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All or something (2009)

37signals.com

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Re: All or something (2009)

#21

Post by darrellsilver »

danko wrote: post #9

This, to me, is the best counterpoint I've read to Michael Arrington's rant from a few months back on how startup folk need to work harder and stop crying. http://uncrunched.com/2011/11/27/startups-are-hard-so-work-m... Arrington is a romantic, and he believes passionately in the romantic mythos of the startup world. That's what drew him to the valley to start TechCrunch in the first place. And that view of the world…

To me, the best counterpoint to Arrington's remarks is to understand where he's coming from. He's a blogger/journalist & VC. The biggest dreamers and swing-for-the-fencers make the best stories / investments.

Of course, the journalist has it even better: He gets good copy when the home-run hitter swings and misses. :)

Re: All or something (2009)

#22

Post by raldi »

jdminhbg wrote: post #5
alberth wrote: post #4

CH blog post comment is so true (can't hard link to it): There is a fundamental difference in philosophy here. Some startups work 24/7 because they are “swinging for the fences” (to use a baseball analogy). Where other startups, like yourself [37signals] back in the day, are content with simply hitting “singles”. .... Here’s the philosophical difference, you can live a good life on hitting singles, but you’ll never b…

DHH seems to have gotten plenty "filthy rich" hitting singles: http://david.heinemeierhansson.com/racing People who swing for the fences generally fly out to shallow center. You can score lots of runs hitting single after single after single.

See, for example, the 2002 Angels.

Re: All or something (2009)

#23

Post by raldi »

thesash wrote: post #18
alberth wrote: post #4

CH blog post comment is so true (can't hard link to it): There is a fundamental difference in philosophy here. Some startups work 24/7 because they are “swinging for the fences” (to use a baseball analogy). Where other startups, like yourself [37signals] back in the day, are content with simply hitting “singles”. .... Here’s the philosophical difference, you can live a good life on hitting singles, but you’ll never b…

From my response to this comment on the blog: If "swinging for the fences" requires 24/7 work, chances are you're not focused enough, not validating your ideas fast enough, and from my experience, you're probably wasting a huge amount of your time doing on inefficient work or unnecessary stuff that will be scrapped entirely. That being said, starting small and focused does not eliminate the possibility of building so…

> who wins more games, the team with the most homeruns or the team with the most hits?

Actually, it doesn't look like either is much more indicative than the other:

http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/team/_/stat/batting/sort/homeRu...

http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/team/_/stat/batting/sort/hits/o...

http://espn.go.com/mlb/standings

Re: All or something (2009)

#24

Post by temphn »

The missing part here is that dhh is talented enough that he can date models and drive racecars while running both a multimillion dollar business and one of the world's most important open source projects. Many, perhaps most, aren't talented to that extent or can't context switch to that extent. They can get a lot done, but they have to have singleminded (dareisay "24/7") focus.

Moreover, 37Signals is like the boutique software shop that developers respect, while Facebook is a goliath that doth bestride the world. Zuck is at G8 summits and truly playing for world domination. If that's your goal, as long as you know it's a once a decade phenomenon...go for it! The worst thing that can happen is that you fail and take the huge hit to your ego.

I think there are a lot worse messages out there to our young than "work really hard on a business". The vacation culture of Europe and the leveraged culture of the US are about to lose out to the thrifty workaholics of China. dhh notwithstanding, there have to be some lessons in that.

Re: All or something (2009)

#25

Post by jtbigwoo »

fuzzylizard wrote: post #13
jdminhbg wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DHH seems to have gotten plenty "filthy rich" hitting singles: http://david.heinemeierhansson.com/racing People who swing for the fences generally fly out to shallow center. You can score lots of runs hitting single after single after single.

I always find it interesting that Babe Ruth was, at the same time, the home run leader and the strike out leader. If you swing for the fences, chances are, you will fail more than you win. Hitting singles, consistently, is actually far more beneficial for both you and the team that you work with.

A sports-geek quibble:

Babe Ruth also had the second-best career on-base-percentage in the history of baseball. He hit a ton of singles in addition to his home runs. He was an incredible athlete and defied the current mindset to try for home runs when he thought the time was right. Sometimes he got fooled and ended up striking out, but he wasn't a pure swing-for-the-fences hitter.

(You should look to somebody like Rob Deer if you're looking for someone who swung for the fences almost all the time.)

