6 ms·

David Heinemeier Hansson, 37 Signals - Unlearn Your MBA (Audio)

77 points by hbien 17y ago

hedgehog 17y ago
The talk was done at 5:30, in the following four hours it was trimmed down, intro voice & music added, uploaded w/ a photo taken at the event, found by someone here, and posted to HN. Got to love the internet.
- vijaydev 17y ago
  yep! DHH thought the same too :) http://twitter.com/dhh/status/8015012471 http://twitter.com/dhh/status/8015012471
- manbearpig 17y ago
  These talks are actually video streamed live and available thereafter. You can watch the video of this class (MS&E 472) and some other engineering courses at cetus.stanford.edu
patio11 17y ago
This recording contains explicit language and is not appropriate for all viewers. Sometimes you've just got to go with the brand, you know? ;) Edited to add: This talk is very, very good -- much of it is what you've heard from 37Signals before, but it is well delivered and there are unique insights too. (In particular I like how people are socialized into maladaption to the preferences of professors. Oh, and I agree with this: "Our most important competitive advantage is good human writing" -- it is probably my most important skill that I talk the least about.)
ryanwaggoner 17y ago
Uh-oh...MBA in the title. Cue edw519 popping in to tell the tale of how all he remembers from b-school is his professor telling him that a degree in business is a degree in nothing :) http://www.google.com/search?q=site:news.ycombinator.com+%22a+degree+in+business+is+a+degree+in+nothing%22 http://www.google.com/search?q=site:news.ycombinator.com+%22...
- revorad 17y ago
  Haha nice one. That's hilarious.
- daniel-cussen 17y ago
  To be fair, I don't know if you can spend that much time on a forum and earn that much karma without repeating yourself now and then and then again.
  - mechanical_fish 17y ago
    As I have no doubt said before [1], the idea that forums will be run like code, in which everything is DRY and after the first day nobody posts anything but #includes pointing to their former words, is crazy and has always been crazy. Forums are conversations. Teaching is all about saying and doing the same things over and over, with variations depending on the local audience and the immediate issues at hand. So it most of the rest of life, really. --- [1] Yes, I meant to do that.
    - Poiesis 17y ago
      > Forums are conversations Yeah, and if you're like me, a conversation means you're repeating yourself all the time because you don't have a hash table in your head keeping track of who you've said what to.
      - n8agrin 17y ago
        Actually I once saw a neurologist talk about how the brain and computer science might be related and he basically said that an oversimplified explination of the brain is that it's a hasH table. Now if only I could remember who it was that gave the talk.
        deleted 17y ago
        [deleted]
- edw519 17y ago
waratuman 17y ago
Only after this talk did I fully understand the difference the company he is trying to make / building (37 Signals) and the path that so many others follow. Great advice that should be considered before any company brings on VC money.
cellis 17y ago
For those that wish to see a video of roughly the same talk given by DHH at Startup School '08: http://www.omnisio.com/startupschool08/david-heinemeier-hansson-at-startup-school-08 http://www.omnisio.com/startupschool08/david-heinemeier-hans...
newhouseb 17y ago
I attended this talk in person, and have to say it was easily the most entertaining of the series I've seen all year. The most interesting take-away was that DHH wants to build scalable companies in the sense that profits grow non-correlated to the workforce, ie. you don't hire 2 more people for $500million more in profits. Someone asked, wouldn't it good to employ 100k of people and create 100k jobs to which DHH said, no it's better for my personal wealth (which is the point of all good business) if I keep the profits to the smallest number of people possible - those 100k people should actually go out and make shit instead (his words). Food for thought.
- patio11 17y ago
  I think his quote was a little more inspiring than the Gordon Gecko version: his comment (in response to a question from an Indian gentleman as to whether a company with 100,000 employees wasn't more socially beneficial because it provides 100,000 people with jobs) was that if you desire to make a positive influence on people, rather than employing them you can teach them to "go out and make shit". Then you're both better off. And, hey, I've never gotten a buck from 37Signals but in terms of job creation DHH only has maximum 99,999 to go :)
- davidw 17y ago
  That's awfully different from a "little Italian restaurant", which is never, ever going to grow beyond a certain size.
  - tjogin 17y ago
    Gordon Ramsay started with one restaurant.
    - tptacek 17y ago
      So did Batali with Po, Lupa, Esca, etc. Italian! So did Colicchio with Craft.
  - evandavid 17y ago
    The chain was founded in 1958 by Dan and Frank Carney. They chose the name "Pizza Hut" since the sign they purchased only had enough space for nine characters and spaces. From Wikipedia.
msort 17y ago
My take-away: 1) Goal: "Make a dent on the universe" 2) Don't take VC money, which is a "time-bomb" 3) Don't be a workaholic. "Greatness comes from well-rested minds". Constraints force you to do less and different things. 4) No overnight success. It takes time.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
access_denied 17y ago
"this audio contains explicit language" haha, funny dave.
fendale 17y ago
Definately a good talk, and really inspires me to try and finally get something built and released in my spare 10 hours a week. I have been messing around with various projects over the last year or two, but it takes a long time to get anything decent done in 10 hours a week with one person before the motivation runs out. One thing that just occurred to me, is that while DHH was working 10 hours per week on Basecamp, I'd bet that Jason Freid was putting in at least 10 hours on the design side too. For me, the programming side of things isn't the big time sink - its getting the application to look and flow correctly. I would guess that for every 10 hours I spend coding, I spend at least that trying to get the UI to look even half professional. Thats not to take anything away from the achievement of building Basecamp in spare time, more an observation of how much more productive I would be if I had someone doing the UI elements along side me.
- andymism 17y ago
  I've got to point out too that wrapped up in those 10 hours per week were 1000 lines of a little web framework in Ruby.
  - fendale 17y ago
    Yea, well Rails was born out of Basecamp - certainly an impressive achievement.
sreitshamer 17y ago
I found this really inspiring. It reminded me why I put myself on my MicroISV path. I've heard him say many of the same things before, but this was a nicely distilled 20-minute version.
Tawheed 17y ago
David was great as usual. I found Steve Blank's questions/demeanor toward him to be a little condescending.
gregcmartin 17y ago
I think it's funny that he referenced Domino's pizza CEO as an example of a lame MBA. Because just within the last week he resigned to coach college football at Michigan. Bizarre. http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=4797284 http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=4797284

