might be 1103 00:51:23.449 --> 00:51:27.420 at reading a teleprompter. It's the cadence, the tone, the timing. Yeah. 1104 00:51:28.139 --> 00:51:29.460 You can tell when someone's reading and you can tell 1105 00:51:29.480 --> 00:51:32.280 when someone's speaking. And he'd be better off. And I 1106 00:51:32.420 --> 00:51:34.960 think it's proving true that he's better off just speaking, 1107 00:51:35.219 --> 00:51:39.739 just being himself. Tim Cook would never do this. Or 1108 00:51:39.760 --> 00:51:44.590 maybe he would, but he's too disconnected from the product 1109 00:51:44.630 --> 00:51:46.889 in a way that Zuckerberg is very connected. 1110 00:51:46.610 --> 00:51:48.010 To the product. I don't know him that well, but 1111 00:51:48.070 --> 00:51:49.710 you think so? 1112 00:51:51.030 --> 00:51:54.230 My sense is that Cook is definitely, I mean, probably 1113 00:51:54.250 --> 00:51:58.550 an outstripper. not even probably, is an outstanding operator, but 1114 00:51:58.590 --> 00:52:01.309 he's not a product person in the way that Zuckerberg 1115 00:52:01.989 --> 00:52:05.050 understands his product. He uses his product through and through 1116 00:52:05.090 --> 00:52:07.610 and through and through. I really feel like he's in 1117 00:52:07.650 --> 00:52:10.980 there with the teams working this stuff out and has 1118 00:52:11.019 --> 00:52:13.739 great product instinct. And I think that comes from just 1119 00:52:13.760 --> 00:52:16.659 starting a company that was a product company. Tim Cook 1120 00:52:16.860 --> 00:52:20.599 was an operator, a COO, an extraordinary supply chain genius. 1121 00:52:21.730 --> 00:52:23.809 And it's clearly run Apple really, really well in a 1122 00:52:23.829 --> 00:52:27.820 lot of ways, obviously. But he doesn't have the product, 1123 00:52:28.340 --> 00:52:31.340 in my opinion, for whatever it's worth, which is not much, 1124 00:52:31.420 --> 00:52:33.739 but it's just my observation. Like he just doesn't have 1125 00:52:33.780 --> 00:52:36.480 that product gene in him. So when he talks about 1126 00:52:36.500 --> 00:52:41.019 the products, it's like there's a translator in the middle somewhere. 1127 00:52:41.420 --> 00:52:41.599 Yeah. 1128 00:52:41.860 --> 00:52:43.400 And I think you can, even if he was to 1129 00:52:43.480 --> 00:52:45.469 go off the cuff, it still feels like there's a translator. 1130 00:52:46.909 --> 00:52:49.409 Also, back to Zuckerberg, and I think some people think 1131 00:52:49.449 --> 00:52:51.909 this is really stupid, what I'm about to say, but 1132 00:52:53.170 --> 00:52:57.530 I would not discount the fact of this dude's working 1133 00:52:57.670 --> 00:53:01.309 out hard in the gym, and he's fighting, and I 1134 00:53:01.369 --> 00:53:04.849 think it's built confidence. And you can build confidence in 1135 00:53:04.929 --> 00:53:08.949 certain areas of your life that then show up in 1136 00:53:09.110 --> 00:53:10.409 other areas of your life. 1137 00:53:10.489 --> 00:53:13.210 I'm a big workout guy, athlete, right? You're

running and 1138 00:53:13.230 --> 00:53:15.150 all this. I think that stuff. 1139 00:53:16.380 --> 00:53:18.780 will help you in way more ways than just being 1140 00:53:18.840 --> 00:53:22.949 a healthier person because you're exercising. And I don't know 1141 00:53:22.989 --> 00:53:25.969 if that's enough of the story. I think you see 1142 00:53:25.989 --> 00:53:27.610 this guy with a shirt off and he's kind of jacked, 1143 00:53:27.690 --> 00:53:29.989 you know, and he's at UFC fights. I think that 1144 00:53:30.030 --> 00:53:32.539 plays a role in the guy showing up more confident 1145 00:53:32.559 --> 00:53:34.739 for these podcast interviews that he's doing, as well as 1146 00:53:34.800 --> 00:53:35.820 the straight to camera stuff. 1147 00:53:36.179 --> 00:53:37.880 That is a part of leading. 1148 00:53:38.219 --> 00:53:40.539 And we have to find ways to build confidence so 1149 00:53:40.559 --> 00:53:44.010 that it kind of inspires people to say, yeah, I 1150 00:53:44.030 --> 00:53:45.730 can get behind this guy, you know, and I feel 1151 00:53:45.750 --> 00:53:46.909 like that's, that's part of his story. 1152 00:53:46.929 --> 00:53:49.250 A hundred percent. I think it's a great observation and 1153 00:53:49.309 --> 00:53:51.449 I don't think it's stupid at all. I think it's probably, 1154 00:53:51.809 --> 00:53:54.409 we're guessing here, but probably very true. If I had 1155 00:53:54.429 --> 00:53:56.610 to wager, if I had to place a bet, I 1156 00:53:56.650 --> 00:53:58.889 think so. Mind and body are connected. You know, you 1157 00:53:58.909 --> 00:54:01.440 feel good about your body. You feel good about your strength, yourself. 