The Tim Ferriss Show - #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms

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Starting point is 00:03:16 different types across all different industries and areas of expertise. In this episode, we have Jason Freed on Twitter at Jason Freed, F-R-I-E-D, Basecamp.com. He is the co-founder and CEO of Basecamp, previously known as 37signals, a Chicago-based software firm. The company's flagship product, Basecamp, which I've used for many, many years, is a project management and team communication application trusted by millions. He is also the co-author of Getting Real, subtitle, The Smarter, Faster, Easier Way to Build a Successful Web Application, which is available for free at gettingreal.37signals.com.

Starting point is 00:03:51 He is also the co-author of the New York Times bestseller, Rework, and remote subtitle, Office Not Required. There's also a new book coming soon, It Doesn't Have to be Crazy at Work. And you can actually thread those together to tell a lot of this story. Jason writes a regular column for Inc. Magazine and is a frequent contributor to Basecamp's popular blog, popular is an understatement, Signal vs. Noise, which offers, quote, strong opinions and shared thoughts on design, business, and tech, end quote. Jason, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Tim. And we have traded so many email over the years and certainly met on a handful of occasions.

Starting point is 00:04:34 And you have to be one of the most requested guests for this podcast. So I'm thrilled that you were able and willing to make the time. So many thanks. Thank you to everybody who wanted to hear me. I don't know why, but it's great to hear that I'm wanted. Well, I think part of why people like to hear from you, and maybe it's a love-hate thing, but I think that what you said to me before we started is indicative. So one was, in response to what I always say to guests, and that is you have final cut. So it's better to kind of go a little over the edge and we can

Starting point is 00:05:10 pare it back later. And you said, actually, I don't want that much control. Whatever I say should go out into the world in effect, uh, is what you said. And, and you are known for being very raw and contrarian, uh, which, which I think has great appeal to a lot of people, particularly in the current climate that we don't need to describe for everybody to understand. And I'll start, given that, with a quote from Jeff Bezos, the trillionaire in the making behind Amazon. Quote, Jason is immune to dogma and has much to teach. In 37 Signals, he has built an elegant company with elegant products based on the idea that less is more. Now, of course, this is before we went from 37 Signals to Basecamp, but I'd love to talk about this immune to dogma component. And we could certainly talk about less is more.

Starting point is 00:06:07 Jeff ended up investing in your company, which is a whole separate story that we've covered in some respects with the conversation I had with your partner in crime, DHH, separately. So we won't dig into that. But what I'm really curious to know is this immune to dogma ability to question assumptions, how much of that is an innate skill versus an acquired skill? I guess it's hard for me to say from where I sit. But I think a big part of it is that I don't really pay attention to a lot of things actually. So, um, maybe I have different points of view because I haven't heard the other ones or I, I have different points of view because I haven't let, uh, you know, society's norms and the general point of view get into my head. So I have to come up with my own ideas. I've always sort of,

Starting point is 00:07:02 I pay attention to some degree, but I'm, I'm pretty oblivious to a lot of things intentionally because I don't want to be influenced that much. And it's one of the reasons why I don't read industry news. I read very little news in general, but I definitely don't read industry news. I don't want to know what everyone else is doing. I find it's very easy to end up following and being like everybody else when you're constantly hearing what everyone else has on their mind. It's very hard then to fight against that. So by not filling my mind with other people's ideas, I have nowhere to go but to follow my own. And I think that perhaps that's why I'm immune to dogmas. I just don't even pay attention to it. Just don't have as much exposure. Yeah. And that's intentional. Yeah. What are, what are some of the parameters or rules for yourself,

Starting point is 00:07:50 structures, systems, anything that you've put in place to find that sweet spot of deliberate selective ignorance, so to speak? Yeah. Um, a lot of it is just kind of going with the flow and not having, I don't have a lot of structure. For example, um, I, I don't have routines. Uh, I don't, uh, I don't have any goals. I've never had any goals. Goals are not something that I pay attention to. Um, I just sort of do, uh, what I feel like is the right thing to do in any given situation. And I don't I don't look long term at things other than I want to, for example, be in business over the long term. I'd like to live over the long term. I'd like to be nice and getting better over the long term. But I don't have goalposts along the way. So because of that and because I don't have much of a routine, I sort of just take it as it comes.

Starting point is 00:08:45 And, uh, I think that also perhaps allows me to sidestep a lot of the ways you're supposed to do things, you know, and because I don't plan and because I don't think too far ahead on any individual one thing. Um, I, I just able to sort of go where I need to when I need to. Uh, and I know that's, it's, it's funny cause I'll talk to a lot of people about this, uh, and people are, come on, you must have some goals like, you know, this or that. And I really, really don't have any, I can't remember ever having one. I, I just do the best I can at any given situation and that's the best I can do. And however that ends up playing itself out over time is how it ends up playing itself out over time. I, I don't want to measure up. Uh, one of my favorite quotes is, um,

Starting point is 00:09:29 gosh, I forget now who it is. Um, maybe it's Mark Twain, but you know, he's probably said everything or everything's a tribute to him, but, um, it could, it could have been, uh, it could have been Abe Lincoln. Yeah. Or Einstein, one of them, right. Um, uh, basically comparison is the death of joy. And I love that quote, because it comes down to people, it comes down to situations, and also comes down to goals and setting goals. For me, I don't want to compare myself to an idea I had two years prior, you know, of where I wanted to be, I don't know where I'm going to want to be in two years. So to set a goal that's long term, in some cases, you're actually setting it for you know, who you

Starting point is 00:10:04 are, when you set it versus who you are when you're going to get there. And that's something that a friend of mine told me once. And I thought a guy named Jim Cudall, who I thought was just it's a wonderful quote. I don't know if it's his or someone else's, but it really rang true. And so that's kind of how I how I go about the world. Well, let's let's look at that in a real world example, because this is this is something that is, I'm sure you've experienced. And as you noted, people react to with a certain level of disbelief, right? You have a, a profitable company, 17 out of 17 years, or now what I read may be out of date, but

Starting point is 00:10:40 however many years out of however many years. Yeah. And you have an organization. You are successful, certainly, by almost any objective measure. What did the last week look like? We're recording this on a Thursday afternoon, so we're coming up to the tail end of what most people would consider a business week. And if you don't have goals, you must have some means of making better decisions versus shitty decisions. So could you maybe walk us through what this week has looked like for you,

Starting point is 00:11:17 how you've spent your time, which I know is very broad, but perhaps you can use that as a launching point. Yeah, this week is a little tricky because I had some personal stuff I had to deal with in the beginning of the week. So we'll take like the last of the week before or something like that. Perfect. Um, um, so, you know, at base camp we work in, um, what we call six week cycles. So we are, we don't work on anything. Okay. I'm generalizing, but for the most part, we don't work on anything that takes longer than six weeks to do. So, um, our goals technically are to deliver something great within six weeks, whatever we're building, um, as a, as an organization, that's sort of where our goals are, but our, I don't have personal goals. Like I don't have a goal. Like if we, I, we don't set personal goal. We don't set company wide goals in terms of, uh, like, uh, this feature will be successful if, or, uh, you know, if it brings

Starting point is 00:12:11 in this amount of money, it'll be worth it or anything like that. Um, our, our goal, if you do want to use the word is just to do the best job we can. So last week I was, I met with a couple teams who were doing some projects and kind of reviewed them with them and tried to help them through some problems, work through some ideas. We're just finalizing some some some stuff on our book. So I'm working on the book that we're finishing our manuscripts do in a couple of weeks. So I did some of that. But really, it's all about what we're actually doing at the moment versus sort of the big picture as to why we're doing it other than we just want to do a good job. We have an idea. We've set out some work we're going to do over the next six

Starting point is 00:12:50 weeks and just helping people get there and do the best we can and also make decisions and cut things and say, we can't do all these things we want to do. What's the important part of this? So I love trying to get to what's the most important part of something versus, you know, we don't have, for example, we don't have any KPIs at Basecamp. We don't have key performance indicators. Yeah. I didn't even know what that meant by the way, until recently. Cause I heard everyone talking about them. I'm like, do we have those? And they go, Oh no, we don't have those. So we don't have those. Just to pause for a second. So for people that are like, what TPS reports? So KPIs, KPIs are referred to very often in startup vernacular, particularly in the tech

Starting point is 00:13:28 world as key performance indicators, which refer to the few or handful of metrics that are prized and most valued within your company. And that could be revenue per employee. It could be monthly unique users or any number of other things. Week on week growth of X, who knows. So sorry to interrupt, but just for people who don't come from that world. So you don't have KPIs. Don't have that. We don't have revenue growth number targets. We don't have, we don't have, okay. So we don't have goals. We don't have targets. We don't have KPIs. We don't have, um, sort of those kinds of reasons for doing what we do every day. Uh, the reason we do what we do every day is because we enjoy doing it and we want to make what we're working on better. And we're making the thing that we're making for

Starting point is 00:14:18 others. We're also making for ourselves. So we technically want to make our own tooling better because it helps us do better job with what we do. So it really is this day-to-day or week-to-week or every six weeks sort of rolling thing where you set out some stuff you want to do, you do it the best you can. At the end of those six weeks, we take a week or two off from scheduled work and we do other things at work. We roam around, have new ideas, play with some stuff, and then we pick another set of projects to do over the next six weeks. And we just kind of go as we go and course correct as we go. And we just don't have any of these big, big picture things.

Starting point is 00:14:52 So my weeks look like feedback. My weeks look like thinking. They look like writing. Sometimes it requires me to debate things internally with people, you know, to lay out some reasons for why we're doing things. But my week is not pointed in any one direction other than what we're really doing right now. So it is very much a day to day sort of existence, which which is why it's sort of an incompatible existence with goals, with long term goals, you know, with with with figures and numbers and stuff. I also, I don't want to be upset about expectations. So another thing I don't have are any really any expectations. Um, I would hate to, for example, let's say, let's say the company was,

Starting point is 00:15:35 we were expected to grow 22% next year. I'm making up numbers here. Right. Uh, and we grew 21. Like that would be a reason at a lot of companies to be upset. That is a ridiculous reason to be upset. Like how would everyone be upset with that? When you set out these numbers and these goalposts and these goals and these expectations and you don't hit them, then you're just, then you're upset. And once you've actually either hit them or not hit them, then you come up with another set and you just keep moving these, these moments of um possible joy but most likely disappointment in a lot of cases and i just don't feel like setting those up for myself so i just ignore the whole thing okay uh i've i've all of these various bits and pieces that i've gathered

Starting point is 00:16:18 through research and i suspect that i'm just going to get hung up on a couple of things i really want to explore and that's just going to be the way it goes. Let's go into it. All right. So there are many people listening who are familiar with Basecamp and the blog and so on and are saying, I would love to have a company or a product as successful as Basecamp. But I don't know how to go from where I am, which is goal-oriented, having KPIs, et cetera, to perhaps the other end of the spectrum, which is closer to JSON. So I suppose embedded into that is the question of, should they even want to emulate that? But secondly, if someone said, yes, I've decided I want to move more in that direction, what might be a step they could take or steps they could take

Starting point is 00:17:11 to inch them a little bit closer to where you are and a little further away from, oh my God, I wanted to hit 22. We hit 21. We're a failure. Right. Well, first off, I do want to make it really clear that this is simply what works for me in our organization. So I am not suggesting this is the only way, the best way, whatever this, this works for us. So if, if what works for you works for you and you're very goal oriented and KPI driven, and you think, you know, you need to, to the things you measure, the thing or whatever it is, I forget how that saying goes. Um, what you, what you measure is what you move or whatever.

Starting point is 00:17:49 I don't know what gets measured, gets managed. That's the one, right? So, so if you're, if you're like that and you think that things are great for you and things are working well for you, please do not even consider changing, like keep doing that. I think though, if you're doing all of those things and you feel a sense of sort of a lack of fulfillment, or you're maybe consistently disappointed, or you're reaching for things that you can't seem to grab, um, I would suggest, you know, trying a little bit, trying some of the things I'm suggesting, which is pull back your expectations a bit. Um, just sort of try to set out to do the best you can versus, uh,

Starting point is 00:18:25 try to measure up with a number that you've made up. And that's the other thing that I think is important here is that any projection that you set out to, to hit is a guess. Like you're, you're, you, you personally are making, or someone in your organization or whatever is making a guess and they're picking a number and they're saying, this is where we think we should be because this is sort of what we did last year. And because of that, we want to do a little bit better this year. And, but all this stuff is still just manmade. None of these things are, are, are inherent in existence. They're all manmade things, these numbers, these goals, these figures. So if you can begin to strip that back and sort of recognize that that's the case

Starting point is 00:19:03 and say like, what if I tried to function without setting any of these, but I just did the best work I can anyway, because isn't that what I should be doing anyway, no matter what? So my suggestion would be, as with anything, I'm not a big fan of trying to massively change anything at once. So I think my suggestion would be like, whatever the next project you have that you're working on, if you would normally set out some goalposts or set out some figures to hit or whatever or measure this, just try not measuring one of those things. Just pick one little tiny thing that you can throw away and not worry about and see what happens. And you'll probably find that the sky isn't falling and the business isn't crashing and people aren't running aimlessly around, not wondering what, or wondering what to do that actually, in fact, um, people will,

Starting point is 00:19:49 if you, if you explain why you're doing it, because you want to make this better because simply you want to make it better and you think it could be better or whatever. And you lay that out that people will be motivated enough by that, that, that, that the numbers and the figures don't necessarily, they're not the things that are pulling you forward. What's pulling you forward, hopefully, is your intrinsic motivation and your desire to do a better job at what you're doing and the sort of appreciation of the craft and the respect of the work that you're doing and who you're doing it for, and that that's kind of enough. And that everything else is sort of a side effect of that. So anyway, I'd say pick one little thing, throw it away, don't worry about it

Starting point is 00:20:25 and see what happens. You'll probably find out that everything's just OK. And then maybe you'll have the courage to try it with another little thing that you are measuring that you don't really care so much about. And I know I'm well aware that this flies in the face of a lot of people's worldview and maybe even yours. I know you're big into measuring things, especially health wise and whatnot. So, again, I think it comes down to also most importantly, knowing who you are and what, what matters to you and not trying to be like somebody else. There's a lot of people trying to be like other people. And I don't want anyone to try and be like me. You should be like yourself. And if there's 5% of what I'm saying makes sense to you, then maybe you can pull that in and make that part of you too.