77 points by hbien 17y ago

The talk was done at 5:30, in the following four hours it was trimmed down, intro voice & music added, uploaded w/ a photo taken at the event, found by someone here, and posted to HN. Got to love the internet.

vijaydev 17y ago
yep! DHH thought the same too :) http://twitter.com/dhh/status/8015012471 http://twitter.com/dhh/status/8015012471
manbearpig 17y ago
These talks are actually video streamed live and available thereafter. You can watch the video of this class (MS&E 472) and some other engineering courses at cetus.stanford.edu

patio11 17y ago

This recording contains explicit language and is not appropriate for all viewers. Sometimes you've just got to go with the brand, you know? ;) Edited to add: This talk is very, very good -- much of it is what you've heard from 37Signals before, but it is well delivered and there are unique insights too. (In particular I like how people are socialized into maladaption to the preferences of professors. Oh, and I agree with this: "Our most important competitive advantage is good human writing" -- it is probably my most important skill that I talk the least about.)

ryanwaggoner 17y ago

Uh-oh...MBA in the title. Cue edw519 popping in to tell the tale of how all he remembers from b-school is his professor telling him that a degree in business is a degree in nothing :) http://www.google.com/search?q=site:news.ycombinator.com+%22a+degree+in+business+is+a+degree+in+nothing%22 http://www.google.com/search?q=site:news.ycombinator.com+%22...

revorad 17y ago
Haha nice one. That's hilarious.
daniel-cussen 17y ago
To be fair, I don't know if you can spend that much time on a forum and earn that much karma without repeating yourself now and then and then again.
- mechanical_fish 17y ago
  As I have no doubt said before [1], the idea that forums will be run like code, in which everything is DRY and after the first day nobody posts anything but #includes pointing to their former words, is crazy and has always been crazy. Forums are conversations. Teaching is all about saying and doing the same things over and over, with variations depending on the local audience and the immediate issues at hand. So it most of the rest of life, really. --- [1] Yes, I meant to do that.
  - Poiesis 17y ago
    > Forums are conversations Yeah, and if you're like me, a conversation means you're repeating yourself all the time because you don't have a hash table in your head keeping track of who you've said what to.
    - n8agrin 17y ago
      Actually I once saw a neurologist talk about how the brain and computer science might be related and he basically said that an oversimplified explination of the brain is that it's a hasH table. Now if only I could remember who it was that gave the talk.
      - deleted 17y ago
        [deleted]
edw519 17y ago

waratuman 17y ago

Only after this talk did I fully understand the difference the company he is trying to make / building (37 Signals) and the path that so many others follow. Great advice that should be considered before any company brings on VC money.