1158 00:54:02.199 --> 00:54:06.119 He's been very high achieved person in, in, in, in, 1159 00:54:06.239 --> 00:54:08.920 in the software world. And now clearly he's like a legitimate, 1160 00:54:08.940 --> 00:54:10.320 what is he black belt now or something? And a 1161 00:54:10.360 --> 00:54:12.380 few things I don't even know, but like he's all, he's, 1162 00:54:12.679 --> 00:54:16.980 Clearly worked hard and is committed and disciplined and pushing himself. 1163 00:54:17.179 --> 00:54:19.800 And of course, why wouldn't you feel good about walking 1164 00:54:19.840 --> 00:54:23.079 through the space, walking through the world that way? It's 1165 00:54:23.139 --> 00:54:26.199 going to show up in some other way. I know 1166 00:54:26.260 --> 00:54:29.400 like for me, I've been doing CrossFit for like a 1167 00:54:29.420 --> 00:54:32.539 few years now. And I feel better in every way 1168 00:54:32.599 --> 00:54:34.840 because of it. I've always been an athlete. I've always 1169 00:54:34.860 --> 00:54:37.050 been in shape. But I've been pushing myself a lot 1170 00:54:37.070 --> 00:54:39.409 harder over the last few years in ways that kind 1171 00:54:39.429 --> 00:54:44.750 of surprised me. And I feel incredibly strong and solid 1172 00:54:44.829 --> 00:54:47.550 in a way where I feel like foundationally I have

1173 00:54:48.230 --> 00:54:53.070 more stability mentally as well. And so I'm not surprised 1174 00:54:53.110 --> 00:54:54.760 at all if that's the case with him. And it's 1175 00:54:54.780 --> 00:54:55.969 cool to see. It's really cool to see. 1176 00:54:56.019 --> 00:54:59.159 It feels good. It feels good to feel strong. It 1177 00:54:59.199 --> 00:55:01.400 feels good. It shows up everywhere. It feels good. It 1178 00:55:01.420 --> 00:55:04.699 feels strong. One of the things, not to pivot too much, 1179 00:55:04.760 --> 00:55:08.099 but I think that's also a part of like the 1180 00:55:08.139 --> 00:55:13.619 word culture is used constantly now. And in your work rework, 1181 00:55:14.079 --> 00:55:16.079 you write about a culture and you said you don't 1182 00:55:16.179 --> 00:55:17.219 create culture. 1183 00:55:17.800 --> 00:55:18.559 It happens. 1184 00:55:19.639 --> 00:55:22.860 And so I would love to hear more about how 1185 00:55:22.920 --> 00:55:25.059 you think about the culture at your. 1186 00:55:24.940 --> 00:55:29.150 Company and how it has happened over time. My feeling 1187 00:55:29.170 --> 00:55:32.840 basically is that culture is essentially a moving average. It's 1188 00:55:32.900 --> 00:55:36.320 not something you create, actually. It's something that creates itself. 1189 00:55:37.579 --> 00:55:41.340 It is the result of consistent behavior in an organization. 1190 00:55:42.639 --> 00:55:44.380 So it's how you treat each other, how you treat 1191 00:55:44.400 --> 00:55:47.219 your customers, the focus you have or the focus you 1192 00:55:47.260 --> 00:55:49.260 don't have, the decisions you make or the decisions you 1193 00:55:49.280 --> 00:55:52.280 don't make, or how you're making decisions, how you speak 1194 00:55:52.300 --> 00:55:54.460 to the public, how you show up in all these 1195 00:55:54.500 --> 00:55:58.309 different ways. And it's just the result of all of 1196 00:55:58.369 --> 00:56:02.199 those things. So you can decide to want a certain 1197 00:56:02.219 --> 00:56:05.679 culture in a company. You can say that, like, we're 1198 00:56:05.699 --> 00:56:07.480 going to be honest and we're going to be open 1199 00:56:07.500 --> 00:56:09.480 and we're going to be transparent or we're going to 1200 00:56:09.539 --> 00:56:12.300 really care for each other or whatever it is, whatever 1201 00:56:12.360 --> 00:56:13.280 your things are. Right. 1202 00:56:14.030 --> 00:56:14.670 It doesn't matter. 1203 00:56:14.690 --> 00:56:17.590 I mean, it can matter that you want to go 1204 00:56:17.630 --> 00:56:19.409 in that direction. You're going to make efforts to go 1205 00:56:19.449 --> 00:56:23.449 in that direction. But ultimately, it's what are you actually doing? 1206 00:56:23.989 --> 00:56:27.460 Actions speak louder than words, essentially, in the most basic 1207 00:56:27.500 --> 00:56:30.179 form here. And I would take the last 50 days. 1208 00:56:30.199 --> 00:56:33.179 I always think of a 50-day moving average. That's the culture. 1209 00:56:33.780 --> 00:56:35.739 And the good news there is like, It can get 1210 00:56:35.780 --> 00:56:38.300 better and it can get worse quickly. So it's good 1211 00:56:38.320 --> 00:56:41.260 and bad. But it's relatively easy to correct if things 1212 00:56:41.300 --> 00:56:43.699 aren't going well. And you also can't rest on your 1213 00:56:43.719 --> 00:56:45.219 laurels because if things are going well, they can go 1214 00:56:45.260 --> 00:56:47.579 bad too. If you just start to be, you know, 1215 00:56:48.420 --> 00:56:51.469 terse with each other or, you know, you're not helpful, whatever, 1216 00:56:51.489 --> 00:56:54.289 like pretty quickly, people recognize that very, very fast. And 1217 00:56:54.329 --> 00:56:56.909 it's going to take your trend line down. So I 1218 00:56:56.949 --> 00:56:59.190 think of it as, yeah, as a moving average of 1219 00:56:59.469 --> 00:57:03.809 results and not financial results, but like all the results 1220 00:57:03.849 --> 00:57:07.739 of what a team does to and with one another. 