Re: All or something (2009)

#26

Post by funkah »

Oh, I thought startups actually were like that, since I've never worked at one because being in perpetual crunch-mode sounds terrible. Plus I feel like any promise of some payoff in the future is really a setup to get fucked by someone who understands finance better than me. I'm not going to grind my life into dust so someone else can have 4 vacation homes instead of 3, then turn around and give me a $5k "attaboy".

DHH calls the all-consuming startup lifestyle a "pervasive myth". I really don't know how much of a myth it is, but if a myth becomes pervasive enough, it's as good as reality in many scenarios. If enough people believe a dollar has zero value, then it does.

Re: All or something (2009)

#27

Post by PaulAnunda »

jcampbell1 wrote: post #6
alberth wrote: post #4

CH blog post comment is so true (can't hard link to it): There is a fundamental difference in philosophy here. Some startups work 24/7 because they are “swinging for the fences” (to use a baseball analogy). Where other startups, like yourself [37signals] back in the day, are content with simply hitting “singles”. .... Here’s the philosophical difference, you can live a good life on hitting singles, but you’ll never b…

Does commissioning a custom supercar not count as filthy rich? What can Mark Zuckerberg buy that Jason Fried and DHH cannot? The big difference is that 37signals didn't make a bunch of VCs filthy rich, just themselves. http://www.autoblog.com/2010/09/07/pagani-zonda-hh-commissio...

a 747. all joking aside, Zuckerberg is in a different league monetarily. if you aspire to have that type of wealth, then good for you. if you're content w/ 'hitting singles' and hopefully bringing in enough to live the kind of lifestyle you'd like, then more power to you.

Re: All or something (2009)

#28

Post by pg »

"One of the most pervasive myths of startup life is that it has to be all consuming."

This supposed myth long precedes startups. If you look at the outliers in any field, you'll find many if not most are by ordinary people's standards excessively dedicated to their work. Isaac Newton and Michelangelo (to name just two of thousands of examples) were notorious for neglecting everything except their work. The fact that this pattern is so old and so widespread suggests that it is not a myth.

A startup is simply a company designed to grow at an exceptionally high rate, and Occam's razor implies that to succeed at this takes the same level of dedication as exceptional performance in any other field.

Re: All or something (2009)

#29

Post by chc »

pg wrote: post #28

"One of the most pervasive myths of startup life is that it has to be all consuming." This supposed myth long precedes startups. If you look at the outliers in any field, you'll find many if not most are by ordinary people's standards excessively dedicated to their work. Isaac Newton and Michelangelo (to name just two of thousands of examples) were notorious for neglecting everything except their work. The fact that…

I think you and David have different definitions of a "startup," or at least different ideas of how fast and how big they need to grow. I think he just means something like "a small, young company with some ambitions of growth."

Your definition is certainly the usual one, especially in Silicon Valley, but I think David just wants to remind people that that isn't the only option if you have entrepreneurial ambitions, so he's using a less common but broader sense of the word. He even says as much at the end: "It’s almost like we need another word. Startup is a great one, but I feel like it’s been forever hijacked for this narrow style."

Re: All or something (2009)

#30

Post by ejames »

chc wrote: post #29
pg wrote: post #28

"One of the most pervasive myths of startup life is that it has to be all consuming." This supposed myth long precedes startups. If you look at the outliers in any field, you'll find many if not most are by ordinary people's standards excessively dedicated to their work. Isaac Newton and Michelangelo (to name just two of thousands of examples) were notorious for neglecting everything except their work. The fact that…

I think you and David have different definitions of a "startup," or at least different ideas of how fast and how big they need to grow. I think he just means something like "a small, young company with some ambitions of growth." Your definition is certainly the usual one, especially in Silicon Valley, but I think David just wants to remind people that that isn't the only option if you have entrepreneurial ambitions,…

Part of it is a terminology problem. It's now common for any small business in the software industry to claim to be a "startup", even if it's actually a glorified consulting agency or contract software shop.

Part of it is an integrity problem. In addition to describing your small business as a startup for marketing purposes, you might also call yourself a startup in order to make other claims - such as telling employees that their stock options are extraordinarily valuable, or making a rule that everyone must work 80 hours "just like the other startups".

The flip side of the principle that exceptional businesses require exceptional effort is that almost all businesses are not exceptional.

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