cellis 17y ago

For those that wish to see a video of roughly the same talk given by DHH at Startup School '08: http://www.omnisio.com/startupschool08/david-heinemeier-hansson-at-startup-school-08 http://www.omnisio.com/startupschool08/david-heinemeier-hans...

newhouseb 17y ago

I attended this talk in person, and have to say it was easily the most entertaining of the series I've seen all year. The most interesting take-away was that DHH wants to build scalable companies in the sense that profits grow non-correlated to the workforce, ie. you don't hire 2 more people for $500million more in profits. Someone asked, wouldn't it good to employ 100k of people and create 100k jobs to which DHH said, no it's better for my personal wealth (which is the point of all good business) if I keep the profits to the smallest number of people possible - those 100k people should actually go out and make shit instead (his words). Food for thought.

patio11 17y ago
I think his quote was a little more inspiring than the Gordon Gecko version: his comment (in response to a question from an Indian gentleman as to whether a company with 100,000 employees wasn't more socially beneficial because it provides 100,000 people with jobs) was that if you desire to make a positive influence on people, rather than employing them you can teach them to "go out and make shit". Then you're both better off. And, hey, I've never gotten a buck from 37Signals but in terms of job creation DHH only has maximum 99,999 to go :)
davidw 17y ago
That's awfully different from a "little Italian restaurant", which is never, ever going to grow beyond a certain size.
- tjogin 17y ago
  Gordon Ramsay started with one restaurant.
  - tptacek 17y ago
    So did Batali with Po, Lupa, Esca, etc. Italian! So did Colicchio with Craft.
- evandavid 17y ago
  The chain was founded in 1958 by Dan and Frank Carney. They chose the name "Pizza Hut" since the sign they purchased only had enough space for nine characters and spaces. From Wikipedia.

msort 17y ago

My take-away: 1) Goal: "Make a dent on the universe" 2) Don't take VC money, which is a "time-bomb" 3) Don't be a workaholic. "Greatness comes from well-rested minds". Constraints force you to do less and different things. 4) No overnight success. It takes time.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

access_denied 17y ago

"this audio contains explicit language" haha, funny dave.

fendale 17y ago

Definately a good talk, and really inspires me to try and finally get something built and released in my spare 10 hours a week. I have been messing around with various projects over the last year or two, but it takes a long time to get anything decent done in 10 hours a week with one person before the motivation runs out. One thing that just occurred to me, is that while DHH was working 10 hours per week on Basecamp, I'd bet that Jason Freid was putting in at least 10 hours on the design side too. For me, the programming side of things isn't the big time sink - its getting the application to look and flow correctly. I would guess that for every 10 hours I spend coding, I spend at least that trying to get the UI to look even half professional. Thats not to take anything away from the achievement of building Basecamp in spare time, more an observation of how much more productive I would be if I had someone doing the UI elements along side me.

andymism 17y ago
I've got to point out too that wrapped up in those 10 hours per week were 1000 lines of a little web framework in Ruby.
- fendale 17y ago
  Yea, well Rails was born out of Basecamp - certainly an impressive achievement.

sreitshamer 17y ago

I found this really inspiring. It reminded me why I put myself on my MicroISV path. I've heard him say many of the same things before, but this was a nicely distilled 20-minute version.

Tawheed 17y ago

David was great as usual. I found Steve Blank's questions/demeanor toward him to be a little condescending.

gregcmartin 17y ago

I think it's funny that he referenced Domino's pizza CEO as an example of a lame MBA. Because just within the last week he resigned to coach college football at Michigan. Bizarre. http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=4797284 http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=4797284