1221 00:57:09.659 --> 00:57:13.889 Would you and DHH ever consider selling? 1222 00:57:15.469 --> 00:57:19.670 Well, so right now, no, but the truth is like 1223 00:57:20.469 --> 00:57:21.650 businesses don't last forever. 1224 00:57:22.130 --> 00:57:22.929 Yeah. 1225 00:57:22.989 --> 00:57:25.429 So what happens to a business? It either goes out 1226 00:57:25.469 --> 00:57:28.460 of business. It sort of either goes out of business 1227 00:57:28.559 --> 00:57:31.800 rapidly because something goes terribly wrong. It sort of fades 1228 00:57:31.860 --> 00:57:35.300 away because it's irrelevant or you just mismanage it. It 1229 00:57:35.320 --> 00:57:38.599 gets acquired or it can go public or whatever, right? 1230 00:57:38.679 --> 00:57:40.739 It can merge with another company. There's like a handful 1231 00:57:40.780 --> 00:57:46.019 of outcomes eventually, right? And I can tell you like 1232 00:57:46.099 --> 00:57:49.840 going public would be a no. I'm not interested in that, right? 1233 00:57:50.300 --> 00:57:54.230 Hopefully we don't crash and burn because we really screw 1234 00:57:54.250 --> 00:57:57.829 something terribly bad up, you know, out of nowhere. I mean, 1235 00:57:57.889 --> 00:57:59.469 it can happen, but hopefully that doesn't happen or a 1236 00:57:59.510 --> 00:58:02.289 competition come in and crush us in some way, whatever, 1237 00:58:02.429 --> 00:58:05.269 all possible, right? But we'd like to probably have control 1238 00:58:05.329 --> 00:58:10.269 over our demise, in a sense. And I do think 1239 00:58:10.329 --> 00:58:13.289 selling the business would be a bit of a demise, actually. 1240 00:58:15.010 --> 00:58:17.929 It'd be the end of something. Not that that's a 1241 00:58:17.949 --> 00:58:21.179 bad thing, by the way. Things end and... everything does. 1242 00:58:21.420 --> 00:58:23.730 And I don't think it's bad. So I'm using the 1243 00:58:23.750 --> 00:58:26.530 word

demise, which sounds like a negative, but it's really 1244 00:58:26.590 --> 00:58:30.730 just like the end of something essentially. Um, so most likely, um, 1245 00:58:32.530 --> 00:58:35.519 when that happens, it'll probably be a sale because that's 1246 00:58:36.059 --> 00:58:39.659 hopefully we're still doing well at that point. And that's 1247 00:58:39.780 --> 00:58:42.519 sort of the, the natural, that'd be the natural end. 1248 00:58:43.079 --> 00:58:46.400 I think that, um, Another end could be like David 1249 00:58:46.420 --> 00:58:48.860 and I could decide to leave and bring in a 1250 00:58:48.900 --> 00:58:52.579 whole new team to run the place. But I don't 1251 00:58:52.599 --> 00:58:54.579 think we'd want to do it that way. I think 1252 00:58:54.599 --> 00:58:56.719 we'd probably want to sell the business. But yeah, right 1253 00:58:56.760 --> 00:58:59.610 now we're really thrilled to run the business still. We're 1254 00:58:59.650 --> 00:59:02.309 about to kick off some pretty ambitious stuff, things we've 1255 00:59:02.329 --> 00:59:04.670 never done before. And I think this next year is 1256 00:59:04.710 --> 00:59:07.590 going to be pretty spectacular and really, really fun and hard. 1257 00:59:08.429 --> 00:59:10.380 And so you know, I don't think much more than 1258 00:59:10.760 --> 00:59:14.519 beyond that anyway. But yeah, realistically, that's probably what would happen. 1259 00:59:14.820 --> 00:59:16.880 What are some of the things that you've never done 1260 00:59:16.900 --> 00:59:18.659 before that you're like going to do? 1261 00:59:18.960 --> 00:59:20.059 You're going to get this out of me, aren't you? 1262 00:59:20.480 --> 00:59:22.280 Well, I don't know. I'm not going to try. 1263 00:59:22.920 --> 00:59:24.440 Well, I will tell you, one of the things we 1264 00:59:24.460 --> 00:59:26.179 want to do is we have more product ideas that 1265 00:59:26.199 --> 00:59:28.269 we want to do. Sure. And we want to try 1266 00:59:28.329 --> 00:59:33.250 to do two of them simultaneously, which we've never done before. 1267 00:59:33.389 --> 00:59:35.320 We've only like built one product at a time, which 1268 00:59:35.380 --> 00:59:37.619 is how, you know, we only have 75 or so people. 1269 00:59:37.679 --> 00:59:40.760 So like it's a tall order to build, to build 1270 00:59:40.780 --> 00:59:43.800 a product anyway, from scratch, do it well in the way, 1271 00:59:43.840 --> 00:59:45.320 in the way we like to do it. So we'd 1272 00:59:45.340 --> 00:59:47.699 like to do two at once. And that would be 1273 00:59:47.880 --> 00:59:49.920 pretty amazing. And like to be able to launch them 1274 00:59:49.960 --> 00:59:52.840 at the same time would be pretty amazing, pretty fun. 1275 00:59:52.860 --> 00:59:55.320 And then we have, you know, might want to offer 1276 00:59:55.340 --> 00:59:58.659 them multiple different business models. There's just a bunch of 1277 00:59:58.699 --> 01:00:00.400 stuff we're going to play with and see what we 1278