Starting point is 00:21:02 But I don't think you should be out there trying to be someone else because that's a bit of an artificial situation. You've mentioned directly and alluded to perhaps a few things I'd like to underscore just for folks listening. first is that when you when one reads a quote or hears a quote like what gets measured gets managed uh it can often be taken to mean that you should manage everything and therefore you should measure everything and that there is only upside in measuring but that's simply not the case uh and for instance whether it's the i remember and Andy Grove, I believe it was of Intuit talking about how for every metric that you track and hold people accountable for, you have to include, identify, and then also assess the perverse incentive you've created by imposing that metric. So if people respond to incentives and you create a metric,

Starting point is 00:22:08 humans being humans, they will look for easier and easier ways to, say, goose that number up or chop that number down. And you have to be aware of what that does to their behavior and so on within the company. But secondly, measurement, there, there are things worth measuring, and then there are things not worth measuring that can become vanity metrics that people use just to feel productive, uh, instead of being productive. And just to point, uh, to one thing that you mentioned, which I think a lot of people would assume of me that that is, I, I physically track a lot of things all the time. And not say you assume that, but there is a point to my tracking, which is identifying what works for say my physiology,

Starting point is 00:23:00 what harms me based on my genotype or whatever it might be. And then, and then I just stop the vast majority of measurement and do it very intermittently, right? So the, uh, the, the followup to that, I'd love to ask for people, since you mentioned you don't read much, if any trade publications or news, what do you read? What are you reading? And maybe that's another opportunity for people to pare back on a, I'm not going to say thoughtless, it's too judgmental, but a habit that perhaps consumes a lot of time without adding much value. So what do you, if not that kind of stuff, what type of stuff do you read? And what are you, what do you, if not that kind of stuff, what type of stuff do you read and what are you, what have you been reading recently or what are you reading? Yeah, I'll, let me get to that in one second.

Starting point is 00:23:50 But I had a thought about the previous question, what sort of the genesis of this for me is, um, I used to do a lot of jogging. I still do a little bit, but, um, I kind of had some knee surgery a while ago and so I've sort of not been doing it as much but I remember um trying to hit certain times like I want to um you know run a six and a half minute mile or whatever it was at the time and you know I'd go out and I'd run a six minute mile in 42 seconds and I remember being disappointed by that and and I remember feeling like, wait, why should I be disappointed in that? I'm not running a race.

Starting point is 00:24:29 I'm not competing against anybody. I'm sort of competing against myself, but I set that up for myself. That's not something I had to do. Like I created that moment to be upset. What if I just went out and ran because I enjoy running and just kind of run the best I can every time I run and just do that? And I found that I started doing that and ran because I enjoy running and just kind of run the best I can every time I run and and just do that. And I found that I started doing that and I enjoyed it more. And it didn't mean I didn't run faster or slower.

Starting point is 00:24:52 I didn't even necessarily know. And it didn't really matter. I could feel whether or not like it was a good run, like that was a good run. was sort of a much better way to figure out my sort of satisfaction than to measure it and say it was a six minute and 42 minute run versus a six minute 38 second run. Uh, and I think that that's kind of where it sort of came into play for me in business too. So I think I pulled it from that. I wanted to share that cause I just remembered that, that that was sort of a moment. And I remember how old I was when I did that. It was probably actually in high school or early in college or something where I started to think that way. And that's maybe where that, where that came from too. But anyway, I wanted to get that in there.

Starting point is 00:25:33 Reading, what do I read? Well, you know, I started reading the paper more, which is like the newspaper, not, not, not online news sources, but actually the newspaper. And this happened because I was at a hotel. This is a few years ago. I was at a hotel. And, you know, you go to a hotel and they ask you, check in. They say, you know, would you like a newspaper? And I used to always go, no, newspaper. Who reads newspapers anymore?

Starting point is 00:25:56 You know, because I get all my news on the Internet, which is instant all the time. And the thing is, most of that's not actually news. It's entertainment. I think the news, like once a day, is actually a perfectly good pace for the time. And the thing is, most of that's not actually news. It's entertainment. I think the news like once a day is actually a perfectly good pace for the news. So if you get the news in the morning, you're basically getting all of yesterday's stuff that happened in the world that wasn't that someone, you know, some editors decided was important. And and they just they put that in the news, they print it, and the next morning you get it.

Starting point is 00:26:31 And then if you wait another full day to get the news again, pretty good chance that you didn't miss anything, actually, by paying attention to things all the time. Very few things happen during the middle of the day that you really absolutely need to know, that you can't wait for the next morning to know. And so I've realized that the newspaper is actually a better way to get the news because it's better. The pace is better. It prevents you from searching and seeking out news that you don't need to know about necessarily. It prevents you from playing the sport I call like the sport of information, like trying to know more than everybody else and be faster to the latest story than everybody else. So that's turning into a sport. And in fact, the news is presented – if you watch any news channel now, it's presented as a sport.

Starting point is 00:27:14 I mean you've got these chyrons going across the bottom, these graphics scrolling across. You've got talking heads that are sort of debating. You turn on ESPN or you can turn on CNN, And if you hit the logos, you wouldn't couldn't tell the difference, really. And so news coverage is turning to sports coverage and vice versa. And I just would rather say like once a day is enough of a general interval for me to be relatively well informed about what's really going on in the world. Also, at the resolution that matters. I think the other problem I'm having, by the way, I look at Twitter and I click on links here and there and I read

Starting point is 00:27:50 some stuff that I like. But but for the most part, I'm not trying to find out what happened an hour ago. And that to me is actually the real advantage to something like the newspaper, where you simply cannot find out what happened an hour ago, what happened an hour ago in most cases doesn't matter. Now you could say, what if there's a national disaster or a major tragedy or school shooting and your kids at the school, like there's all sorts of moments of course, where real time truly does matter. But for the most part, it doesn't matter at all. And in fact, it's worse because you become, become, there's the fear of missing out. Like I think of it as Jomo, like the joy of missing out. I'm happy to miss out on most things.

Starting point is 00:28:34 Is that did you come up with that? Yeah, I mean, that's in our new book, which is like, it just, it's great. I don't need to know all this stuff all the time. And, and yeah, again, like, look, if there's a, if again, look, if there's a – I'm in LA right now. If there's a mudslide coming to my house, I should know about that, right? Obviously. But that's something that might happen every – hopefully never and maybe once a decade. And to say that I need to be informed real time about anything that could possibly happen at any time because that one thing might happen once, That's just a recipe for anxiety. And I try to avoid that at all costs. Definitely. Now, I know you are a fan to give one example of a book titled Seeking Wisdom

Starting point is 00:29:19 from Darwin to Munger by Peter Bevelin. Uh, could you describe or just explain why you like that book, which is also one that I love. It was actually sent to me by Derek Sivers of all people. Folks can look him up tim.blog forward slash Sivers if you want to learn more about him, but seeking wisdom from Darwin to Munger by Peter Bevelin. Great book. Can you explain why you like that book and any other books that you're also fond of? Yeah, so it's been a while since I've read that. So a book review would be really embarrassing. But what I'll tell you is this.

Starting point is 00:30:03 I love Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett. It's what I love about those two guys. And of course this book is not written by them, but it's sort of the spirit of it, which is this very clear, direct, no bullshit, uh, way of writing this very sort of simple folksiness that, you know what life really necessarily, I mean, I know this is a broad generalization, but in most cases it's not that complicated. We tend to make things very complicated and we tend to make things very hard on ourselves. But really, there's some basic fundamentals of many things that if you kind of understand those, you're in pretty good shape and you don't need to go much

Starting point is 00:30:38 further than that. And I love that kind of wisdom. I love old people in general. So Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, I think Munger's in his 90s now and Buffett's in his 80s. But they've always had this kind of wisdom, which is this old school, almost farmer's almanac style wisdom. And I've always been attracted to that because I think complexity has also become a sport where it's like the more complicated something is, the better, you know, the better you think you are at it. Like if you make it more complicated, you're better at it or something. And I just think it's kind of the opposite. So I love those guys. And that book to me sort of highlighted a lot of that kind of thinking. And so anything that Munger's written, I love reading like Warren Buffett's letter to shareholders, which I think

Starting point is 00:31:23 is a must read for anybody. A hundred percent agreed. Yeah. Forget even just business people. Just if you want to read clear writing, uh, if you want to understand what it's like to communicate something at a high level, uh, you've got to read what he writes. So that's the kind of stuff I love to read. I love to read. I like Bezos's shareholder letters as well for similar reasons. That's the kind of stuff I'm really interested in. I don't read fiction at all. And maybe I'm missing out there. But I just my argument is always that I feel like the the world is so interesting on its own that there's more than enough I can read about real stuff.

Starting point is 00:31:59 I know some people are going to just hate me for this. And I always get hate on it. But I just would rather read biographies or I'd rather read about nature. I'd rather read about that stuff. Um, cause the world is fascinating as it is. So those are the kinds of things I'm into, um, these days. Uh, and you know, I've been reading, I know you're in deep into this now. I've been reading a lot about stoicism and getting into that so that the, um, uh, the, um – is it the Art of Joy – Ancient Art of Joy or something? What's that book? Yeah, The Art of Joy by William something or other.

Starting point is 00:32:33 I'm blanking. I'll put it in the show notes for everybody, which is a compilation of both, I suppose, excerpts and samples but also interpretations and applications of Stoic philosophy. I want to say Irving, William Irving, maybe. That's it. That's it. I think you're right. I think that's it. So I read that recently or last year. I really love that. I've been getting into a bit of that. I don't know. That's the kind of stuff I'm into these days. Why is that? Stoicism or just Stoicism? Yeah, it just resonates with me. A few a few basic things, by the way. I don't need to go that deep into it again.

Starting point is 00:33:10 It's not like I need to go super deep into the whole the whole world of it. But basically things like, you know, you pretty much only have control over your reactions to things. And I think that that is that in itself is enough. I could stop there. I go further, but I could stop there and say that is extremely poignant, especially today. I see people, you know, getting so wound up about what other people say and what other people do. And, you know, when you when you begin to see that what they're actually being wound up about is their own reaction to that thing, not the thing itself, the thing itself.

Starting point is 00:33:47 You know, yeah, maybe it's terrible. Maybe it's great, whatever it is. But it's how you sort of respond to it and how you allow it to affect you. That's deep and really important. And I think one of the best lessons I've learned in the past few years. So there's that also just negative visualization, I think, is a really wonderful tool. And I'm paying a lot of attention to that in my life can you just for people who aren't familiar with that would you mind describing that just in brief what that is negative visualization yeah as far as i understand it at least it's basically figuring out what the worst case scenario might be in any given situation and coming to terms with that and sort of realizing that probably in many cases it won't

Starting point is 00:34:22 be as bad as you think it could be so get get used to the worst thing. And David and I talk about this occasionally, right? So DHH and I talk about this in the business. Like what if we made some grave, grave, horrible errors? So the business has been a business for 18 years. And what if like, or what if the competition destroys us or whatever? Like what if we actually go out of business in two years? Like what if that actually happens? We don't want that to happen, but what if it did? Like, what's the worst thing that would happen? Well, it would be terrible because a lot of people would lose their jobs and that would suck. But we think a lot of people who work for us would have no problem finding other jobs. So that wouldn't maybe be so bad. I would have no income and Dave would have no income. That would suck. But we've done pretty

Starting point is 00:35:00 well for ourselves. So we could live. We could live fine without that. We couldn't do what we love doing every day. Well, that would kind of suck, but maybe we could still do it, just not in that capacity. And you know what? A 20 year run isn't so bad. Like if we only made it 20 years in business, that wouldn't be so bad either. So just thinking about like what would be the worst thing that could possibly happen and then, you know, recognizing that probably will not happen. It just helps you, I think, calm down about that and sort of avoid this constant set of worries. In some ways, you sort of get all the worrying out at once and then you go about your day

Starting point is 00:35:32 and go, well, if that happens and it happens, at least I know what that's going to feel like or what I think that might feel like. It's not that it would eliminate all of the feelings. There certainly would be other negative feelings I may have missed. But for the most part, I thought it through. And I feel like I can probably cope with it now, if that actually happens versus having something surprise you in the moment and having it be real, that can be really traumatic and really difficult to handle. So that's my general understanding of that, at least. That's a great description. Definitely. I think it's a great description. And

Starting point is 00:36:02 just by analogy, I was just thinking this. So I'm sitting in this room where I do a lot of recording and I did an episode with a former MMA fighter, but also special forces sniper named Tim Kennedy. And he's a beast of a fighter and a fascinating guy, but he was saying, oh, in my bag right now, I have X, Y, and Z firearm. I have enough first aid that I could patch you and the videographer together if one of you had an arm chopped off. I'm looking at how I could block the doorway in case of A, B, and C. He knows exactly how to assess the situation in specifics. And the reason that I bring that up is as you were describing this negative visualization, I was thinking to myself, it's something akin, metaphorically speaking, to taking a fear. Let's just say you have a semi-nebulous fear of something going wrong.

Starting point is 00:37:00 And let's say that fear is then embodied by a person. And that person says says i'm going to destroy you and then you run away and all day or all week you're thinking oh my god that person's going to destroy me how are they going to destroy me and there's this ambiguity that's really stress producing but if you were to sit down with that person say okay i know you're going to destroy me but i want to know exactly how you're going to destroy me they're like well first like i'm going to ambush you at the corner of second and colorado and i'm going to know exactly how you're going to destroy me. They're like, well, first, like I'm going to ambush you at the corner of Second and Colorado. And I'm going to try to hit you with this type of bat.

Starting point is 00:37:30 And you're like, OK. Now I like know where. I know what they're going to do. I can start planning a response, right? Or they say, you know, I'm going to beat you to death with a Nerf baseball bat. And you're like, that's actually not going to beat me to death at all. And you start to realize how recoverable a lot of this is, uh, almost all of these fears are either completely unfounded or completely recoverable or preventable. And, uh,

Starting point is 00:37:57 it's, it's really arguably the most valuable thing I've learned from any type of reading of philosophy is this negative visualization, which I tend to do in written form, uh, a lot, uh, in an exercise that I call fear setting, which people can Google and find for free everywhere. Uh, but, uh, I'll stop my, my, my, my soapbox speech at this point about the fear setting and negative visualization, but it's extremely powerful. And I think this is particularly true, at least in my experience, if you come from a family, to my code, to my DNA, or simply an adopted set of behaviors and beliefs and thought patterns, I don't know. Maybe it's a combination, but it's really been hugely, hugely helpful.

