5 ms·

How are you making shit like "afraid of being ridiculously wealthy" up? I have no qualms with money -- neither earning it or spending it. I believe that 37sign

by dhh 17y ago

How are you making shit like "afraid of being ridiculously wealthy" up? I have no qualms with money -- neither earning it or spending it. I believe that 37signals has legs to run for another 20 years. So selling for 10x todays revs seems like a poor, short-sighted investment to me. I'd rather earn my way to "ridiculously wealthy" from profits than from some rich benefactor bestowing the wealth on me. To me that matters. I understand if others don't care, but I can afford to care. In short, I think we'll get there. I think selling our company now would be a bad financial decision as well as a bad personal decision. Building something from nothing and taking it to the moon has tremendous appeal. Letting some incumbent snatch up my rocket ship before it's even reached the stratosphere, just so I can build another one again with more bells and whistles doesn't make sense to me.

encoderer 17y ago
What I heard is 'I can't build a company better than we've built 37signals. And nobody else could run 37signals better than we can.' If you accept that premise as true, then why would anybody sell? I'm skeptical about a lot of things you say. But this one strikes me as common sense.
- dhh 17y ago
  That's true. I think it's unlikely that I'd build a better company than what I have with 37signals. If I had some great ideas for a better company, I would be busy implementing those ideas at 37signals. And no, I certainly don't think any of the likely suspects for acquisitions could run 37signals better than we do. I consider _that_ common sense.
hoggle 17y ago
In my book you are living the dream man - doing what you love and not having to worry about paying the bills. Stupid analogy: having your own precious Q3 server successfully running with a broadband connection back in the day and then selling it to somebody who eventually might be able to turn off the service in order to better serve to the CS crowd because of whatever reason. You care about what you are doing - not surprisingly that is confusing to a lot of people who have been told to do the "right" thing instead of doing what they really want with their lives.
jfornear 17y ago
Don't feel like you have to justify anything to some random guy on an internet forum. You are the most qualified/informed to run your own business however you want. :) From reading your comments on here, I better understand where you're coming from. I think it's cool that you love what you do, who you do it with, and how much money you make doing it enough to not be looking for an exit. You're basically living the dream that conventional thinking has come after the exit.
rythie 17y ago
I'd agree, after all, Google, Apple and Microsoft all got to be the massive companies they are today, by not selling out early on.

by dhh 17y ago

encoderer 17y ago

What I heard is 'I can't build a company better than we've built 37signals. And nobody else could run 37signals better than we can.' If you accept that premise as true, then why would anybody sell? I'm skeptical about a lot of things you say. But this one strikes me as common sense.

dhh 17y ago
That's true. I think it's unlikely that I'd build a better company than what I have with 37signals. If I had some great ideas for a better company, I would be busy implementing those ideas at 37signals. And no, I certainly don't think any of the likely suspects for acquisitions could run 37signals better than we do. I consider _that_ common sense.

hoggle 17y ago

In my book you are living the dream man - doing what you love and not having to worry about paying the bills. Stupid analogy: having your own precious Q3 server successfully running with a broadband connection back in the day and then selling it to somebody who eventually might be able to turn off the service in order to better serve to the CS crowd because of whatever reason. You care about what you are doing - not surprisingly that is confusing to a lot of people who have been told to do the "right" thing instead of doing what they really want with their lives.

jfornear 17y ago

Don't feel like you have to justify anything to some random guy on an internet forum. You are the most qualified/informed to run your own business however you want. :) From reading your comments on here, I better understand where you're coming from. I think it's cool that you love what you do, who you do it with, and how much money you make doing it enough to not be looking for an exit. You're basically living the dream that conventional thinking has come after the exit.

rythie 17y ago

I'd agree, after all, Google, Apple and Microsoft all got to be the massive companies they are today, by not selling out early on.