01:00:00.440 --> 01:00:02.179 come up with. But I think we want to make 1279 01:00:02.239 --> 01:00:05.260 two things at once. We've never done that before and 1280 01:00:05.300 --> 01:00:07.280 launch two things at the same time. We've never done 1281 01:00:07.300 --> 01:00:09.849 that before. So that would be pretty spectacular if we 1282 01:00:09.869 --> 01:00:11.570 can pull that off in a relatively short period of 1283 01:00:11.610 --> 01:00:12.969 time as well as what we want to do. So 1284 01:00:13.889 --> 01:00:16.750 that's something we haven't done before. These also would be 1285 01:00:17.710 --> 01:00:21.349 categories we haven't we've sort of we're they're adjacent to 1286 01:00:21.389 --> 01:00:24.750 what we're doing but not we've never done these kinds 1287 01:00:24.789 --> 01:00:27.090 of products before but they're adjacent so it wouldn't be 1288 01:00:27.170 --> 01:00:30.320 a stretch to do these and uh i would say 1289 01:00:30.340 --> 01:00:32.199 that and then we might want to write another book 1290 01:00:32.280 --> 01:00:33.699 this year at the same time so we kind of 1291 01:00:33.719 --> 01:00:35.400 want to take on a lot of work we're actually 1292 01:00:35.440 --> 01:00:38.239 feeling right now like creative uh we've got a good 1293 01:00:38.280 --> 01:00:42.929 momentum got a wonderful extraordinarily good team good size and Like, 1294 01:00:43.070 --> 01:00:46.110 let's make sure we take advantage of this moment. And also, 1295 01:00:46.230 --> 01:00:48.730 this is our 25th year in business. Like, why not? 1296 01:00:49.010 --> 01:00:52.849 If we destroy it because we do too much or whatever, like, 1297 01:00:52.909 --> 01:00:54.750 not a bad run. I mean, that's hopefully not going 1298 01:00:54.769 --> 01:00:56.519 to happen. But like, if you're not willing to do 1299 01:00:56.559 --> 01:00:59.619 this now, especially after we have this incredible history behind us, like, 1300 01:00:59.639 --> 01:01:01.579 when are you going to do it? Let's do it now. 1301 01:01:01.639 --> 01:01:04.639 Let's just get extra ambitious, like 25 years in and 1302 01:01:04.679 --> 01:01:05.820 have some fun and see what happens. 1303 01:01:05.820 --> 01:01:09.300 25 years in, 75 people, fully remote. How often do 1304 01:01:09.340 --> 01:01:10.380 you guys get together in person? 1305 01:01:11.429 --> 01:01:13.699 Twice a year. So we just got together a couple 1306 01:01:13.719 --> 01:01:18.420 weeks ago, actually, in Atlanta. So we pick usually a 1307 01:01:18.460 --> 01:01:21.619 city in the U.S. and a city in Europe. And 1308 01:01:21.960 --> 01:01:23.519 in the spring, we do one. In the fall, we 1309 01:01:23.539 --> 01:01:26.610 do another. It's not always the case. Sometimes there's two 1310 01:01:26.670 --> 01:01:29.889 North American cities or whatever. So we were in Atlanta. 1311 01:01:29.929 --> 01:01:31.590 Before that, we were in Barcelona. Before that, we were 1312 01:01:31.610 --> 01:01:33.969 in New Orleans. Before that, we were in Amsterdam. We 1313 01:01:33.989 --> 01:01:35.489 kind of go back and forth. We have half our 1314 01:01:35.929 --> 01:01:37.389 companies outside of the US. We kind of want to 1315 01:01:37.429 --> 01:01:40.190 make it travel fairly easy on one half and hard 1316 01:01:40.230 --> 01:01:43.269 on the other and then the opposite. These get-togethers are 1317 01:01:43.349 --> 01:01:46.610 one week and it's basically four days. So everyone kind 1318 01:01:46.639 --> 01:01:49.440 of comes in on Sunday. We meet Monday through Thursday 1319 01:01:49.460 --> 01:01:52.139 and we all leave Friday. And the first day or 1320 01:01:52.199 --> 01:01:55.059 first day and a half is pretty much like Business 1321 01:01:55.099 --> 01:01:58.670 stuff like state of the company, big picture ideas, Q 1322 01:01:58.670 --> 01:02:00.820 & A, a little bit of a town hall kind 1323 01:02:00.840 --> 01:02:04.239 of style, you know, all hands sort of thing. And 1324 01:02:04.260 --> 01:02:07.440 then the rest of the time is primarily social. People 1325 01:02:07.480 --> 01:02:09.420 get together in small groups. They have small meals. We 1326 01:02:09.440 --> 01:02:12.300 also have a big company meal, but small meals, outings, 1327 01:02:12.380 --> 01:02:14.679 you know, to do this or that or hang out 1328 01:02:14.719 --> 01:02:16.539 as teams or just hang out, you know, and just 1329 01:02:16.579 --> 01:02:18.320 kind of hang out in a city or a place 1330 01:02:18.340 --> 01:02:25.059 or whatever. It's very replenishing. It's very refreshing. It's wonderful 1331 01:02:25.099 --> 01:02:28.219 to see everybody. And surprisingly, twice a year for a 1332 01:02:28.239 --> 01:02:29.199 week at a time is enough. 