Starting point is 00:39:03 Yeah, you know, I feel like that's similar. Uh, I, I feel like I worried a lot and I still do. I still battle with this and I do kind of feel like it is a battle actually in a sense, um, with worrying. Um, and, and I don't, I've stopped worrying about myself, but I, I have a three and a half year old now, so I worry, I worry about him and I find myself, uh, uh myself realizing that like kids are actually really quite resilient and I shouldn't be worrying so much that, that things are going to be just fine. And it's actually a really good practice for me to, to use negative visual, negative visualization when I'm worrying about things like, oh, he's going to go, go to school and get sick. And then

Starting point is 00:39:41 he's going to have the flu and then I'm going to get the flu. And if I get the flu, then I can't do this. And they're all, my wife's going to get the flu and she's sick. And then he's going to have the flu and then I'm going to get the flu. And if I get the flu, then I can't do this. And they're all, how my wife's going to get the flu and she's pregnant. And then like, you go through all this stuff and it's like, yeah, that could happen. And you know, I can't, you can't stop it. I can't prevent like kids, kids go to school and they get sick and like, yeah, you might get sick and like, okay. But if you think about how bad it can be, you start to really ruminate on it versus like, yeah, that could happen. And if that happens, it happens. You just deal with it and live with it. And, and, but I, I remember before I got into this negative visualization, I would actually worry a lot. And what's cool about negative visualization, I think is that it clears

Starting point is 00:40:13 the worry out of the room in a sense, like you give it a worry, like you worry about it for a while and then it's, then it's over. The worrying is over. And I think that's the key insight for me in it, which is it gives me a moment to say, yeah, okay, I'm going to worry about this. I'm going to worry about it as bad as it could possibly be and think about how exactly horrible it could be. And then I can – that I'm done with that. And that's the difference compared to consistent, low-grade, always-on worry where you'd never have that moment where you can really confront it until it happens when it usually doesn't. Definitely. I looked up the title of the book. The author is William B. Irvine, like Irvine, California. The title is A Joy—wow, I can't even read it correctly. Here we go. A Guide to the Good Life, subtitle, The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy.

Starting point is 00:41:05 That's the one. And it is a fantastic introduction to Stoicism. And by itself, if you never read another book on the subject, extremely, extremely helpful. Yeah. You mentioned your son, right? You have a son. And I'm curious, if we turn back the clock, do you remember the first time you got in trouble or any memorable early memory of getting into trouble? Oh my God. I got into so much trouble when I was younger. Um, the first time though, um, I remember the first time I cried so

Starting point is 00:41:43 hard that I almost couldn't breathe. You know, that crying where you like hyperventilate. Yeah. I can't remember why that happened, but I'm sure I did something really bad. Uh, and, and I think my, my, uh, my parents like reminded me how bad it was or something. And I got really scared. I think, I don't remember how old I was, but I remember that moment. Um, I, but I, I, I got in don't remember how old I was, but I remember that moment. Um,

Starting point is 00:42:11 I, but I, I, I got in a lot of trouble when I was younger, probably should have gotten in more trouble. I probably got away with too many things as well. Um, but, uh, I, I got, I got into a lot of trouble. Like my parents would have to pick me up at the police station when I was younger. When I was younger, like I'm talking like 15, like that kind of thing or 14 junior. Actually, junior high was bad. Like, what is that? 13, 14, something like that. Somewhere in there. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:42:32 Yeah. I was I was really bad. I kind of got in with the with the bad crowd and started doing some bad stuff, although it wasn't so bad. What type of what were the offenses? Let's get specific. OK, so it's actually entrepreneurial stuff. Side hustle.

Starting point is 00:42:50 Yeah, side. Yeah, right. Before it was called that. Continue. Sorry, I'm just imagining the expression you just made, like the wince as I as I said. Yes, you know me well. Go ahead. I don't know when the entrepreneurial bug bit me,

Starting point is 00:43:10 but it bit me early. And I loved knives and throwing stars and switchblades, although I couldn't get those because they were illegal. I just love that kind of stuff. How old are you, if you don't mind me asking? Probably today. No, today. 43. Okay, so we're of the same vintage.

Starting point is 00:43:33 So I had too much caffeine, so I'm interrupting you. We grew up when ninjas and breakdancing were as cool as it could, as cool as you could possibly be. And there was a catalog called Asian world of martial arts. I don't remember this. Yeah. Anyway, just to put some context. So at that time, people like you and me, it was not infrequent that young guys, definitely mostly young guys would fantasize about throwing stars and climbing claws and grappling hooks. So just to, just to set the stage. Yeah. Okay. Please continue. So I, somehow, I don't remember how this happened. Somehow, maybe it was my dad who got on this mailing list or I got on this, like, and we were starting to get these catalogs at home. And one

Starting point is 00:44:19 of them was that one. Another one was called sportsman's guide. Um, there was a few other ones where it's kind of like army surplusy stuff. And I don't really remember exactly how it all happened. But I started looking through the pages and there were these cool knives and throwing stars and like some ballistic knives, like knives you could actually shoot with a spring, like crazy shit, crazy stuff. And I just got into it and like tear gas and this kind of weird shit. So, so I mean, a 13 year old boy for me, it was just the coolest thing in the world. Right. I don't know why, but I was so into it. And so I started to take these catalogs and make Xerox copies of these pages and then

Starting point is 00:44:57 cut them out and then reassemble my own catalog. Um, and I would like re, I would, I would kind of scratch out the prices and like put new prices on them and then make catalogs, which I would then distribute to my friends, my friends then would buy these knives and stuff for me. Um, I would then, so I take these orders and I'd make an order form and everything. And I would take these things. And, um, this was back in like 85. I remember I got my first Mac in 85. And so I was like using my Mac to like print stuff out, my image writer or whatever I had at the time. And I'd make these catalogs and these order forms and print the stuff out and distribute it to some friends. And they would like make orders.

Starting point is 00:45:38 I'd get the, I'd get the cash from them. They, everyone had like part-time jobs. So they'd give me some cash. I'd get the cash. I would place an order through these catalogs for this stuff. I'd order it COD because which I don't know if they have that anymore called cash on delivery. I don't think they have that anymore. But I didn't have a credit card. For those of you who are much younger and don't remember or don't know what this was. UPS could actually come to your to your house, bring a package and you would pay the UPS driver. The UPS driver then take that money and put it in an envelope and then send it back to the company. That's how you'd actually buy things sometimes. So anyway, I get cash. I'd order stuff COD. I'd fake that I was sick that day and stay home from school. I knew when it was going to be delivered, the UPS driver would come. I would give him the cash and I'd get these things and I'd distribute them to my friends and I would make profit. And then I did that with like cigarettes and chewing tobacco and all sorts of stuff. And so I kind of like – then I had a bit of a reputation as a pyro because I love fireworks and fire and stuff.

Starting point is 00:46:37 So I was like – anyway, I got into a lot of trouble eventually as you can imagine selling contraband to to, uh, to 15 year old boys in the suburbs of Chicago. Um, and then like, you know, I kind of got in with the wrong crowd and then like all sorts of weird things happened at some point. But anyway, um, I eventually like got that out of my system, but I, that's how I started getting into being an entrepreneur is, is that, and I love the idea of carving up other people's catalogs and making my own and then I got a reseller's license somehow and got into electronics and started being able to buy things at like dealer costs from these big distributors and then like for example radar detectors so people could my friends could speed you know 16 so like let's go speed let's go get a radar detector in our car so I'd buy radar detectors

Starting point is 00:47:22 at like cost double the price on to my friends because they couldn't get them and telephone like cordless phones was that you know back then like then then computer hard drives in the early days and then computers and that's kind of how i got into all this stuff but it was it was um it's funny because like the way i think about business today even the business i'm in today, Basecamp, I just see it as a continuation of when I was 13 selling knives. Honestly, like it's all one business where I'm buying or making the thing that I want and then finding other people who want the same thing. It's the same business as it ever was when I was 13 and is today. I'm not selling illegal stuff now. Other than that, same spirit.

Starting point is 00:48:06 And anyway, so I got in trouble. I don't remember what, you know, I got in trouble probably before that too, but I, my parents let me get away with a lot as an only child. So I think they'd let me get, get away with extra, an extra amount of stuff. Um, but, uh, those early days, I think paved the way for me to really learn, uh, how to, you know, how to sell things, how to market things, how to promote things, how to package things, how to mark things how to market things how to promote things how to package things how to mark things up and how to also charge for things which is in a strange way the thing that's so deficient about our industry today the tech industry which is like a lot of people that they don't a lot of companies don't charge for anything they give stuff away for free

Starting point is 00:48:39 and then they have to live with all these other um uh the of that, which we're even seeing play out in the news now. Um, so anyway, I learned a lot of lessons from doing the wrong thing. Let's say you mentioned a bunch of weird things happened. We're not, we don't necessarily have to go into that. Although I'm certainly happy to go into one of them. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Because I'm kidding. And then you're like, I got it out of my system. I'm like, well, for a lot of people, they never quite get it out of their system. So there had to be, I would imagine, catalyzing event or events or something that encouraged you to get it. So let's go into one. There was and there were.

Starting point is 00:49:16 So first of all, I had this friend. I won't mention his name, but he was a bad influence on me. My parents spotted him immediately and said, this kid's no good. We don't we don't want you to be with this kid. But anyway, I still was because he was cool and I wanted to be cool. Anyway, one day during lunch, we put a like a Tic Tac, like a mint. It wasn't a Tic Tac, but some sort of mint in this other kid's milk. OK, it's cool. And, um, after he drank his milk, we told him this again, I'm so ashamed

Starting point is 00:49:49 of this whole thing, but anyway, um, we told him that we poisoned him, right? Um, right. Bad. I mean, it's bad. I'm just, and how old are you? You're 15, 15 or something like that. This is kind of, I mean, I hate to say it and not to excuse it, but sort of par for the course, 15 year old boy behavior. Yeah, it was shitty, but I'm I hate to say it, not to excuse it, but sort of par for the course 15-year-old boy behavior. Yeah, it was shitty, but I'm just being honest. So we did that. We obviously didn't poison anybody, but like we told him we did, OK? And it's funny because it wasn't a bullying thing.

Starting point is 00:50:16 He was actually a friend of ours. So it wasn't like we were picking on anybody. He was like a friend of ours and we did this. Anyway, in math class later that day he passes out because he was probably anxious and thought we poisoned him so he has to get his stomach pumped because he thought he told he told the like he told the teachers and they like the police got involved that he'd been poisoned and i had to go down to the police station my parents had to like take me to the police station and all this shit and And it was like, it was, it was a mint, you know, but it was, it was, we set this up in a way

Starting point is 00:50:48 where, where he didn't think it was. And so anyway, that was some of the shit I got into. And eventually I got into that and a couple of the things, um, eventually my parents said, Hey, look, um, enough. Uh, if you get in trouble again, we're sending you off to boarding school. Um, which means you're, you're, you're away from all your friends and you're away from us and the whole thing. And it was that statement alone that changed everything for me. I don't know why either. Uh, I, I didn't even know what boarding school was. It probably sounded kind of cool. Like I get to go away and sleep away. Like there's something kind of almost cool about it in a sense, like when you don't really know what it would be, but they said it in such a stern way that it was so clear that this was not

Starting point is 00:51:27 where I wanted to go and what I wanted to, where I wanted to be. Right. The tone made it clear. It was not desirable for you. Yes. And that was the moment when I basically, I, I, I went back to my old friends were awesome. Um, I never really left them, but I kind of sort of did and, and they were very cool about it. And they kind of welcomed me back basically. And I just stopped doing all that shit. I just stopped it. And it sounds like how, how could I have just stopped it? But it's probably because I wasn't really, it was sort of this, this stunt that I was pulling and not really what I wanted to do. It was just kind of a fun thing when I realized that there were consequences. And once I realized there were true consequences, I, I, uh, I changed it. And I,

Starting point is 00:52:09 I think that was kind of the, the thing for me is that, um, especially when I was younger, I would sort of do things. I remember like, so I went to Hebrew school, like after school, and then I hated it, absolutely hated it because it was like two hours, Tuesdays and Thursdays after school. I wasn't religious. My parents weren't really either, but they sort of, it was just sort of something that everyone in the neighborhood did. And I kind of did. And it was out of respect for my grandparents who were more religious anyway. So I went to this thing like two days a week after school. And I would, I remember, I remember my dad telling me once that like, um, cause I – because I was kind of bad there too.

Starting point is 00:52:45 I was extra bad there. I would always like question the teachers like, well, wait. Prove it. Can you prove that God exists? Like stuff like that. I was just being an asshole. And because like I was just pushing them because I knew like you couldn't prove it. And I was just being – and so that was just like being difficult.

Starting point is 00:53:00 Anyway, I got in trouble and my dad – That's so surprising to hear. Right. And so my dad is like, you know, he's like, you shouldn't do this, but I just want you to know, like none of this goes on your record. You know the record? You always – I don't know if you ever threatened with your record. Sure, yeah, yeah. I always found this weird. I didn't have an exactly pristine record as a kid.

Starting point is 00:53:22 So yes, I had the record. And there is no record that's the thing but i didn't know it at the time until my dad's like so my dad's like you know this isn't going to go on your record and that actually like made me do more bad shit um and eventually i got kicked out of hebrew school um for for like doing some other stuff which i really don't go into gross gross insubordination yeah basically and they just had enough of me and they knew I had enough of them and the whole thing. And they let me like go through and get my bar mitzvah and they like, let me do that. But they're like, just don't come to school anymore. Okay. Um, creative differences. Yeah. So anyway, um, all those things, like at some point I just, I, I, my parents kind of said boarding school or, or, you know, stop for this. And I stopped. And, um, you know, back then I, I, you know, I,

Starting point is 00:54:10 as, as high school kids do, you drink a bit and this, like, I got that all out of my system also, like all that stuff I kind of got out of my system. And that's kind of one of the reasons I didn't really like college because in college everyone was experimenting with stuff for the first time. And in a sense, I feel like I'd already been through all that. And so the social experience in college was actually really boring for me and almost felt childish, actually, because I felt like I'd been through it when I was a child. And now I see everyone else doing that. And so I didn't really enjoy college at all for that reason. And I just sort of kind of muddled through and got it done.

