28. Jason Fried, Co-founder/CEO of 37signals

This week, we were lucky to talk to Jason Fried, co-founder and CEO of 37signals (the company behind Basecamp and HEY) and a co-author of Rework, Remote and a few other books. Chapters 02:07 - Introduction of Jason and 37signals 04:28 - Founder role vs. CEO role 07:27 - Working with the same co-founder for 20 years 10:00 - Disagreements between founders 12:21 - Disagree and commit principle 14:04 - The business side of things (numbers, accounting, etc.) 17:07 - On costs and profitability 19:51 - Intentionally keeping the company small 22:51 - Managing risk 25:01 - Jeff Bezos’ investment 31:24 - Working on several products at the same time 32:21 - Six-week cycles vs. long-term projects 37:40 - Evolution of 37signals 43:35 - Keeping products until the end of the Internet 46:18 - Calm companies 47:28 - Listening to customer feedback 53:15 - Jason's email is public. Is this a good idea? 56:57 - Employee performance reviews and fixed salaries 58:35 - Can the "calm company" mindset work in big companies? 1:04:41 - How does one find a calm company to work for? 1:06:36 - Publishing books 1:09:28 - On being contrarian and no politics at work Show notes Podcasts Rework Marc Randolph on The Tim Ferriss Show Books Rework Getting Real It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work Shape Up Maverick by Ricardo Semler Blog Posts Founder & CEO is kinda a BS title by Jason Fried Basecamp's new etiquette regarding societal politics at work by DHH But what if you're wrong? by DHH 👉 Full show notes with links: https://www.metacastpodcast.com/p/028-jason-fried Download the Metacast podcast app for free iOS: https://apps.apple.com/app/metacast/id6462012536 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.metacast.podcast.player Get in touch Contact us: [email protected] Ilya's LinkedIn Arnab's LinkedIn