1333 01:02:30.219 --> 01:02:30.619 It's enough. 1334 01:02:31.400 --> 01:02:33.440 We look forward to doing it. And then when it's over, 1335 01:02:33.480 --> 01:02:35.579 we look forward to getting home because we're a bunch 1336 01:02:35.599 --> 01:02:41.539 of introverts. And there's always like this post-meetup exhaustion just 1337 01:02:41.559 --> 01:02:43.420 because everyone has to see each other for a lot. 1338 01:02:43.929 --> 01:02:46.320 But it really fuels us. And during COVID, we didn't 1339 01:02:46.360 --> 01:02:48.369 do this for a few years. And it really hurt 1340 01:02:48.469 --> 01:02:50.750 the company, I think. Not being able to see anyone 1341 01:02:50.869 --> 01:02:53.190 at all, literally, for a couple of years, which is 1342 01:02:53.230 --> 01:02:55.889 not unique for us. But We really rely on these 1343 01:02:55.929 --> 01:02:58.349 just simply two weeks a year. And when we didn't 1344 01:02:58.389 --> 01:02:58.869 have them, it hurt. 1345 01:02:59.389 --> 01:03:01.849 How much involvement do you have in designing like the 1346 01:03:01.909 --> 01:03:04.289 entire experience when you're at these off sites together? 1347 01:03:04.849 --> 01:03:05.710 None anymore. 1348 01:03:06.190 --> 01:03:07.690 No. So you have like a team of

people that 1349 01:03:07.730 --> 01:03:10.070 are pros at that or you hire somebody or what? 1350 01:03:10.329 --> 01:03:14.650 Two people. So Andrea and Bethany internally, they book all 1351 01:03:14.670 --> 01:03:18.869 the venues, handle all the flights, all the catering, all 1352 01:03:18.909 --> 01:03:20.590 the dinners, all the events. 1353 01:03:21.429 --> 01:03:21.940 And you show up? 1354 01:03:22.710 --> 01:03:24.690 I just show up. Everyone just shows up. They are 1355 01:03:24.909 --> 01:03:27.219 magical at this. This is not their full-time job. They 1356 01:03:27.239 --> 01:03:29.039 do other things in the company, but they do these 1357 01:03:29.300 --> 01:03:32.739 and they're super good at them. Everything goes off perfectly. 1358 01:03:32.780 --> 01:03:35.820 It's sort of an extraordinary thing to like coordinate, literally 1359 01:03:35.900 --> 01:03:39.059 flying in, you know, 70 some odd people. Not everyone 1360 01:03:39.079 --> 01:03:42.219 shows up at these 60 to 70, let's say, from 1361 01:03:42.219 --> 01:03:44.800 60 to 70 different cities around the world, essentially kind 1362 01:03:44.840 --> 01:03:46.679 of not. And there's some people live in the same city, 1363 01:03:46.719 --> 01:03:48.559 but it's a lot of flights, a lot of coordination. 1364 01:03:48.599 --> 01:03:50.019 Everyone shows up at the same time. All the rooms 1365 01:03:50.059 --> 01:03:53.159 are booked, food's there, everything's set up. AV, the whole thing. 1366 01:03:53.199 --> 01:03:56.980 So it's, it's great. I used to be more involved 1367 01:03:57.059 --> 01:04:00.219 in where we would go, but I don't want that responsibility. 1368 01:04:00.280 --> 01:04:01.710 I'd like it to be a surprise. I mean, I 1369 01:04:01.750 --> 01:04:04.750 have suggestions, like I didn't suggest the last two and 1370 01:04:04.809 --> 01:04:08.079 I'm glad we went to those. I suggested the next one. 1371 01:04:08.110 --> 01:04:08.789 We'll see where we go. 1372 01:04:08.809 --> 01:04:09.130 I don't know. 1373 01:04:09.610 --> 01:04:12.750 The reason I asked is because with the, the, the 1374 01:04:12.909 --> 01:04:17.760 changing setup of how people work, a lot of hybrid stuff, 1375 01:04:18.699 --> 01:04:21.539 a lot more remote stuff, especially with sales organizations, which 1376 01:04:21.579 --> 01:04:23.719 is I've worked with a lot of sales leaders. And 1377 01:04:23.739 --> 01:04:25.460 so their people are all over. They don't see each 1378 01:04:25.500 --> 01:04:28.760 other very much. I think it is really important to 1379 01:04:28.820 --> 01:04:32.559 be intentional about getting together and to have a team 1380 01:04:32.599 --> 01:04:34.659 of people who think about that a lot about how 1381 01:04:34.699 --> 01:04:37.139 do we design a really good experience for us to 1382 01:04:37.179 --> 01:04:40.239 be together if we're remote or if we're hybrid where 1383 01:04:40.260 --> 01:04:42.869 we're not together very much. And that's changed a lot 1384 01:04:42.949 --> 01:04:44.210 over the last few years. You guys have been doing 1385 01:04:44.230 --> 01:04:46.130 it for 25 years, but that's changed a lot for 1386 01:04:46.230 --> 01:04:49.449 most companies over the last few years. So it's worth 1387 01:04:49.489 --> 01:04:51.750 it as leaders to be, to be thinking about this 1388 01:04:51.789 --> 01:04:52.909 and to be really intentional. 