Starting point is 00:54:43 And then by that point, I was already doing website design, like freelance. I had a software business that I had already started on the side, selling software that I made to organize my own music collection. And all the stuff I started doing, and to me, college was actually just getting in the way of me getting out there and doing the things that I really wanted to do. So you mentioned organizing your music collection. And we could dig into that. i remember reading a story about it people could send you in twenty dollars uh to get audio file right they would upload to aol and so i read the story of getting this you were getting this envelope from germany or some other country the airmail envelope that I'm sure some people have seen with the red and blue around the edges. And lo and behold, right? Order form,

Starting point is 00:55:34 $20 bill, like big deal. Was that the first time that you were like, holy shit, like I could do this or I'm an entrepreneur or I'm successful. Like, do you remember of, of, of these many entrepreneurial experiments and ventures that you've been involved with? Was, was there a particular incident that stands out like, wow, holy shit, like this, this is something that I could actually make a living doing. I could do this. Yeah. The 20, well, first of all, I never thought about making a living really, but I thought about what was different about the, the, the software getting 20 bucks in the mail for, for software that I made was that it was the first time I realized, actually, let me step back. I I've been selling stuff before. We talked about that, like throwing stars and sorts of bad shit, but I had to do work for that.

Starting point is 00:56:22 Like I had to work. I had to make a sale each time i had to get inventory each time i would sell inventory i have to get more inventory i have to go out and convince my friends to buy more shit right what was different about the software thing was that i could make this thing once i could put it out there into the world and a lot of people could pay me for it and i could in a sense make money while i was sleeping i didn't think about it necessarily that way i do like i can look back on it now and money while I was sleeping. I didn't think about it necessarily that way. I do like I can look back on it now and say that's what I felt. I didn't feel it that way.

Starting point is 00:56:49 But what I did realize was that I could make something that I wanted. I could put a lot of effort into it and put it out there and let it speak for itself. And if people liked it, they'd be happy to pay for it and that people are happy to pay for things and that like I don't have to go out and sell each one. I could put it up and people could buy it from all over the world when they find it on their own. That was, I think the distinctly different thing for me at that moment versus everything else I'd done in the past was sort of one-off sales, including like, you know, eventually I was doing some like logo design and website design, which came a little bit later, uh, after, well, actually I'm not sure what the timeline was, but

Starting point is 00:57:29 even that you have to find a client every time and you got to find someone new every time and the whole thing. Um, and, and software was different and that's probably, and that's what I do today is I make software, we put it out there and technically, technically you're making money while you're sleeping because it's running and people pay you on a monthly basis. And, uh, you know, you kind of make it once and put it out there versus, although of course you're making it every day, you're changing it and tweaking it, but it's, you know, still the same spirit. So that was the big change for me, I think. Um, and then, you know, I, I, I realized that the deeper realization, though, again, is that I can make this for myself. I can satisfy myself.

Starting point is 00:58:12 And then the next step is to find other people like you versus trying to dominate an industry. And I think this is a fundamental thing that we have today at Basecamp, which is I have no interest. DHH and I talk about this. We have no interest in dominating anyone or anything. We don't land. I'm not out for land grab. I don't know what our market share is. I could care less. It doesn't matter to me. None of this stuff. I'm not looking to put any competitors out of business. I'm not looking to to to be number one. None of that stuff matters. What matters is, can I make something that I like? Can we put it out there to support our costs and make more money than we spend? And if that means we have 1% market share or 0.1% market share, fine with me. I don't care. If it means we have 50% market share, fine with me. I don't care. None of that matters.

Starting point is 00:59:00 What matters is, can I build something I like and can it be sustainable and can it fund our, our continued development and endeavors? And that's also with the music thing. Cause I made it for myself. I was loaning out my CDs and tapes to friends and never getting them back. And I forgot who I loaned them to. And so I'm like, well, maybe if I organize this, I could like have an inventory of all the stuff I have, you know, bootlegs and CDs and the whole thing. And then whenever I loan went out to someone, I'll just like note the date and who it was. And then I'll build a system that will send me a reminder about that 30 days later. And I can go, Hey, Hey, Bill, remember that CD that I let you have? I said, I need this weekend. Like I still don't have it. And then I would get all my stuff

Starting point is 00:59:42 back. And so, you know, that's kind of what, what, what I've been doing ever since is building stuff that works for me. So I want to tell a story through your words about how the world welcomed you with open arms and immediately started buying everything that you had to sell. So I'd like to read a bit of text here. And I'm pretty sure this is not a misquote since you typed it out and sent it to me some time ago. Here we go. Way back in the 90s when I was getting started as a web designer, I sent my work into an award site called HighFive.com. At the time, it was the shit. If you were awarded a High Five award, you were recognized. Now I sent my stuff in and I'm going to leave his name out

Starting point is 01:00:25 just so I don't have anybody chasing me around. The guy who ran it emailed me back. I don't have the original email anymore, but basically he told me I sucked. I had no business being in the web design business and that I should never email him again. That rejection filled me with so much fire, not anger, not resentment, not disappointment, but fire, fire to kick ass and prove his impression wrong. I loved the rejection. It made me. And that was in response to a question I asked you, which was how has a failure or apparent failure set you up for later success? That was in my last book, driving mentors and my question about this. And you can certainly take this anywhere you want. If you want to elaborate, correct, do anything else. But my question, uh, speaking personally as someone who has struggled

Starting point is 01:01:07 with anger, I mean, I spent so much of my childhood being bullied really badly. I was born premature, really, really small and with a lot of health issues up until about sixth grade that I built up this anger that I used as fuel to then later compete and fight and do all of these things so that I wouldn't be taken advantage of again, effectively, right? I mean, there was just a coping mechanism. And now I've realized that anger is very often not helpful and that it is the acid that damages the vessel, not that which it is poured upon, right? So the, the, the lion, I'll read it again. That rejection filled me with so much fire, not anger, not resentment, not disappointment, but fire. How in, what was the self-talk that made it fire and not

Starting point is 01:01:58 anger or resentment, if that makes any sense, or how do you, how do you transmute what could be a negative response into something that's actually helpful in a case like this? Yeah, I remember that distinctly because it was the first time I got enough courage up to sort, like you suck, basically don't do this. Um, that it, because it was so, it was almost a caricature of a, of a rejection, like to actually be like, you suck. Don't do this. Like no one would ever say that, but he did, um, that how it just, it almost made me laugh and be like, I'm just going to prove you wrong. It was that kind of energy. Um, that was the fire. Like I, I've always, in those cases, I've always responded to, um, those sorts of moments

Starting point is 01:02:54 as, as, as, as motivation to prove somebody wrong or to like prove myself right. Maybe, uh, and maybe that's sort of a bit of the flaw I still have to work out or one of those two, but I just wanted to, to say, okay, well, fuck you. I'm going to show you that I can do this. And I don't even know, I don't, I shouldn't even care. Right? Like now I realized that this is like my reaction to someone like, who cares about this guy? Who cares what he thinks about my work? Um, it's also tied to the fact that like i i just i know you know look um obviously i come from a position of privilege to say this whole thing but like i've just i don't let people offend me and i have been in situations where uh like for

Starting point is 01:03:39 example i mentioned i mentioned earlier i'm jewish i remember in college some people called me a kike which is a fucking horrible slur and i i've i've had people like I've walked by a penny and they're like, oh, you should pick that up. Like I've had some of that shit. Right. And it's like it doesn't matter. I don't care. Like to me, that kind of stuff just has never upset me because it's like that's just a reflection on the other person's ignorance or point of view. I've never let that kind of stuff get to me. And I think that – Is that something your parents instilled in you?

Starting point is 01:04:10 I mean that's not the most common reaction. Yeah, I don't know where it came from. I don't know where that came from. But I've just never – I've never remembered ever feeling offended by anyone's sort of slight at me for whatever reason. And like look, I'm, you know, I'm five, seven. So I'm relatively short guy. Like there's been those kinds of things that you have, like there's all sorts of stuff that you get, you know? Um, and I know a lot of people have a way fucking worse than I do. So I, I, I totally get all of that. I'm just using like, look, all the

Starting point is 01:04:41 only examples I have are my own. Right. And so, but I've been in those situations where I could see someone flipping over it and be like, well, what the fuck? That's the horrible thing to say. And how could you ever say that to somebody? And I've just never felt that way. I'd be like, okay, that's where you come from. Fine. That's fine. Like I, I don't really even have the energy or the care to try and set you right or whatever. It's not my job. I don't really want to do it. Um, I, it is what it is. It kind of just bounces off me in a sense. Um, but one thing, one reaction I have had is, is motivation. That's the thing that I've always had when someone says I can't

Starting point is 01:05:16 do something or, or I'm not this enough or I'm not that enough. It's motivation to prove, prove that wrong. Um, and I don't know if it's know if it's the dark and dirty side of it is like, is it actually revenge or is it motivation? And I'm not sure that I necessarily know what that is.. So maybe it is motivation, not revenge. But I'm not totally sure, to be honest. But I don't know where it came from. But I just never remember ever being angry about something that someone said about me or how they've judged me or whatever. I just never really cared. Well, to maybe provide a contrast to that, it seems like you have an abhorrence for wasting time. It seems like you have a strong dislike for wasting time.

Starting point is 01:06:13 And you've talked about this before, written about it. What rules for yourself, commandments, systems, anything do you have in place to help minimize time wasting? So something I think I mentioned, I wrote this up in your book, actually, as a response is sort of, first of all, getting better at saying no is the critical thing to begin with. And being honest about the things you really want to do and things you really don't want to do and not sort of just doing things because you feel obligated because it'll make someone else feel good. Like who knows how someone else is actually going to feel. It's sort of presumptuous to suggest that I should do something because it'll make someone else happy. Uh, it's actually kind of hard to know what makes people happy. And, and, uh, so I try not to, I try not to go down that road

Starting point is 01:06:58 because I think you can find yourself in a difficult spot and you know it's really hard to do um so i've just tried to get better at saying no and really recognizing the things i like to do and i don't like to do i've kind of described my my life as a weird description of my life but partial description of my life is like i just try to do everything i can to avoid hassles i don don't like hassles. And to me, a hassle is like something I don't want to do in the future. It's almost never something I have to do now. It's something I have to do in the future. And so something I've been getting better and better at is, is, is basically just being honest with people who ask me to do things far, far in advance and say, I can't make commitments that far in advance. I know that you need a commitment that far in advance. So you're planning an event or you're doing, I totally understand that. But I, I,

Starting point is 01:07:48 I find that, um, I tend to, um, this is a strong word and it's not fair to what other people are doing. So it's going to come off strange, but I don't think of it in terms of that, that they're, what they're about to do isn't worth it. But I tend to regret things that I say yes to far in advance because not because of the thing itself, but because it actually prevents me from having opportunities to, to, to explore other things in the moment when I get there that I might be more interested in doing. So this comes back to the goal setting, perhaps maybe it's all the same thing, which is that I don't know how I'm going to feel six months from now on Friday night at four o'clock, uh, speaking, you know, where I'm scheduled to speak at an event. Maybe I'd rather not be doing that six

Starting point is 01:08:33 months from now. The only way I'm going to know that is to basically wait until that moment and decide whether or not I want to do that. But of course I can't cancel on people if, if I, if I booked events, you know, so I've just, I've just found in my life that the things I put on my calendar, because it's so easy to put something far in advance on your calendar because it costs nothing. In a sense, it doesn't take any of your time now. It doesn't take any of your time next week. It's like, you know, four months from now. Sure, I'll do that. And then it comes up on that. And then it comes up on that. I'm like, I wish I wouldn't have said yes to that. Not because of the thing itself, but because of the feeling of, of being now obligated to do something that

Starting point is 01:09:09 I may not choose to want to have done in that moment. Had I had the choice then or now, can you give us some sample language or just a basic kind of template that you would use to polite decline? Yeah. Politely decline something. Somebody hits you up. Let's just say you actually know them. They're like, Hey, six months from now on such and such a date, we're having this event. ABC impressive speakers are coming. We'd let that blah, blah, blah. Right. So then what does your response look like? Well, I mean, sometimes I will say yes, but most of the time I'll say, thanks for writing. I appreciate the invitation.

Starting point is 01:09:50 I can't book anything that far in advance right now. I have a hard time filling my calendar six months ahead of time or something like that. Let me think about the language. Basically I would say I can't book anything that far in advance. Sometimes it's because I'll be specific. Like my wife is pregnant and I, like, you know, like that's too close. So I can't do that. But there's other times I'm just like, I just can't book that far in advance. Um, if, if there's an opening closer and you need someone like, let me know then, um, I'd be happy to do it or perhaps another time. But six months from now is just too far out for me to book things is kind of what I'll say.

