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I would love to work at a company like Basecamp. Are there any other companies like them? - Less is more. Jason Fried is such a minimalist, https://www.inc.com

I would love to work at a company like Basecamp. Are there any other companies like them? - Less is more. Jason Fried is such a minimalist, https://www.inc.com/magazine/20091101/the-way-i-work-jason-fried-of-37signals.html https://www.inc.com/magazine/20091101/the-way-i-work-jason-f... - Few formal meetings. - No full-time managers. - In fact, just about everything in their books Getting Real, https://basecamp.com/books/getting-real https://basecamp.com/books/getting-real, and Rework. They do things that I've always felt are right but could not well argue. They are the opposite of most companies in so many ways, especially big corporations. If you haven't read their books, you might tell me, just work at a start-up. But you really have to go through Getting Real to see how much they differ from everyone else, even your typical start-up. The chapter about doing less than your competition is particularly devastating, different than even most start-ups.

GuiA 9y ago
Why join? Start your own, run it like you want it to be run, and not only will you have the reward of working at a healthy place, you'll also have the reward of enabling dozens of employees to live fulfilling lives. I like to think that Jason Fried/DHH went to the bother of writing all these books and blog posts because they legitimately want to see more businesses run like theirs in the world.
- PopsiclePete 9y ago
  >Why join? Start your own, run it like you want it to be run Man, seriously, not everyone can, or even should, run a company. I like to write code, I don't like to run a business. That is such a silly, extremely silly thing to suggest. Work at Google? Why? Start your own Google! For realz?
  - GuiA 9y ago
    Yes, suggesting starting a company on a discussion board dedicated to startups and entrepreneurship is definitely an "extremely silly idea".
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  Because, to be perfectly honest, most of us don't want to start our own companies. I know for me, personally, that there's a whole lot of extra stuff that comes with running a company, stuff that I have absolutely zero interest in doing, that I would be required to do if I wanted my company to succeed. Second, I also don't really have any good ideas for what the company would do.
  - laythea 9y ago
    Surely if you had a good idea for a company, the currently zero interest stuff would suddenly become a bit more interesting. Then it would seem that this is more about the lack of any good ideas than the actual starting of a company.
    - khedoros1 9y ago
      If I have a good idea, it will be for a technical solution to someone's problem. I'll get excited about building that solution...but running the company and all the crap that it involves sounds like hell to me. A necessary evil. The "zero interest stuff" suddenly turns into the "deeply dreaded stuff".
    - s73ver_ 9y ago
      Nope. I want to engineer stuff, not be sales or HR.
  - GuiA 9y ago
    Life will always involve doing shit that you don't want to do. As an employee for a larger company, if your manager tells you to do crap you don't want to do, well you generally have two choices: do it, or quit. If you're running your own thing, you suddenly have a few more choices: you can reassess whether that thing needs to be done in the first place. You can suck it up and do it yourself, but perhaps you're a little more motivated than if it were your boss at $megacorp telling you to do it because you directly understand why it needs to be done. You could also delegate it to one of your employees, or to a contractor. Etc. I've been in the industry for about 10 years - at tiny startups, growing startups, mid sized agencies, large companies - and I'm realizing more and more that the odds of running your own thing seem more favorable than the odds of finding the perfect team with a delightful manager where you will only ever work on the things you want to work on, in the environment you want (maybe you want every other wednesday off to hang out with your kid. maybe you don't want meetings after lunch because that's when you're the most productive. etc.) Of course, that equation is different for everyone - depending on your priorities and interests, you might be better off just working for $megacorp, taking the good with the bad. But I find it a little mind blowing that my comment is so controversial (currently at -1, with only dismissive replies) on a board dedicated to entrepreneurship. I will also add (and I'm not saying anything new here, just parroting what 'patio11 and others have said over and over over the years) that most programmers are better equipped than they think they are when it comes to generating meaningful value that can be turned into, at the very least, a living where they get to call the shots.

GuiA 9y ago

Why join? Start your own, run it like you want it to be run, and not only will you have the reward of working at a healthy place, you'll also have the reward of enabling dozens of employees to live fulfilling lives. I like to think that Jason Fried/DHH went to the bother of writing all these books and blog posts because they legitimately want to see more businesses run like theirs in the world.

PopsiclePete 9y ago
>Why join? Start your own, run it like you want it to be run Man, seriously, not everyone can, or even should, run a company. I like to write code, I don't like to run a business. That is such a silly, extremely silly thing to suggest. Work at Google? Why? Start your own Google! For realz?
- GuiA 9y ago
  Yes, suggesting starting a company on a discussion board dedicated to startups and entrepreneurship is definitely an "extremely silly idea".
s73ver_ 9y ago
Because, to be perfectly honest, most of us don't want to start our own companies. I know for me, personally, that there's a whole lot of extra stuff that comes with running a company, stuff that I have absolutely zero interest in doing, that I would be required to do if I wanted my company to succeed. Second, I also don't really have any good ideas for what the company would do.
- laythea 9y ago
  Surely if you had a good idea for a company, the currently zero interest stuff would suddenly become a bit more interesting. Then it would seem that this is more about the lack of any good ideas than the actual starting of a company.
  - khedoros1 9y ago
    If I have a good idea, it will be for a technical solution to someone's problem. I'll get excited about building that solution...but running the company and all the crap that it involves sounds like hell to me. A necessary evil. The "zero interest stuff" suddenly turns into the "deeply dreaded stuff".
  - s73ver_ 9y ago
    Nope. I want to engineer stuff, not be sales or HR.
- GuiA 9y ago
  Life will always involve doing shit that you don't want to do. As an employee for a larger company, if your manager tells you to do crap you don't want to do, well you generally have two choices: do it, or quit. If you're running your own thing, you suddenly have a few more choices: you can reassess whether that thing needs to be done in the first place. You can suck it up and do it yourself, but perhaps you're a little more motivated than if it were your boss at $megacorp telling you to do it because you directly understand why it needs to be done. You could also delegate it to one of your employees, or to a contractor. Etc. I've been in the industry for about 10 years - at tiny startups, growing startups, mid sized agencies, large companies - and I'm realizing more and more that the odds of running your own thing seem more favorable than the odds of finding the perfect team with a delightful manager where you will only ever work on the things you want to work on, in the environment you want (maybe you want every other wednesday off to hang out with your kid. maybe you don't want meetings after lunch because that's when you're the most productive. etc.) Of course, that equation is different for everyone - depending on your priorities and interests, you might be better off just working for $megacorp, taking the good with the bad. But I find it a little mind blowing that my comment is so controversial (currently at -1, with only dismissive replies) on a board dedicated to entrepreneurship. I will also add (and I'm not saying anything new here, just parroting what 'patio11 and others have said over and over over the years) that most programmers are better equipped than they think they are when it comes to generating meaningful value that can be turned into, at the very least, a living where they get to call the shots.