1389 01:04:53.369 --> 01:04:57.869 A hundred percent. I agree. And it's, it's, it's really immeasurable. 1390 01:04:57.949 --> 01:05:00.230 Like the, the, the, the value is there. I mean, it's, 1391 01:05:00.250 --> 01:05:02.329 first of all, it's very expensive for us to do this, 1392 01:05:02.510 --> 01:05:05.070 but we don't pay rent because we don't have offices anymore. 1393 01:05:05.130 --> 01:05:07.179 So basically all the rent money we'd be spending goes 1394 01:05:07.219 --> 01:05:10.110 into these two events and they're very well thought out 1395 01:05:10.860 --> 01:05:14.110 and we, we adjust them. Um, We've been now inviting 1396 01:05:14.150 --> 01:05:16.320 a customer usually to each one to sort of talk 1397 01:05:16.360 --> 01:05:18.780 about how they use Basecamp, for example, or Hay or 1398 01:05:18.820 --> 01:05:20.599 something like that. So that's kind of nice to see. 1399 01:05:21.280 --> 01:05:22.840 And sometimes they're a little bit, some of them are 1400 01:05:22.860 --> 01:05:25.179 a little bit too booked up with events and things. 1401 01:05:25.260 --> 01:05:27.079 So like we loosen up the next one. So people 1402 01:05:27.099 --> 01:05:28.960 have more free time. And then sometimes there's too much 1403 01:05:29.019 --> 01:05:31.860 free time and enough structure. And so we're very much 1404 01:05:31.920 --> 01:05:34.360 paying attention to this. They're not formulaic, except for like 1405 01:05:34.400 --> 01:05:36.960 a couple things. There's a company-wide dinner. There's an all 1406 01:05:36.980 --> 01:05:39.480 hands thing on the first day, usually, or sometimes a 1407 01:05:39.519 --> 01:05:41.780 second day instead, depending on some people can't make it 1408 01:05:41.820 --> 01:05:45.670 in on the first day. And there's suggested events and 1409 01:05:45.730 --> 01:05:48.269 group things that you can sign up for, small group dinners, 1410 01:05:48.949 --> 01:05:51.070 small group events. There's a sign-up sheet and there's like 1411 01:05:51.130 --> 01:05:53.030 six slots for this one and four slots for that one. 1412 01:05:53.090 --> 01:05:54.469 And sign up if you want or if you don't 1413 01:05:54.510 --> 01:05:56.949 want to, that's fine. So there are things available and 1414 01:05:56.969 --> 01:05:58.969 there are things to do and they're very thoughtful things. 1415 01:05:59.710 --> 01:06:03.010 And I just can't recommend doing this highly enough. It 1416 01:06:03.170 --> 01:06:05.550 is expensive and it's going to seem like a huge 1417 01:06:06.769 --> 01:06:09.329 lift up. just to get people together. You're

like, why 1418 01:06:09.349 --> 01:06:11.650 can't we just sit over Zoom? It's just not the same. 1419 01:06:11.849 --> 01:06:13.070 You got to share a meal with people. You got 1420 01:06:13.090 --> 01:06:15.690 to smile. You got to see everyone's humanity, breathe the 1421 01:06:15.730 --> 01:06:17.250 same air. It does matter. 1422 01:06:18.090 --> 01:06:19.179 Yeah. Love it. 1423 01:06:19.289 --> 01:06:20.840 Jason, man, thank you so much for doing this. We 1424 01:06:20.880 --> 01:06:23.960 didn't come here to promote anything. I just, again, you're 1425 01:06:23.980 --> 01:06:26.840 one of my favorite thinkers and writers. So any opportunity 1426 01:06:27.099 --> 01:06:29.019 to talk to you, to me, I treasure it, man. 1427 01:06:29.340 --> 01:06:32.280 Where would you send viewers, listeners to learn more about 1428 01:06:32.300 --> 01:06:32.760 you online? 1429 01:06:33.360 --> 01:06:34.579 Well, first of all, it's very kind and I'm glad 1430 01:06:34.619 --> 01:06:36.960 we could line this up. I know scheduling was challenging 1431 01:06:37.099 --> 01:06:39.610 on my side, not on yours. So I'm glad we 1432 01:06:39.619 --> 01:06:42.369 could do this. So primarily a couple of places. So 1433 01:06:42.409 --> 01:06:46.610 I'm on Twitter, just or X at Jason Freed, F-R-I-E-D. 1434 01:06:47.110 --> 01:06:49.469 I'm on LinkedIn. Also, you can find me there. I 1435 01:06:49.510 --> 01:06:51.389 write stuff there too. And then I have my own 1436 01:06:51.409 --> 01:06:57.030 little newsletter. So if you go to world.hey.com slash Jason, 1437 01:06:57.880 --> 01:07:00.900 it's my little email newsletter and personal blog thing. You know, 1438 01:07:00.920 --> 01:07:02.940 that's kind of me. And then of course, check out 1439 01:07:02.980 --> 01:07:07.639 our stuff, 37signals, Basecamp, heyonce.com. You know, we've got a 1440 01:07:07.639 --> 01:07:09.280 lot of stuff going on these days and we've written 1441 01:07:09.300 --> 01:07:10.679 a bunch of books. You can check those out too. 1442 01:07:10.719 --> 01:07:13.780 I'm sure you'll link those up. So yeah. And you 1443 01:07:13.800 --> 01:07:20.630 can also email me. My email address is publicjasonat37signals. com or jasonatbasecamp.com 1444 01:07:20.670 --> 01:07:23.550 or jasonathey.com. You can hit me up. If you email me, 1445 01:07:23.590 --> 01:07:25.710 I will write you back. Sometimes it might take a while. 1446 01:07:25.909 --> 01:07:28.130 I would say if you want a response sooner, keep 1447 01:07:28.150 --> 01:07:31.530 the email shorter. hardest emails to respond to are like, 1448 01:07:32.130 --> 01:07:34.889 you're like, God, this person put like an hour into this. 1449 01:07:34.909 --> 01:07:37.780 I can't be flippant and write a quick response. I 1450 01:07:37.780 --> 01:07:39.099 have to really take time. And then it's hard to 1451 01:07:39.159 --> 01:07:42.820 find the time. So my general suggestion, if you want 1452 01:07:42.840 --> 01:07:45.559 to write someone and you want to