Starting point is 01:10:27 And, you know, I always try to first of all, it's an honor to be invited to anything. The fact that anyone wants to hear me talk is still surprises me. And so I'm always I always appreciate it. I'm sure I always make sure to lead with that. But then I just I'm honest about it, which is I can't put anything on my calendar that far in advance. I can't book things that far in advance. Um, also another thing, like for example, um, I've been asked a lot recently to speak, uh, internationally and, and, um, I'll just tell people, which is true. Like, I just don't like to travel internationally for business. Um, if I'm going to go somewhere,

Starting point is 01:11:04 I'd like to go somewhere because I, you know, for personal reasons, but I don't like to travel internationally for business. Um, if I wouldn't go somewhere, I'd like to go somewhere because I, you know, for personal reasons, but I don't like to travel internationally for business. So I'll just say like, I, I'm just not traveling internationally for business right now. It's not something I'm really doing. So I appreciate the invitation again, if you ever have an event in the United States, let me know that kind of stuff. Um, cause I think if you just make up stories, it's just why, why, why not just be honest and, and, and clear about it. And, and, you know, people are very understanding, actually, they go, I totally get that. Um, Hey, if we have an opening, I'll, I'll let you know. Uh, if not, no big deal, maybe

Starting point is 01:11:34 another time. Uh, maybe there's some other thing we'll have coming up. That's that's sooner. I said, yeah, of course. Let me know if something's sooner, that'd be, that'd be great. So I kind of do it that way. And by the way, this, this, um, I was sort of inspired by, and I don't know if this is true. I read somewhere, uh, that Warren Buffett kind of does this with meetings. I don't know if, again, I don't know if this is true. I read it. Um, which is that if you want to meet with him, uh, you basically have to write his assistant or whatever the day before. So if you, if you, if you write, I'm sure there's exceptions to this rule, but in most cases, if you want to meet with him, you can't say, hey, I'd like to meet with, you know, I'm going to be in Omaha in March, March 22nd. Can I can I, you know, meet up with

Starting point is 01:12:15 Mr. Buffett or something? And the answer would be when you get in on the 21st, email me then. And if he has any openings the next day, then he'd be happy to meet with you. And now, of course, he's Warren Buffett. People have written about this. People are like, oh, he's Warren Buffett. Like the thing is, is that, yeah, he is Warren Buffett, but you are you. And your time is yours, just like his is his. And his attention is his and yours is yours. And who cares how wealthy he is? What does that have to do with any of this? Who cares what position he's in? I understand that like, yeah, he, he, he is in a position where he can maybe say no more frequently than others, but so can a lot of people. I don't think people give themselves enough credit and give no enough

Starting point is 01:12:53 credit and defend their own attention and time as they, as much as they should. Um, people will, will protect money. Uh, they'll protect all sorts of things, but they won't protect their, their attention and their time. And, and, uh, I of things, but they won't protect their, their attention and their time. And, and, uh, I think more people should get better at that. So I've been practicing getting better at that and it was sort of inspired in part by, by hearing about if it's true or not, I don't know, but hearing about how Buffett does that and how people respond to the boundaries that you set, particularly if you do so tactfully tells you you quite a lot about the nature of your true relationship. That's true, too.

Starting point is 01:13:34 With these people. I remember one time I was going through a very difficult period and was trying to set up a number of different rules to simplify and clear my calendar. And it also just took me a long time to get back to people, even people I cared quite a lot about. But the people who are really close to me know that that is the case. Who knows? I could be lost in the Amazon jungle for three weeks. They don't get too upset about things. And at one point, I got an angry text from – more of an acquaintance, a very powerful guy. And he said – he was like, Tim, dude, what the hell? Like you're harder to get a hold of than the president.

Starting point is 01:14:15 I just talked to him last week or something like that. And then we hopped on the phone and he was really upset. And I said, well, the president has a bigger team than I do. And number one, and like number two, like I hate to say it, but you're being really aggressive right now. Like of all the things on my list of priorities, including my family and this, and I mentioned a few things that were pretty heavy, like you're kind of number 17 right now. And that doesn't mean that you're unimportant to me, but it means that you just have to wait until I'm done with the first 16. So like, if you can't do that, I get it, I suppose, but it's not going to change. And, uh, it's a, it's definitely a learned

Starting point is 01:14:55 skill. Uh, I mean, I've absolutely, and you've maybe had this experience, but when my first book came out, I was so absolutely astonished that anyone would pay me anything to talk about anything that I said yes to everything that came in. And then six months later, I was like, Oh my God, I feel like I'm in death of a salesman. This is, this is awful. And, um, over time we become better at setting parameters. Now you've mentioned, uh, since we're talking about Warren Buffett, clear thinking and clear writing, which you seem to value very highly. And in doing a little bit of homework for this conversation, uh, I've read, and you can tell me if this is true or still the case, but how one of your top hiring

Starting point is 01:15:45 criteria is whether the person is a great writer, whether the person can communicate well in written form. I'd love for you to say whether that is still the case or not and why that is the case. Yeah, it's definitely the case. It's sort of been the case for forever for us. It's the case because first of all, most communication is written these days. And first of all, let me step back. Like we're a remote company. So especially most communication is written. If you're going to have, if you're a local company and you're having meetings all the time, sometimes verbal is enough, but for most, in most cases, people are writing more and more and more than they ever have before. Um, and one of the most costly and inefficient things is having to repeat yourself, uh, or answer questions about something

Starting point is 01:16:36 that should have been clear in the first place. It's, it's re really quickly. If you can't communicate clearly, um, you're communicating probably three or four times more frequently than you need to. And that can be really inefficient and really frustrating, extremely frustrating. So we've always looked at writing as clear writing as a prerequisite for every position we have with the company, because everybody's supposed to communicate with themselves, with the rest of the company, with their team. And most of it's done, done via written word. And we also, for example, the first, by the way, the first, the first sort of gatekeeper of it is, is the, is the cover letter. So when people apply for a job, if they don't, if they just like send

Starting point is 01:17:18 a resume or whatever, they're out instantly. That's not even something we look at. Um, I, I always read, or I always want to see a cover letter of some sort. It can it can just be an email, of course, with an attachment of the resume or whatever. But I want to see how you how you open the conversation. You know, how do you describe yourself? Why are you applying for this job and not just any job. And you can tell very quickly if someone's going to, if someone can explain themselves, if someone can advocate for themselves and advocate for their ideas and their position and who they are and why they should work here. Um, if, if they're, if they're clear minded, if they're friendly, all that stuff comes through in writing. I think if you pay enough attention to the words, you can see a lot of that. Um, and, uh, um, also for example, when I hire designers, I look at their design, but I look at their writing almost a little bit more. Um, and, uh, um, also for example, when I hire designers, I look at their design, but I look at their writing almost a little bit more.

Starting point is 01:18:08 Um, whenever we, we hire a designer, when we get down to the last five candidates that we really think could be finalists, we hire them to do a project for us, um, 1500 bucks for a week and they do a project for us so we can kind of see their actual work. But even more importantly is we ask them to write up why they did what they did. Because there's a lot of great designers out there, but people have to advocate for themselves. And so I want to see why they did what they did. I want to hear their, I want to, well, not hear, but read their, their, their point of view and their line of thinking and how they came up with the solutions. And, and that helps me when I read that helps me understand what would be like to work with that person for real. Um, if I know, are they able to explain why they did what

Starting point is 01:18:50 they did? Are they glossing over little details that actually matter? Like, what is it? How do they, how do they see their work and how do they write about it? It's a very important part of the job here at Basecamp. So, um, yeah, so writing is important in every position. It doesn't matter what position you're in. You still have to be a great writer. We typically start by looking at the cover letter. The actual like work assignments to get hired here typically involve writing no matter what what the position. And I just, it almost always pans out that it turns out that they're not the right fit for the company even if their work was great. But they're just unable to really convince people and persuade people based on their sort of a missing bit of – it's not magic but I'll call it that in the writing where you read something and go, this is great. I'd love to dig a little deeper on the example you gave with the design finalists. Let's say you're hiring for a position. You have a handful of folks you've narrowed it down to, and you're going to pay each of them $1,500 for a one-week project.

Starting point is 01:20:01 Do you assign them a project, give them a range of projects? I'd love a little bit more in terms of specifics. And then when you ask them, like, why did you do what you did, what you ended up doing? Do you provide them with guidelines for how to answer that? Or do you keep it totally open-ended? I'd love for you just to walk us through a hypothetical or real example of what the project could look like and how it unfolds from there. Yeah. And the first, first of all, the reason why we do that is because you basically can't trust anyone's design work in the past. And the reason why is because a lot of people work with other people and you don't really, really know what they did. Like you'll, we'll get, we'll get, you know, resumes. Like I, I did Nike.com. It's like, no, you didn't. You worked on Nike.com. I can't tell what you did exactly.

Starting point is 01:20:54 Um, and so you'll see a lot of that, or you'll see people share screenshots with you of things. And you're like, you know, I just don't know the process that went into that. So it's hard for me to judge it. And it's not that I don't think that's good or bad. It's none of that. It's like, I just don't know what I'm evaluating here. So the idea is that once we get down to the five finalists, after looking at work and looking at writing and the whole thing, we feel like these five people could be a great fit for this particular position. We give them all the same assignment. And the assignment, sometimes there's actually, sometimes, there's sometimes there is a choice like two or three different assignments, but for the most part, historically, it's been

Starting point is 01:21:29 one lately we've been doing a few, but it's been one, um, where everybody who's applying for this job does the same project. Um, everyone gets a week to do it. They have to figure out how to fit that in with the rest of their, their, most people have jobs already. So they maybe have to work at night or whenever they do it. Um, and we're, we're, you know, I'm well aware of the fact that they don't have a lot of time, so I'm not expecting perfection. This is part of the reason why I look at the writing and the explanation of the work, because I recognize that, you know, who knows, maybe you have a full-time job, maybe you have kids at home, maybe you don't make whatever it is, whatever it is, maybe you only have an hour a day to do this on the side and

Starting point is 01:22:04 you're already tired. I get all of that. So I'm more. Whatever it is. Whatever it is. Maybe you only have an hour a day to do this on the side and you're already tired. I get all of that. So I'm more interested in how you approach the project and how you describe what you did and why you did it. So anyway, they would do, for example, we take a screen from Basecamp and say, so to get really specific about this, like here's the way you add people to a Basecamp project. What would you do to make this better? Now, you have no data. You're not talking to anybody about it. I just want to know what you would do. Like what would, what would you do? Because a lot of the work at Basecamp is all based on what would you do? We don't, we don't do a lot of user testing. Um, we don't do, we do use customer interviews and stuff, but we don't get into a testing lab. We don't watch people use

Starting point is 01:22:43 our product. We don't do any of that. So, and we don't really into a testing lab. We don't watch people use our product. We don't do any of that. And we don't really look that much at usage data to really determine what we're going to do. So a lot of this is about gut and feel and what would you do? What's wrong with the screen, in your opinion? I'm really interested in people's opinions. I want people to have a point of view when I hire them. I don't want people to say, well, I need this data and that data to make decisions. I go, yeah, I get all that, but what would you do? I want to know what you I'm hiring you. What would you do? So anyway, so they do the work and then, um, they, they, uh, present it. And I say, I say, present it any way you want. So there are no guidelines. Um, I just say, present it any way you want. But what I guess the one guideline is like, I want to understand why you did what you

Starting point is 01:23:23 did. So some people present this work as like an elaborate website with a bunch of different screens. Some people present it as a PDF, a static PDF. Some people write something up and sort of tell a linear story with screenshots interspersed. There's a variety of different ways people do it. But ultimately, I'm looking at the explanation of the work and the sort of the thought behind the ideas that are presented. That's what I'm most curious about. It's not necessarily where I don't know if the work is great because you're already a finalist. So I already know that you're capable of designing things. Well, what I want to make sure I understand is, is where the ideas are coming from,

Starting point is 01:23:57 how they're filtering through your head, how they're filtering through your fingers into the design itself. Um, and, and why you did what you did and can you defend it? One of the things is even when I disagree, even when I, I should say, even when I agree with the, the solution, I'm, I'm always going to push back on it. Um, in these kind of situations, because I want to see how people take criticism as well. That's a big part of this, which is like constructive criticism and critique. I want to see that one of the things we don't do and we don't believe in at all are like these riddles and this bullshit test crap. The McKinsey, how many golf balls can you fit into 747 type stuff? I understood because yeah, like everything we try to do at base camp is about real stuff. So like

Starting point is 01:24:39 this is actually a real project that we would take on. It's not bullshit and it's real. So that's riddles and stuff. Forget it. So real work. I want to see how you explain it, what you do with it, why you do what you do with it. And then I'm going to push back on it and see how you respond on it or respond with it. And that says a lot. One of the designers we hired recently for iOS, Tara Mann is her name. And one of the things I was really impressed with when she delivered her project and we started talking about it was that when we were going through it, she goes, you know, I don't even know if I like what I did here. And I loved that because that shows, first of all, a real sense of confidence in like talking to an employer and going, I don't even know if I liked

Starting point is 01:25:17 what I did here. Like that's most people like, this is the best thing in the world. This isn't the best idea ever. Like this is, but she's like, you know, I, I think I like it, but I'm not totally sure. And I liked that. We dug into that. And then we got into like why she didn't think it was great. And that was just a very real conversation. I felt like I could work with someone like this. Absolutely. Because they're, they don't think that everything they do is going to be great. And they're, they're self-aware enough to recognize that and we can talk it through and figure it out. And that was, that was a great thing. So, um, there could have been, for example, in this case, there weren't, but there could have been five designers who were better than her visually. Anyway, I still would have gone with her because of her sort of her approach to the work and her

Starting point is 01:25:56 honesty about it. That's what I'm looking for when I talk to somebody who I'm about to hire. What would be an example of pushing back, but let's just create a hypothetical or a real example yeah and then what would uh trip the wire as far as red flags go or uh positive indicators sure so um i can't really it's hard to describe that particular project because we'd all have to be looking at it to point to point out that it could be anything. I'm just wondering, I mean, in other words, this pushback, like, wow, I think this really sucks. What say you? Or is it like, Hmm, not sure how I feel about that. Or is it something else? Yeah, it's more, it's more, obviously the latter. I don't ever say anything sucks. Um, I was using that just because of the rejection. I get it. Yeah,

Starting point is 01:26:45 totally. Yeah. Right. The five, five thing too. No, it's, it's more, um, you know, I'm not sure that, that I see why, you know, you went down this road or, um, doesn't this seem like a lot of steps or, uh, you know, um, this, why, you know, this word, uh, save, maybe it should be preview. Like why is it save? I kind of usually push backs with questions. I don't understand this or help me understand this. That's kind of the real one I like to use. I'm not sure I get this.

