Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company • Hacker News Board

Re: Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company

#31

Post by jasonfried » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 3:40 PM UTC

mhp wrote: post #12

Fog Creek and 37Signals are probably more alike than either of us would care to admit (ha!) and I could see Joel writing a very similar article a few years ago when we had 20some people at the company. But what works there, or at FC, is not a one size fits all answer. Having managers when there are 10 people are at your company makes no sense. The hierarchy starts out flat, you add a few more people and you're at 20,…

"But what works there, or at FC, is not a one size fits all answer."

Absolutely. I'm simply sharing our experiences with how we run things - that's what my Inc. articles are about. I wouldn't expect anyone else to do what we do because we do it. Find your own comfort zone. There are plenty of ways to do plenty of things.

Re: Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company

#32

Post by pavel_lishin » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 3:40 PM UTC

asolove wrote: post #14

mhp wrote: post #12

Fog Creek and 37Signals are probably more alike than either of us would care to admit (ha!) and I could see Joel writing a very similar article a few years ago when we had 20some people at the company. But what works there, or at FC, is not a one size fits all answer. Having managers when there are 10 people are at your company makes no sense. The hierarchy starts out flat, you add a few more people and you're at 20,…

+1 "managing isn't something everyone is good at." How many bad developers get moved to management to keep them from causing trouble, and then cause even more?

Isn't that basically the Peter Principle?

Re: Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company

#33

Post by tomlin » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 3:41 PM UTC

What Jason Fried is expressing is something I've been pondering for a while. And I think we'll (hopefully) see more of it (sorry, manager-types).

In my experience, managers in most departments have essentially taken the role of sheep-herders. So, I started to ask myself: why do I need a manager when I work well on my own, making smart, educated decisions that are based upon the ideals and successes of other smart, educated and passionate people?

After all, I'm being hired for my prowess, no? If I am, do I need a manager? And shouldn't you always hire people who have these sensibilities?

I think the message I find within this rubble of contemporary and progressive ideologies is: Hire smart. If you have a good team who understand their roles and how it pertains to the goals of the company, you don't need managers - not for a small or mid-sized company, anyway. Basecamp has been the best PM I've ever worked with - alive or binary. Software has already begun to facilitate the role perfectly for me.

Re: Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company

#34

Post by calibraxis » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 3:45 PM UTC

mhp wrote: post #12

Fog Creek and 37Signals are probably more alike than either of us would care to admit (ha!) and I could see Joel writing a very similar article a few years ago when we had 20some people at the company. But what works there, or at FC, is not a one size fits all answer. Having managers when there are 10 people are at your company makes no sense. The hierarchy starts out flat, you add a few more people and you're at 20,…

The article mentioned rotating managerial duties, and alternative methods of adding structure. Was your comment taking that into account?

Re: Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company

#35

Post by jasonfried » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 3:45 PM UTC

tofumatt wrote: post #25

abuzzooz wrote: post #15

Jason seems to imply that managers are useless when he says "We do not have room for people who don't do the actual work". I think this is very naive of him, and a little selfish. He's enjoying the title of "President" which, to me, is a purely managerial position. I doubt if he considers himself useless, but he's happy to label other managers useless. I might be wrong, but it seems that he's either too selfish to se…

Jason is a designer by trade, and is routinely involved with the design of 37signals' products. In the same vein, DHH is a partner in the company, but still writes code (as I understand it).

To clarify... "President" isn't a title I use, it's a title often ascribed to me as the founder of the company. Whenever anyone asks for my title I tell them we don't have titles. If they require one for whatever they are writing, I say you can say president or founder if that works, but I'd prefer if they didn't say anything other than founder since founder isn't a title as much as it is a fact.

Re: design. Yes, I design. It's the primary thing I do. Design, sketch, work on product simplification, design/think about user experience, etc. DHH still codes as well (he's working on some nice enhancements to Highrise right now, in fact). Both David and I would prefer to design and code all day, but it's not always possible. Lately it's been more possible so we've bee doing it more often.

Re: Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company

#36

Post by jasonfried » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 3:47 PM UTC

mcdowall wrote: post #20

I find it outstanding that they have 5m users and only 5 support staff!. I would love to know how they manage that.

Simple products mean less support requirements. Although, we're going to be growing the support team so we can reduce the ticket load per person and create more time for other support-related writing/design projects.

Re: Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company

#37

Post by terryjsmith » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 3:48 PM UTC

There seems to be a rift here between what people are good at/what they want to do now and what they want to do later. I consider myself a good programmer, but it's not where I want to be forever. I have always wanted to branch out and learn multiple facets (management, service, sales, etc.) and this seems like it would be limiting in that regard. I guess I just wouldn't be the target of 37signals?

Without wanting to sound snide, do you look for people who want to stay in the same role forever? It surprises me that people's ambitions to branch out and take on more responsibility haven't caused this to come up before. A salary bump, more benefits, and more vacation time wouldn't help me placate my desire to learn about other skill sets.

Re: Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company

#38

Post by kwis » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 3:49 PM UTC

michaelchisari wrote: post #23

pmjordan wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At Google's scale? Successfully? I find that rather unlikely. If you have any examples of this, please do share. Otherwise, all I can imagine is reducing the depth of the tree, and in some cases not to make it a strict tree, but a somewhat interconnected graph. (that said, throwing people into distinct "manager" and "engineer" bins is disingenuous anyway, a manager managing engineers had better have some kind of engi…

The Mondragon worker cooperative federation has 85,000 employees. If you look at how it's structured, it's not hard to imagine how Google could operate similarly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

Mondragon has annual revenues of €174/employee. I have trouble viewing that as a proven model.

Re: Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company

#39

Post by kenjackson » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 3:53 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #32

asolove wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 "managing isn't something everyone is good at." How many bad developers get moved to management to keep them from causing trouble, and then cause even more?

Isn't that basically the Peter Principle?

The Peter Principle is less cynical, but probably more realistic. It's that you get promoted for doing a good job, but eventually you get promoted into a job you're not good at -- at which point you stop being promoted and you stay in a role that you're not suited for.

Note, there's nothing malicious that happens here. No one is trying to promote a bad developer. People are largely doing what they think makes sense -- promoting top performers.

Re: Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company

#40

Post by MrMan » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 3:53 PM UTC

jasonfried wrote: post #24

rishi wrote: post #16

"And because we don't have a marketing department, we don't have a chief marketing officer." 37 signals is amazing at marketing. Their blogs. Their books. Video Lectures. Mission statements. Guest posts.

To clarify, we think everything we do is marketing. From how the error messages are written, to customer service, to copywriting in our emails, to the cancellation process, to clarity of message, to how every single thing in each product works, it's all marketing. Marketing is everyone's responsibility. It's the sum total of everything we do.

37Signals is ubiquitous in a certain way on the internet - we are smiling! We are about our products! No look over here we are about education! Come to our conference and learn how to run a small business! It is like Martin Fowler and Joel Spoelsky had a child and it was nurtured by Saatchi and Saatchi.