get a response, 1453 01:07:45.960 --> 01:07:47.840 short emails will almost always get a response. 1454 01:07:48.460 --> 01:07:52.829 So you probably don't remember this, but you had posted 1455 01:07:52.869 --> 01:07:55.110 on Twitter, this might've been two years ago, year and 1456 01:07:55.130 --> 01:07:55.389 a half ago. 1457 01:07:55.409 --> 01:07:56.329 I don't remember how long ago it was. 1458 01:07:57.070 --> 01:07:59.469 And you said, man, I wish people would just say, Hey, 1459 01:08:00.099 --> 01:08:02.780 do you want to record a podcast right now? As 1460 01:08:02.820 --> 01:08:04.940 opposed to like having to schedule it. So I remember 1461 01:08:05.000 --> 01:08:07.920 I waited like a week, did a lot of research, 1462 01:08:07.980 --> 01:08:10.699 you know, got my outline ready to go. And then 1463 01:08:10.739 --> 01:08:11.940 I emailed you and I'm like, do you want to 1464 01:08:11.960 --> 01:08:15.400 record a podcast right now? And then you couldn't. And 1465 01:08:15.420 --> 01:08:18.199 then I did it like again and again and again. 1466 01:08:18.239 --> 01:08:19.439 And then I was like, would you just want to 1467 01:08:19.500 --> 01:08:23.229 schedule it? So we eventually scheduled it because I'm with you. 1468 01:08:23.310 --> 01:08:25.869 Like there are some times where I would say, you know, 1469 01:08:25.930 --> 01:08:27.890 someone wants to say, hey, can I get some time 1470 01:08:27.909 --> 01:08:28.430 to do whatever? 1471 01:08:28.470 --> 01:08:31.989 And I'm like, yeah, now. Right now. Right now. Let's 1472 01:08:32.029 --> 01:08:32.210 do it. 1473 01:08:32.229 --> 01:08:33.210 I don't want to put it on my calendar. I 1474 01:08:33.229 --> 01:08:34.890 hate putting it on my calendar. I want my calendar 1475 01:08:34.909 --> 01:08:36.399 to stay clean. I got to think and I got 1476 01:08:36.409 --> 01:08:37.479 to write and I got to prepare. 1477 01:08:38.300 --> 01:08:39.319 Yes, right now. Right now. 1478 01:08:39.380 --> 01:08:41.260 I almost do that every time. I'll wait to respond 1479 01:08:41.300 --> 01:08:43.380 and say, yeah, now. And I guess that's, I don't know, 1480 01:08:43.399 --> 01:08:47.100 that's a little power imbalance. But to me, I'll say yes, 1481 01:08:47.319 --> 01:08:50.859 but I would rather just be now. It's funny how 1482 01:08:50.899 --> 01:08:54.050 many times I tried to actually record this podcast by 1483 01:08:54.090 --> 01:08:55.649 just saying, dude, you want to do it right now? 1484 01:08:57.069 --> 01:08:59.090 It's funny because I happen to be in a weird 1485 01:08:59.170 --> 01:09:02.289 time where my schedule is really messed up. I had 1486 01:09:02.350 --> 01:09:04.729 like taking the kids to school and there's some other 1487 01:09:04.750 --> 01:09:07.289 things we're working on. So like the right now's weren't working, 1488 01:09:07.649 --> 01:09:10.100 but usually they totally do work, but my schedule has 1489 01:09:10.109 --> 01:09:11.979 been scattered. So I'm glad we could line this up. 1490 01:09:12.180 --> 01:09:14.020 And I think you sent me a note a few 1491 01:09:14.060 --> 01:09:16.000 days ago and like, yeah, how about Friday? So like 1492 01:09:16.060 --> 01:09:19.060 it was close to now. It's more like, I hate 1493 01:09:19.119 --> 01:09:22.159 scheduling things like, like let's say right now we're in April. 1494 01:09:22.229 --> 01:09:24.729 Like someone's like, can you do a interview on June 9th? 1495 01:09:24.750 --> 01:09:26.949 I'm like, no, it's too far away. I don't know 1496 01:09:26.970 --> 01:09:29.420 what I'll be doing in June. So. I appreciate the 1497 01:09:29.439 --> 01:09:31.939 persistence and, and, and, uh, thanks. It was really fun 1498 01:09:31.960 --> 01:09:32.260 to chat. 1499 01:09:32.399 --> 01:09:34.359 No, I appreciate it, man. Thank you so much again 1500 01:09:34.380 --> 01:09:36.439 for doing this. And I would love to continue our 1501 01:09:36.479 --> 01:09:37.779 dialogue as we both progress, man. 1502 01:09:38.289 --> 01:09:38.369 Yeah. 1503 01:09:38.409 --> 01:09:38.670 Let me know. 1504 01:09:38.949 --> 01:09:40.109 Happy to come back on and chat. 1505 01:09:40.609 --> 01:09:41.289 Thanks so much, man. 1506 01:09:44.550 --> 01:09:47.489 It is the end of the podcast club. Thank you 1507 01:09:47.510 --> 01:09:49.710 for being a member of the end of the podcast club. 1508 01:09:49.750 --> 01:09:52.590 If you are sending me a note, Ryan at learning leader.com. 1509 01:09:52.630 --> 01:09:55.100 Let me know what you learned from this great conversation 1510 01:09:55.180 --> 01:09:58.039 with Jason Freed. A few takeaways from my notes, uh, 1511 01:09:58.479 --> 01:10:00.539 You don't create culture. 