Starting point is 01:27:14 Can you help me understand this? But sometimes the red flags are very clear. People hunch down into a defensive posture and, and fight for their idea, which is fine. It's good to do that sometimes, but not when it's like, help me understand why, you know, why you went this direction. It's like, Oh, you know, I went this direction because I felt like it was the best possible thing. Like there's some sort of when people get rushed about things, I actually like when someone takes a pause and goes, Hmm, let me think about that. Well, here's what I went through to get to here. Like

Starting point is 01:27:48 the reason I use the word save was because, uh, you know, this, this reason or that reason, or the reason I called it a draft and not a preview is because of this and that I'm more interested in people retracing their steps than, than just sort of purely explaining their, the, the outcome. Um, that's not really, that's kind of a deeper thing, but you'll see people in, in design reviews who get very defensive very quickly. And they, they, they, you can tell that they're not listening anymore. They're just, um, they're telling you what they want you to listen to instead of listening to what you have to say. That's very obvious in design reviews. When that comes up, it's, it's very clear. So it's, it's that, but I just fundamentally, I'm looking for, uh, uh, a deep degree of introspection in the work and an

Starting point is 01:28:36 understanding of how they ended up there. It's kind of like, if you think about, uh, back in, you know, school where your teacher would ask you to show the work when you did a math problem, um, what they're basically looking for is they're looking to see if you understand how you came out back in school where your teacher would ask you to show the work when you did a math problem, what they're basically looking for is they're looking to see if you understand how you came out with the answer versus like, did you somehow memorize this or guess? Or was it lucky? Or did you actually understand how you arrived there? It's kind of the same thing. I want people to show their work basically. And that doesn't mean showing like all the drafts of the design work necessarily. It's not like going through previous versions it's again coming down to explaining the the path that they took to land where they

Starting point is 01:29:12 landed that's what i'm looking for yeah that makes perfect sense and this is also um with the understanding that uh very different company from company from Basecamp, but, uh, I've spent a lot of time with Matt Mullenweg of Automatic, which runs wordpress.com among other things. And he values written communication exceptionally highly. Uh, and they do all their interviews via text and, uh, also have every, at least for a long period, up until maybe, I want to say at least 50 or 100 employees, had every prospective employee knew they would have to spend, and I don't know if this is part of the vetting process or post-hiring, a week or two handling customer service. And. Uh, and which also not to say it's perfect for

Starting point is 01:30:06 every company, certainly, uh, but also tells you a lot more than just how they handle a user error customer service situation, right? If they refuse to do that, what does that tell you? Right. If they do it poorly, what does it tell you? There's a lot more than just the words that come out of them. Yeah. And, you know, actually at our company, everybody works customer service also. So, um, no matter what position you're in, every, every single person rotates one day through customer service, every number of days, like we have 54 employees in the company, about 15 or 16 on customer support. So about 30 of us every 30 days, we rotate through into one day of customer service. And that's another reason why it's important for you to be able to write is because, um, on that one day a month or one day, every 40 days or whatever, uh, you are, uh, on the

Starting point is 01:31:01 front lines speaking with customers and, and empathizing with them, understanding what they're dealing with, helping them understand what they don't understand, helping us understand what we don't understand, all of that stuff, which is what customer service is really all about. Of course, it's also about troubleshooting and solving immediate problems. But a lot of it, too, is getting to the real, what are they really asking for and why? And what are we doing wrong? And what were our blind spots? It's all that stuff.

Starting point is 01:31:32 And a lot of that comes down to having a conversation with the customer. And all of our customer service is done via email or Twitter or chat or something. So we don't have a phone, although we do do some phone support, but we don't have a phone number that you can call in, for example. So it's all written. So we want to make sure that if we're going to put someone in front of customers, they know how to write as well. So that is a big part of it too.

Starting point is 01:31:52 I didn't know that Automatic did that as part of their hiring process, but I love the idea. Yeah, it's such a key skill for so many reasons. For people who want to become better writers, better communicators, are there any books, resources, exercises that you would recommend? There is one of my favorite books is called Revising Prose and the cover is horrible. It's like, uh, that's how you can spot it. Yes. It's like a CD ROM and a pencil or something. It's like, what? I don't even understand how that happened. Maybe they've revised it since, but I think it's that bad still. It's forget the author and you, you know, you can look it up and put the notes, but, um, is that he dissects things one sentence at a time and his, his ability to, to take a sentence and cut it up and explain it and simplify it. I think it's a wonderful skill and a great, great book. Uh, so it's not really even about writing paragraphs or stories or how

Starting point is 01:33:04 to organize and outline stuff. It's like a sentence at writing paragraphs or stories or how to organize and outline stuff. It's like a sentence at a time and figuring out how to structure things. Love it. Great book. It's actually, you know, there's this class I've talked about before I've written a blog post about this, this class that I'd want to teach. Have I ever taught a college class?

Starting point is 01:33:18 I think, I think one of the biggest disservices that, that, that college does actually is that it doesn't teach people to write well. In fact, it teaches a lot of people, especially in MBA programs, to write very poorly. It's so true. It's so true. A lot of it's based on length, like write a 10 page thing and, you know, or whatever. So the class I've always wanted to teach if I was ever to teach would be a writing class. I don't care what the subject is. It doesn't matter. Pick a subject. I want you to write like a five page version of that article. I want you to write a one page version of it. I want you to write a five paragraph version, a five sentence version,

Starting point is 01:33:53 and a one sentence version. That's the assignment. And we would do that over and over and over and over with different topics. I don't care the topic. It doesn't matter. I just want you to be able to write at different levels of resolution and continue to clarify it as you cut things out to the point where you can write it in one sentence. And of course, there'll be more detail in the five paragraph version. Maybe it was three pages, one page, three paragraphs, one sentence, whatever it is. But this idea of going from writing the long piece and then cutting it down and editing, editing is something that's rarely taught and really getting, trying to hone in on what it is and realize, and like the big idea here is that you can realize that so much of the stuff that you put in the five page version just doesn't

Starting point is 01:34:32 really matter that much. And actually the one page version is probably better. And maybe the three paragraph version is much better than the one page version. And you, there's probably a point where you, you, you begin to lose it, but it's still the great exercise. So I love to see that kind of writing instruction versus length, which sent like long, long things, and then not actually editing. This is the other thing that, that, um, blows me away about education. Um, it's funny. I was talking to my, my son's in preschool and I was talking to the head of the school about, about this. Um, and the thing that's not taught in schools is iteration and iteration is everything outside of school. Um, where you, you do something and then like you, you, you, you know, launch it or ship or whatever. And then you're onto making a better version of that thing pretty quickly. In school, we would always do something and sort of hand it in and that assignment would be done. And then you go on and do another assignment. You never get to revisit things. In the professional world, you're revisiting things all the time.

Starting point is 01:35:36 And I would love to see, you know, you hand something in. This like this one page to, you know, five page to one page to five paragraphs, whatever. That's a version of a short term version of like revisioning in a sense, perhaps the better way of doing that would be you first hand in the five page version, you get it back with notes, then you're required to write the one page version of that. Um, but anyway, the point is, is that being able to revisit something that you did and make it better and hand it in and revise it again and hand in revise it again, um again is something that you don't see often. Sometimes you see that with drafts in a document, but it's not really quite

Starting point is 01:36:10 the same as being able to come back to the idea. So, for example, if you're doing something in school and you're building something or you're doing a science project or whatever and you do it and you're done, you present it and it's over, like maybe a month later, you're going to have a better idea for something that you did. And you go, I want to do that again. But school doesn't give you a chance to do anything again, really, unless you like, unless you're stupid, and you're held back. And they say you can't go for further, you know, of course, not stupid, that's the wrong word. But like, the school's like, you're, you know, you didn't, you didn't hit the criteria. So we're gonna let you do it again. Like, in some ways, of course, there's a lot of other reasons why this probably

Starting point is 01:36:44 isn't necessarily a good thing for people for kids. for kids. Um, but, uh, to get a chance to do it all over again, maybe you see it better the second time. Um, so anyway, I would love to see revision and iteration built into education and this sort of writing assignment as sort of a way to get at that. And I pulled up this book and the cover is truly truly awful. Like, what is the CD even doing there? How did that happen? Is it like clip art or something? I don't even know how that happened. I'd love to get to the bottom of that.

Starting point is 01:37:13 But Revising Prose, Richard A. Lanham. Does that sound right? I think so, yeah. It's got to be, because the cover is this pen and a CD on top of a page with a bunch of markups on it. Richard A. Lanham, another book that I found very helpful. I haven't read it in a very long time, but it's called Simple and Direct. It should be fairly easy to write. I don't remember the name of the author. I had the great good fortune, maybe too many modifiers on that, but now that I'm thinking about writing the great

Starting point is 01:37:45 good helpful fortune of taking a class in college i was at princeton undergrad with john mcphee who is a senior writer at the new yorker it's one of pulitzer or two at this point and the course was called the literature of fact it was about non-fiction writing creative non-fiction uh which doesn't mean making up 50%. It means taking fact and weaving it into a narrative, which John McPhee is exceptionally good at. And actually, one book I think you would really enjoy is called Draft No. 4, which is about his writing process. I think you'd be fascinated by it from a structural standpoint. Really fascinating. And it gets into the weeds, which is not for everybody, but I think, I think you'd appreciate it. And I remember the first time it was the first time we had our

Starting point is 01:38:32 writing assignments returned to us. So every week we had a seminar, a, which was 12 students or so we had to apply to get in a writing assignment and then a one-on-one session with McPhee to go over the writing assignment that he had already marked up and given to us. And I remember when he handed back the first writing assignment, uh, man, to all these students. And before he handed them out, he said, look, he didn't say, look, cause that's not what he would say. But he said, he said, I want you to know that you're all good writers. You can all write. So I don't want you to be intimidated by what I'm about to hand back.

Starting point is 01:39:10 And so he gave us back. You just saw student by student, their faces drop. And I got mine back. And there was more red ink on the page than black ink that I typed out. It really looked like there was more red ink and it became so clear how fuzzy so much of my thinking was how many unnecessary words there were, how much gristle and fat there was in between the actual meat that was necessary on the page. this story is that over the course of the next few weeks, as we were learning more, practicing more, and honing the sharpness of our writing, getting progressively less red ink, ideally, my grades in all of my other classes went up. And there was a very clear, super clear correlation between cleaning up my thinking and everything else running more smoothly.

Starting point is 01:40:08 It was really it could not have been more obvious. And such a such an incredibly valuable skill. It is, you know, something that I would also encourage people to do is to read Tom Petty lyrics. But if you read Tom, Tom Petty has such a wonderful efficiency in his storytelling and his lyrics and every word really counts and there's no filler. It's and he paints these really broad pictures with four or five words per phrase and really, truly is, I thought, one of the best, I mean, one of the best songwriters, of course, but really a great, just a great writer in general when you read the lyrics. So I would look at, look at that and go look at the pictures he can paint and the emotions he can

Starting point is 01:40:52 evoke and the, um, the story he can tell with very few words. He's extremely economical with his, with his, with his language or was, and, um, it's a great thing to read. So just go like, look at some of his albums, go look, go look up the lyrics online and, and's a great thing to read so just go like look at some of his albums go look go look up the lyrics online and and don't even listen to the songs but just read them and you go i i see where he's going with this and it's it's i always enjoy doing that from time to time he's just such a he was so good at that i will have to check that out elmore leonard also another fantastic one for people to look up and it makes me think you were talking about the, uh, the one page three or five paragraph, three paragraph, one paragraph, one line. It makes me think of the, the Hemingway story in one line, which I'm sure I'm going to get slightly wrong, but it was something right.

Starting point is 01:41:34 The, uh, uh, used baby shoes, never worn, or I fucked it up. Yeah. Baby, baby shoes for sale, baby shoes for sale, comma, never worn. Right. Uh, the sort of five or six word story. Uh, baby shoes for sale, baby shoes for sale, comma, never worn. Uh, the sort of five or six word story. Uh, it's, it's a really valuable exercise. Uh, and, and it's, it's not just for academic purposes, as you pointed out, translates to everything. Uh, vintage watches. Oh my God. Tell me about, tell me about vintage watches. I'm into, I'm into that. Um, I'm into vintage watches. Uh, let's see why. Well, first of all, I'm into watches. Um, I'm into a lot of things that, um, seem like there can only be one way to do it, but there turns out there's a lot of ways. So for example, I love, uh, chair,

Starting point is 01:42:24 like designing chairs. I don't design to myself, but I love looking at chairs, which are, are, are very simple things. It's like, you know, you sit on them and that's what they do. And you're like, well, there can only be a few ways to do a chair, but it turns out there's so many different ways to do a chair. It's really interesting. And watches are the same thing. Do you have any favorite chairs just as a side note? Uh, I like a lot of, uh, stuff that she, uh, stuff that – his name is French, so I'll probably get it wrong. But Jean Prové, if I'm getting that right. I love his designs, his styles.

Starting point is 01:42:55 There's a bunch of others. Maybe I'll send you an email afterwards to some of my favorite chairs. Perhaps I'll send you some links. Sure. But I – so watches are similar in that like a watch, basically like, look, it's there to tell the time some watches can do more than others, but basically it's there to tell the time and like, okay, there's, you've got to, especially if you look at analog watches, which is why one of the reasons I like vintage stuff is it's like,

Starting point is 01:43:17 you know, a couple hands, three hands maybe, or two hands. And, but there's so many different designs and so many different styles and so many different elements and so many different approaches to it that there's an endless amount of, of curiosity in it for me. Um, and plus the cool thing about mechanical watches, uh, is that, um, they're such a, it's a combination of all the things I like. So it's design, it's engineering, it's materials, it's, it's like a patina and like seeing age on things. I love things that age well. Um, it's, it's art, um, it's science. Like if you, if you crack open one of these watches and look at the movement, like there's serious engineering going on in there and some science, material science and some really fascinating stuff. And like the idea that, that

Starting point is 01:44:01 mankind can capture time and tell it this way using springs and gears. It's kind of an amazing thing and be that accurate. So I've always sort of – I haven't always been into them, but my dad was into them. Still – maybe still is. I don't know if he collects stuff anymore, but he used to when I was younger. And I got into them. And the vintage thing, I'm actually kind of into vintage and modern these days. But more so – I found vintage interest more interesting because there's more character in, in, in the objects because they have time on them. They actually

Starting point is 01:44:29 have, you know, age on them. And that's kind of cool to see how things age. And that's one of the reasons why, um, like I like a lot of natural materials in general. Now we're like, I'm branching into architecture discussion here, but I like brick. Uh, I like wood. I like things that, that pick up age over time versus like a lot of modern materials. I feel like they don't age very well. They look great when you do the photo shoot right after it's built and then they just age poorly and they show their age in a way that's not flattering. But in fact, it takes it detracts from from the quality of the object. So it's cool to see. The other thing is I'll say about vintage watches is that it's really cool to be able to look down on your wrist and go, this thing I have in my wrist has been working for 50 years. And if someone looks after it five more times over the next 50 years or next 100 years, it'll still work.

Starting point is 01:45:16 There's basically nothing that is being created today where that is true anymore except really watches, mechanical watches. Most other things these days are disposable. And so it's kind of a great reminder that you can actually build things that last and you can look down your wrist and go, someone else 50 years ago was looking down at their wrist, seeing the exact same thing and it worked just as well. And 50 years from now, my kid can look down on his wrist or her wrist and see the same thing I looked at to tell the same amount of time and it's going to work as well. And I just kind of love that idea. So anyway, that's sort of why I'm into it. So a few things.

Starting point is 01:45:49 The first is at some point I need to introduce you to Peter Attia, MD, who's a close friend of mine and an extreme watch nerd. Okay, good. I think you guys would have a lot to talk about. If you could only pick, and I have no idea how many watches you have. You don't have to divulge that. But if you could only choose one to three watches to keep, do any come to mind where you're like, yep, these are definitely on the list? Yes. So I have a – it's called a Rolex Milgauss 6541 is the model number, what they would call the reference number in the watch world. It's from 1958. And I just think it's the coolest fucking thing ever. So I just love the way it looks. It's so cool looking. I have an old Patek Philippe. I'm blanking on the reference right now. It was built for – similar to this Milgauss that I was telling you about. scientists who worked in high magnetic environments and, uh, watches, watches, typically

Starting point is 01:47:06 vintage ones, especially now modern ones were a little bit different, but, um, they don't work well in magnetic environments because the, the spring that's inside them, once it's magnetized, it can't tell time properly anymore, basically. So, so these watches were built for, for scientists to be a magnetic or anti-magnetic. And so the Milgauss was one of them. And then, and then Patek made one. I can't believe I can't remember the reference right now. Anyway, you can send it, you can send it with your links to the chairs. I'll send it to you. Exactly. Um, it's also an, an anti-magnetic watch. Um, and it was sort of their answer to the Milgauss. So it's, it's funny that like the two things I come to mind immediately are like watches for scientists, which, you know, it's just the, what a cool niche, um, you know, to, to make, make a product for

Starting point is 01:47:52 scientists in the fifties, like how cool, like kind of, if you can imagine scientists in the fifties with their white coats and like learning all sorts of new things about physics in the world and biology, uh, and all sorts of really cool stuff happened back then. Um, that those are the two watches that immediately come to mind that, that I really, really dig. Um, there, there's another one, um, actually, which is, uh, I'm going to get this name wrong too. So I'm just going to call it, uh, it's, it's Jaeger LeCoultre or Jaeger LeCoultre or something like that? I can never, I never exactly know what it is. Um, anyway, uh, it's called the Polaris from 1968. Um, it's a dive watch built for, for divers and it has an alarm on it. Um, a mechanical alarm, which is really cool and really unique and rare, especially at the time, which I think is really beautiful and just a really neat complication for

Starting point is 01:48:43 a mechanical watch to have an alarm on it. Um, so you could say like, for example, at five o'clock, I want this thing to buzz very loudly. So I would know that it's five o'clock, which of course is so silly and easy to do with an iPhone or any digital thing. But mechanically it's actually, it was quite a challenge and very few watches have ever had a mechanical alarm. I also like the way it looks. So anyway, there's some of that stuff that I'm into. There's a bunch of other things. Um, but those are the kind of the three that initially come to mind as ones that I'm really into. If, if you had to give a Ted talk on obsessions and it couldn't be related to your company, it couldn't be related to watches. This has, these are personal obsessions. What, what might you talk about that,

Starting point is 01:49:24 that a lot of people wouldn't know about? Well, I don't know if I'd be able to talk about it. I'm imagining all of the unacceptable, socially awkward sexual fetishes that you wouldn't be able to talk about on the TED stage. But continue. I guess I didn't finish the sentence. I said maybe I wouldn't be able to talk about it with authority, let's say. So let's say one of the things that I'm really into, strangely, is prairie restoration. Okay, so stand back here for a second. Let me fill you in on this. So maybe 10 years ago, I bought a farm

Starting point is 01:50:01 up in rural Wisconsin, about three hours from Chicago, where I live. It's like 50 miles west of Madison, Wisconsin, for those who kind of know the geography. And it's very rural land. It's kind of hilly. It's very beautiful. I bought it and I'd always wanted some land. I love nature. I love just getting out and walking in nature. It's just to me the most refreshing thing you could ever do. And so I bought this land and I looked at it and I thought it was just beautiful and amazing. And it was. But I learned a couple of years in that was full of weeds and invasive species and like not really the way it should be or should or was. But modern farming and the fact the land's been tilled a bunch of times and there's invasive species and stuff, it sort of took over the land.

Starting point is 01:50:48 So I got on this kick to find a prairie restoration specialist, which I learned that there's this thing called prairie restoration, where you could sort of bring the land back to the way it was, to prairie in this particular part of the country. And the prairie is in fact the most endangered natural habitat in the united states there's only like something like a thousand or something acres left of it in the entire united states so people talk about old growth forests being gone and stuff there's actually more old growth forests in the united states and there's prairie prairies like gone basically but i visited some actual prairies that have been restored and also some some that are still around and endangered

Starting point is 01:51:23 due to agriculture i assume or basically farming yeah, you know, all the land has been tilled basically for farmland. Um, and, um, and I visited some of these prairies and they just are the most beautiful thing. Uh, hundreds of species of plants and flowers and, and, and, and, and shrubs and insects and birds. And it's just these, this beautiful, beautiful, beautiful thing. And so I have this land, it's quite a bit of acreage and I, and I started hiring, hired this guy to help me restore it. We've been doing it for seven, eight years now or something, bringing the land back to the way it was like five acres at a time. Um, and planting native species and, and, uh, and getting rid of all the invasives

Starting point is 01:52:07 and also doing the same thing. There's some forest on the, on the property and I'm doing oak Savannah restoration. So, uh, a lot of invasive trees have grown up, uh, around these big, huge, beautiful oak trees that are hundreds of years old, but they've been crowded by these other trees. So we're getting rid of some of the other trees and letting the oaks be the way they were and then returning the forest floor to the way it was. And it's just such a incredibly rewarding, but super slow process. It takes like you seed these prairies. First of all, you have to like kind of get rid of everything that's there and then weeds pop up and you have to get rid of everything that's there because there's what's called a seed bank in the soil.

Starting point is 01:52:38 So the seed bank is basically hundreds of years worth of seeds that have just been waiting to sprout. And so you have to kind of like you clear out all the living stuff and then like there's all these seeds that are then now exposed in sunlight and then they sprout and you have to basically just kind of nuke it all for a while until there's nothing basically left in the soil or invasive species left in the soil. And then you can go and get native species by actually doing seed gathering. You can gather seeds at certain prairies or you can buy seeds, native seeds. You can also find individual prairie plants in what's called prairie remnants, which are like small vestiges of old prairies that might still be on your property and harvest

Starting point is 01:53:14 the seeds from those. So it's this really, really slow, amazing thing. Then you seed it and then it might take five or six years for a prairie to grow because prairie plants typically invest all their energy in the first few years in the roots. So you don't see anything growing. It's really frustrating. It looks like shit for a long time. And all of a sudden it starts to come up and then it's just so rewarding and so wonderful to walk through. And, um, so that's something that I'm really into in a deep way. And, uh, probably most people don't know about it in general. I didn't know about it until a few years ago, but I love it so much. And I'm kind of on this crusade now to like this anti-corn crusade. You know, I want to basically, whenever land comes up next to my land,

Starting point is 01:53:57 I want to buy it because most of it's corn. And corn is sort of at the root of a lot of different problems. And I just want to like get rid of the corn and return the land to the way it was and sort of create this patchwork of land and then eventually put it in some sort of trust so it can never be touched. And there can always be these these beautiful tracks of land forever. Of course, it have to be maintained and that would have to be how the trust would have to be able to figure that out. Maybe part of it is farm to fund that. But anyway, that's something that I would probably love to talk about, although I don't know enough about it to give a TED Talk. But I can certainly talk someone's ear off for about an hour on all the little details that I've learned. What a fantastic project.

Starting point is 01:54:34 It's such a fun thing, man. having to embrace slowness in at least one compartment of your life seems to be a nice counterbalance to potentially external or internal drives, not necessarily in you, but in a lot of people, certainly myself included at times to do bigger things faster. Right. No doubt. And the other thing about that I'll say is that you can't even speed this process up if you wanted to. And that's what's so awesome about it. And by the way, the process is multi-layered and multi-tiered. And probably by this point, you're like, I should never have asked him this question. But anyway, real quick, what's cool about it too, is not only do the plants, like new plants come up and all sorts of species bloom,

Starting point is 01:55:23 but you start to see new insects and new insects come a few years later. And they, they, they somehow you're like, where'd they come from? And like, they're still out there, but they find it and they, and they, and they're, they're, they're wired to proliferate in these environments. And then you see new birds and new bird species. There's like a hundred and something bird species now on my property. When originally there weren't, there was like 40 and you're like, where'd they come from? And they just come from, they find it somehow and they come in. And then like, the other thing I've been learning is if you build a pond, for example, I don't have any pond, but I have a river. But if there's a pond, if you just fill a pond with water within a few years, you will have

Starting point is 01:55:55 fish. And you're like, what, how does that happen? Like, how could that possibly be? And it turns out like fish are, you know, a bird might be eating a fish and drop it before it's dead and it pops into there. And that could have been a pregnant fish. And before you know it, like the whole thing is like life, it's just waiting for, so it's not waiting, it's everywhere. But like, if you restore a property, you restore some, some, some land and give it some space and let it do what it does. Nature is so, so resilient and just wants to thrive. And it's so cool to watch it happen on its own schedule and say nature is in never, it's never in a hurry. That's the thing that I love so much about it is that it's never in a hurry, but it accomplishes everything. And that's

Starting point is 01:56:38 a quote that I read somewhere and I don't know where I read it, who said it, but I love it. And I always think about it, which is that it'll take its time and it'll get wherever it needs to get done, done. And however long it takes, it takes, which is such an analog or such an opposite, not an analog and opposite to humanity, which is always rushing, which is actually typically destroying and which is getting faster and faster and faster. And I don't think it, the right path, but it is what it is. Thank you for sharing. I love that. It also makes me think about how much of life is setting the conditions for good things to happen, not trying to force good things. And, and, uh, to give another example that, uh, the kind of biohacker slash nutrition crowd might be interested in is the contrast between probiotics where you're say, swallowing bacteria, you hope will take root in your gut among other

Starting point is 01:57:34 things, right? Which often does not work very well. Uh, can contrasted with prebiotics where you're consuming different types of foodstuffs. It could be certain types of fiber, baobab root, for instance, which is effectively, this is very simplified, but restoring the soil conditions in your gut so that the types of bacteria you want to grow naturally begin to take root and grow. And you can't just take a handful of seeds and like drive them into the ground, expecting them to pop out overnight. It just doesn't, doesn't work that way. And so thinking about setting the conditions is something I've been thinking a lot about is to setting the conditions for positive emergent properties. And then

Starting point is 01:58:22 secondly, you know, just think about this today because I was watching a documentary last night where this mother was giving her son advice and she said, I just want you to learn patience. You need to learn patience. And you, I've been thinking, I've thought over the years a lot about this word and whether I need more or less patience. And I was thinking today that it's, maybe it's unproductive to think of it in terms of more or less patience, but rather in terms of developing the ability to discern between the things that can and should be accelerated and the things that can't be accelerated. And if you attempt to accelerate them, we'll just do more damage. Related to that, I mean, I love this idea that you're bringing up about probiotics versus prebiotics and creating the conditions for growth or creating conditions for desired

Starting point is 01:59:12 outcomes or whatever. And I'm going to tie it all back. I mean, we're tying this like, let me tie like prairie restoration to business building, which is, and gut building basically. And, you know, that gut health and the whole thing, which is that part of the two is, is not only creating the conditions for things to thrive, but also not creating conditions for certain things to thrive. So, um, something, for example, our business is self-funded. Yeah, we did take money from Bezos in 2006, but that was a personal founder shares. None of that money ever went to our business. David and I took some money off the table. So we've been a hundred percent bootstrapped and funded by customers ever since day one, which means we've created a situation where we don't have to answer to anybody. We don't have to be in

Starting point is 01:59:52 anyone else's timescale. I don't have to build something that I know is going to have to be sold in seven years because a fund is coming due and like they need their money out of it. Or I also don't have to build something that grows at a certain rate because, you know, you need to grow at a certain rate for a certain return. We don't care about returns. The conditions we've set are not to have returns thrive and generate returns for others. But actually what we've tried to set up is conditions for profitability and for sustainability because as long as we make more money than we spend, we can exist for as long as we want. There's no external pressures, artificial pressures that we've set up or

Starting point is 02:00:30 conditions that we've created that will force us to make a decision about when we have to sell the business at some point. So it's not only about creating conditions for thriving. It's about like, in fact, putting up barriers for certain things not to happen. And I've been thinking a lot personally about putting a lot of I've been putting a lot of energy into making sure certain things don't happen versus putting energy in to make sure certain things do happen. And I think if you can prevent a lot of things from happening by thinking about what you don't want, you do create the conditions and for other things to come in, which are the things that you actually do want. So, um, I think there's a lot of similarities here between nature and business and, and, you know, gut health is nature as well, of course, and, and conditions and letting things sort of thrive and preventing other things from happening. I mean, it's cool. Like for example, we have hundreds, uh, over a hundred species of birds now on the property. We didn't put bird seed out. Like, you know, you don't put bird seed out. What you do is you put seed out that grows in the ground that then creates the conditions where

Starting point is 02:01:30 actually it grows seed. So it does actually grow bird seed, right? It grows bird seed. It just takes five years and then birds find it. And then like everything just happens the way it naturally should at the right pace and the right scale. And it's just very rewarding to see that happening. And I think it does color your, your impression of other things and sort of shows you in many ways how sort of silly speed is in a lot of other things where it's injected unnecessarily and sort of the damage that it does. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's, uh, it's a topic we go on and on with for, for hours, I'm sure. So maybe we should do that at some point.