1512 01:10:00.939 --> 01:10:01.739 It happens. 1513 01:10:01.920 --> 01:10:06.220 A company's culture is a 50-day moving average. It's what 1514 01:10:06.260 --> 01:10:09.859 you've been collectively doing as a company over the last 1515 01:10:09.859 --> 01:10:10.439 50 days. 1516 01:10:10.479 --> 01:10:12.890 How do you treat people? Who have you hired or fired? 1517 01:10:13.090 --> 01:10:17.689 And why? Thinking of culture as a moving average is 1518 01:10:17.750 --> 01:10:21.449 a much more useful way as opposed to putting words 1519 01:10:21.630 --> 01:10:25.020 up on a wall. Culture is about what you actually do. 1520 01:10:25.140 --> 01:10:29.399 It's what's happening. Then, how about that Jeff Bezos story 1521 01:10:29.439 --> 01:10:34.060 you never know who is watching Jeff sat in the 1522 01:10:34.199 --> 01:10:37.420 front row for one of Jason's keynotes and was so 1523 01:10:37.500 --> 01:10:41.619 impressed that he asked to invest in his company when 1524 01:10:41.640 --> 01:10:45.079 you have the guts to put your thoughts and beliefs 1525 01:10:45.300 --> 01:10:48.199 out into the world it can work as a magnetic 1526 01:10:48.260 --> 01:10:52.399 effect to attract people to you. And it's just so 1527 01:10:52.460 --> 01:10:55.239 refreshing also to hear Jason

talk about one of the 1528 01:10:55.300 --> 01:10:58.260 core qualities that he loves so much about Jeff is 1529 01:10:58.319 --> 01:11:05.000 that he is overwhelmingly optimistic. The world is built by optimists. 1530 01:11:05.720 --> 01:11:09.890 And then, I will beat this drum forever, all leaders 1531 01:11:09.930 --> 01:11:12.829 should have a writing practice. This is how I became 1532 01:11:12.890 --> 01:11:15.949 aware of Jason. If he wasn't publicly writing, I would 1533 01:11:15.989 --> 01:11:19.859 not know that he exists. But, He ships work on 1534 01:11:19.899 --> 01:11:24.119 his website, on Twitter. He writes books. And I think 1535 01:11:24.819 --> 01:11:28.550 it's another reminder of when you hear a clear thinker, 1536 01:11:28.710 --> 01:11:32.569 it's probably because they have a writing practice. They're regularly 1537 01:11:32.609 --> 01:11:34.829 getting the thoughts out of their head onto the page. 1538 01:11:35.989 --> 01:11:39.189 And in his case, he's regularly sharing this with his company. 1539 01:11:39.210 --> 01:11:42.529 And I think if you're leading a company, hopefully you're 1540 01:11:42.590 --> 01:11:45.949 writing a lot. And hopefully you don't feel the need 1541 01:11:46.500 --> 01:11:49.520 to send your writing to a comms team or a 1542 01:11:49.659 --> 01:11:53.890 lawyer before sharing it. Now, I know there's different situations 1543 01:11:54.100 --> 01:11:56.329 depending on the size of your company, but we even 1544 01:11:56.390 --> 01:11:59.829 talked about Mark Zuckerberg doing this right now, and he's 1545 01:11:59.890 --> 01:12:03.729 leading a massive company, and it's working. It's working really 1546 01:12:03.770 --> 01:12:06.880 well because it's genuine and it's authentic, and I think 1547 01:12:06.949 --> 01:12:10.319 that's what people want. So write like you talk, write 1548 01:12:10.340 --> 01:12:12.600 what's in your head, think about what you want to say, 1549 01:12:12.819 --> 01:12:15.569 and then say it. Once again, I would say thank 1550 01:12:15.609 --> 01:12:17.909 you so much for continuing to spread the message and 1551 01:12:17.930 --> 01:12:19.930 telling a friend or two, hey, you should listen to 1552 01:12:19.970 --> 01:12:22.510 this episode of The Learning Leader Show with Jason Freed. 1553 01:12:22.729 --> 01:12:25.689 I think it will help you become a more effective leader. 1554 01:12:25.729 --> 01:12:27.720 And because you continue to do that, and you also 1555 01:12:27.729 --> 01:12:31.000 go to Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and you subscribe to 1556 01:12:31.039 --> 01:12:33.420 the show, and you rate it, hopefully five stars, and 1557 01:12:33.439 --> 01:12:35.840 you write a thoughtful review. And by doing all of that, 1558 01:12:36.380 --> 01:12:40.079 you are continually giving me the opportunity to do what 1559 01:12:40.119 --> 01:12:42.060 I love on a daily basis. And for that, I 1560 01:12:42.640 --> 01:12:45.420 will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk 1561 01:12:45.439 --> 01:12:46.100 to you soon. Can't wait.