Starting point is 02:02:07 Yeah, another time. But let me wrap up with just a few more questions. And one of them I've asked you before, and this will sound familiar, and then I'll pause for a second and buy a little time. But if you could have a giant billboard anywhere with anything on it, what would it say and why? It could be a quote, it could be a word, it could be a question, it could be anything. It could be someone else's quote. Now, I asked you this question in Tribe of Mentors, and you said one of these quotes, and you gave about 15 to 20, maybe more, 25 fantastic quotes. I mean, these are excellent quotes, but right now in your life, it doesn't have to relate to anything in the external wider world. Uh, let me, let me read a few just to give people a taste. And then I'd love to know which one you would pick

Starting point is 02:02:54 right now in your life. But let me pick a few here. If you think you're too small to be effective, you've never been in the dark with a mosquito, Betty Reese. Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket. Eric Hoffer. This one has proven very popular. The fairest rules are those to which everyone would agree if they did not know how much power they would have. John Rawls. And I'll read one more since we've mentioned him a few times. Price is what you pay.

Starting point is 02:03:22 Value is what you get. Warren Buffett. Where would you go at this point in your life with a message, a word, a quote, a question, anything on a gigantic billboard? Metaphorically, of course, getting a message out to millions or billions of people. Yeah. Well, I think it'd be fun just to say the word billboard on a billboard and just pay for it, pay for it for a hundred years. And there it is. It's called billboard. Um, but that would be kind of fun, but also gag. Um, I, I like that, that John Rawls quote so much, which is, uh, the fairest rules are the ones you would, I forget. Can you agree? Yeah. The fairest rules are those to which everyone would agree if they

Starting point is 02:04:00 did not know how much power they would have. Yeah, that to me is at the root of so many things. We've been dealing with a little bit of this in our in our own business. It's a little bit slightly different, but just like information asymmetry and recognizing that everybody has the same information. So they look at things through different lenses. And it's very important to recognize the fact that you can't just come at something one way because you know it. If someone else doesn't know it, you can't assume that they knew that. And, you know, there's it's the same sort of idea, which is which is you almost you can't be upset when someone has a reaction to something when they just have a different set of information. And similarly, you know, the rules are, you know, rules are based on like who has the power to make them.

Starting point is 02:04:47 Basically today, that's kind of how it is in almost everything. And so it's a good reminder that rules basically are the fairest to those who make them, unfortunately, but they would be the fairest if no one knew who they applied to. And it's just a good reminder on a lot of different levels. It's one of my favorite quotes. And I think that's probably something I would put up on a billboard. It'd be hard to read at 70 miles an hour as you speed by it, which is why I still like billboard. But, um, as a quote, I think it's the most meaningful, one of the most meaningful quotes and most important quotes to keep in mind, whatever it is that you do. Definitely. And I'll read, uh, I'll read one more just because actually I'll read two more of your quotes because there are many to choose from. Uh, here's one that applies certainly to

Starting point is 02:05:30 a few things we've talked about in the conversation, quote, not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted. William Bruce Cameron. And then the next and last one I'll read is by Albert Schweitzer. In the hopes of reaching the moon, men fail to see the flowers that blossom at their feet. Yeah. I've got a story, but let's – maybe for another time about that quote. Well, I can tell you now. Let's do it. Let's just get into it.

Starting point is 02:05:57 Sure. So I don't know. A number of years ago, I was invited to go to this, John Mata invited me to go to this thing, um, at the, at the glass house, uh, in new Canaan, Connecticut, I think it is, um, the Philip Johnson glass house. And it was like a summit on simplicity. And there was, I think 10 or 15 people invited. And, um, uh, one of the people invited was, was this older man's Japanese man. I think he was in his eighties or close to it. Almost everyone else was much younger, much, much younger twenties and thirties,

Starting point is 02:06:30 forties maybe. Um, and like I said earlier, I love, I love older people. So I sort of gravitated to him. He was really well dressed and just seemed interesting. And, um, I noticed that he was, um, whenever we were going, so the Philip Johnson glass house, the whole campus, I think is about 50 acres and there's maybe a dozen different buildings. And it's kind of a neat idea because Philip Johnson had this idea that it's actually one building and the hallways are just outside, um, which is kind of a cool thought. Um, but really it's like 12 different buildings. Like for example, his, he has an office, which was a separate building, which doesn't have a bathroom, doesn't have plumbing because he didn't need it because it's like it's still part of the house that has plumbing.

Starting point is 02:07:07 I just have to walk outside to get there. Anyway, we were walking between these houses and you have a 50 acre site. So there's kind of a bit of distance between these buildings. And I noticed that this guy was always last in the line to walk. And I kind of sat back with him on one of the walks. And and, you know, but he was also like it wasn't because he was old. That would be the first thing you would think that he's just older. So he's going to walk slower.

Starting point is 02:07:31 But actually, he's like, no. And I could tell that he was physically able to walk as fast as everybody else. It wasn't that he goes, no, everyone's just walking too fast and they're missing things as they go. He was so he just kneeled down and he, he looked, he took like this square foot of ground. And, um, uh, and by the way, I'd noticed as he was walking, he was looking down as well. So he's walking slowly and looking down and he, he just, he kind of took the square foot of, of, of land and like pointed out some flowers and some insects and some shapes and some stuff and says like, this is beautiful. People feel like they have to go all over the world to see something new. All they have to do is look down. Um, and if you

Starting point is 02:08:09 walk slowly and look down, like there's a world under your feet all the time, an interesting world. And he goes, these people ahead of me, they're younger. Yeah. Maybe they can walk a bit faster, but look at everything they're missing. Uh, and I just, that really just kind of totally smacked me in the face. I love this point. Like, yeah, they're going faster and they look like they're going somewhere, but look at everything they're missing along the way. And so, uh, that, uh, point about that other quote that you just brought up about going to the moon, missing the flowers, like that's sort of a similar thing, which is, you know, especially today where everyone's rushing all over the place, trying to get somewhere and you're like, where are you actually

Starting point is 02:08:47 going and what are you actually missing? And I thought that that, that moment, uh, this guy actually stopping and physically explaining that to me and looking down and pointing out some things was a really poignant thing and something I always have always remembered since then. What a lovely story. Yeah. He's a lovely man. I think he's still around. I'm sure he, from what I understand, he's, he's a Japanese, um, garden expert. He has an amazing Japanese garden apparently in his backyard somewhere in Northern California. Uh, and he's also like a wine connoisseur and supposed to be a really fascinating guy. I never really caught up with him afterwards. I always meant to, and I missed that opportunity and I should probably figure out how to get in touch with

Starting point is 02:09:21 them. But wonderful man, really interesting person, and I appreciate the lesson he taught me there. Well, if you track him down, let me know. It sounds like maybe the type of person to have on the podcast. Yeah, definitely. Someone who can really embrace the joy of missing out. Yeah, the Jomo. The Jomo. Jason, well, this has been so much fun.

Starting point is 02:09:42 I really appreciate you taking the time today to chat with me and share your stories with the world also. Well, thanks for having me. This is super fun. It's always fun to talk to you. And thanks for giving me so much time to do that. My pleasure. And is there, is there anything else before we wrap up that you would like to ask of the audience, suggest to the audience, any closing comments of any type? Nope. I don't have any. Actually, I like answering questions. So I don't I don't have any proclamations or anything to share. So I don't. If anyone wants to get in touch, I think you'll have some of that stuff. So feel free to hit me up on Twitter or wherever. Oh, the other thing, actually, I will mention, David and I, DHH and I

Starting point is 02:10:20 are doing this new YouTube channel, which is kind of something people have been asking for for a while. We're calling it Getting Real. And we're basically showing what our, like, kind of like you asked me, like, what's your day like? People are always like, what's your morning like? And what do you do? I'm like, well, why don't I just show you? So we're doing these videos of actually walking through code samples, walking through design decisions, walking through design reviews and making them all public. So I think it's kind of a neat thing to check out if you're interested in sort of how we look at design and how we look at code and how we look at writing. One of the things I actually did was I wrote an article for Inc. recently and I just recorded my screen and sort of talked out loud as I was writing it to sort of show like, here's how I read an article. I don't start with an outline. I start with the blank

Starting point is 02:10:59 sheet. I kind of just write and then I was sort of doing the director's cut as I went and editing as editing live as I went. And it's sort of a fun sort of thing. Um, so I'm doing some of that, which would be kind of fun to follow. People are interested in that. Um, other than that, I don't have anything else to, to share. You've, you've written a lot and you have many popular articles, essays, blog posts, et cetera, online. If someone wanted to start with one or two, are there one or two that you could mention as a gateway drug into the mind of Jason? Well, speaking based on our conversation today, there was this article I wrote about like, I've never had a goal, uh, which would be a good thing to start reading. I think that would be a good place to read. I think probably it's on,

Starting point is 02:11:42 it's on our blog signal versus noise, which is on medium. If you search for my name on Google and say, never had a goal, you'll probably land on that article. That'd probably be a good, Jason Fried never had a goal. That'd probably be a good one to read. And then, um, uh, I also wrote one about not having expectations, which might be another interesting thing to look at. Um, if there's any other ones, I'll, I'll, uh, I mean, there, there are some other ones, but I'm not sure if they'd be good places to start, but those might be a good place to start. Great. And I'll, uh, I'll include chairs, maybe prairie restoration, uh, the Polaris watch. Yeah. I'll send you all that stuff. We'll include all that in the show notes. So for people listening, you'll be able to find all of

Starting point is 02:12:23 that at Tim dot blog forward slash podcast, and just search Jason and he'll pop right up and you can find all of these links and more as well as every other episode. And Jason, at some point, maybe we'll do a round two and it'd be lovely to see you in person sometime. Yeah, you're down. Where are you now? I'm in Austin, Texas. Okay. You're in Austin. Okay. Well, at some point, yeah, we'll run into each other again, but I'd love to to do it again and if we want to do it in person maybe even better so let me know i'm around definitely yeah you know austin texas it's the third coast as they say they said that about chicago too so i think every every other place is the third coast yeah uh fantastic you need water to be a coast? I mean, at least in Chicago. Yeah, we have lakes. We do have some creeks.

Starting point is 02:13:06 We're not entirely dry. There are rivers. So we do have that. But to be continued and to everyone out there on the interwebs and beyond, as always, thank you for listening. Be safe or not. And pay attention to what's under your feet. So until next time, thanks for listening. me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun for the weekend. And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the

Starting point is 02:13:51 week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to 4hourworkweek.com. That's 4hourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it.

Starting point is 02:14:29 This episode is brought to you by WordPress.com. I love WordPress. I have used it for so many years. It's my go-to platform for blogging and creating websites. I use WordPress.com for everything, every day. My site, Tim.blog, is built on it. The website's for my books, including Tools of Titans, Tribe of Mentors. It's all on WordPress.com.

Starting point is 02:14:51 And the founder, Matt Mullenweg, one of my close friends, has appeared on this show many times. Just search Matt Mullenweg, Tequila Ferris, for quite an exciting time. Whether you're looking to create a personal blog, a business site, or both, you can make a really big impact right out of the box when you build on WordPress.com. And you'll be in good company. It's used by The New Yorker, Jay-Z, Beyonce, 538, TechCrunch, TED, CNN, and Time, just to name a handful.

Starting point is 02:15:20 And one of my friends at Google, she'll remain nameless, has told me that WordPress.com offers the quote, best out of the box SEO imaginable, end quote. And it's one of the many reasons that nearly 30% of the internet is run on WordPress. You do not need experience or to hire someone. That's perhaps the best part. WordPress.com guides you through the entire experience. They have hundreds of designs and templates that you can use, and it's easy to get started. There's no need to worry about security, upgrades, hosting, any of that. They offer 24-7 support, and they're very, very responsive.

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Starting point is 02:16:35 This episode is brought to you by Peloton. And I'd heard about Peloton over and over again, but I ended up getting a Peloton bike in the whole system after I saw my buddy Kevin Rose. I've known him forever, some of you know, and he showed up at my gate at my house a while back and he looked fantastic. I asked him, I said, dude, you look great. What the hell have you been up to? Because he's always doing a weird diet or another, but it only lasts like a week or two. So he always regresses to the mean after like 75 beers. And he said, I've been doing Peloton five days a week. Now that caught my attention because Kevin does nothing five days a week. And you know I love you, Kevin.

Starting point is 02:17:12 But it really piqued my curiosity, ended up getting a system, and it's become an integral part of my week. I love it, and I really didn't expect to love it at all because I find cycling really boring usually. But Peloton is an indoor cycling bike that brings live studio classes right into your home. You don't have to worry about fitting classes into your schedule or making it to a studio with some type of commute, etc. New classes are added every day and this includes options led by elite New York City instructors in your own living room. You can even live stream studio classes taught by the world's best instructors or find your own favorite class

Starting point is 02:17:48 on demand. And in fact, Kevin and I rarely do live classes and you can compete with your friends, which is also fun. Kevin, I'm coming after you. But we usually just use classes on demand. I really like Matt Wilpers and his high intensity training sessions that are shorter, like 20 minutes. And I think Kevin's favorite is Alex and everyone seems to have their favorite instructor or you can select by music duration and so on. Each Peloton bike includes a 22 inch HD touchscreen performance tracking metrics. I think that along with the real-time leaderboard are the main reasons that this caught my attention when cycling never had caught my attention before. It's really pretty stunning what they've done with the user interface to keep your attention.

Starting point is 02:18:35 The belt drive is quiet and it's smaller than you would expect. So it can fit in a living room or an office. I actually have it in a large closet, believe it or not, and it fits with no problem. So Peloton is offering all of you guys, listeners of the Tim Ferriss Show, a special offer, and it is actually special. Visit OnePeloton, that's O-N-E-P-E-L-O-T-O-N, OnePeloton.com, and enter the code TIM, all caps, T-I-M, at checkout to receive $100 off accessories with your Peloton bike purchase. Now, you might say, meh, accessories? Wait, I don't need fancy towels or whatever other supplemental bits and pieces. No, the shoes you need.

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The Tim Ferriss Show - #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms

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The Tim Ferriss Show - #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms

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