
Things are going so well we’re doing a hiring freeze - mengledowl
https://m.signalvnoise.com/things-are-going-so-well-were-doing-a-hiring-freeze-5f66372a4214
======
tbirrell
Even if you don't read the article, you should read this story[0] that it
links to. Which explains the mindset behind the decision. It's only like 200
words.

[0]: [http://renewablewealth.com/the-parable-of-the-mexican-
fisher...](http://renewablewealth.com/the-parable-of-the-mexican-fisherman/)

~~~
Mc_Big_G
I like the story but there's a glaring omission. Financial security. All you
have to do to make the story fall apart is introduce a serious illness or
handicap in his wife or kids.

~~~
Quarrelsome
but if you spend time in the village you build up a support network and its
that support network that helps each other out in times of need. Sure if all
the fish die they're still screwed but you can always find a reason to scare
yourself into thinking you'll encounter the uncommon.

~~~
jessaustin
I have sympathy for this point of view, but unfortunately the most recent
exposure I have to it is a local government deciding not to require Mennonite
contractors to carry insurance, even though their competitors must. Apparently
it's against their religion to imagine that the Lord would hurt a Mennonite on
a jobsite badly enough that the community "support network" couldn't heal him
themselves. I feel sorry for the poor bastard who won't get physical therapy
and will be stuck in bed for the rest of his life. Maybe the support network
_could_ afford the therapy, but he won't get it anyway, because Mennonite
elders DGAF. I hope he'll be able to sue the cheap-ass property owner who
bribed the city council to pass this stupid exception in the first place.

------
combatentropy
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-f...](https://www.inc.com/magazine/20091101/the-way-i-work-jason-fried-
of-37signals.html)

\- 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
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.

~~~
s73ver_
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
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
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".

------
clutchdude
Per the parable, there is a altered version in which the business man, sensing
the fisher man is not open to ventures, strikes up a similar conversation with
another fisherman who does agrees to expand fishing to better provide for his
family and community.

As a result the original fisherman finds his fish stocks are sapped by the
growing fisher man's venture, and, unable to afford a boat to go into deeper
water, finds himself bankrupt and working for the businessman who would have
been his partner.

The issue with that version is it ignores that you aren't just sitting on your
hands but rather ensuring that your customers stay your customers. But it does
beg the question - Are you growing to a better future or just improving the
same day over and over?

~~~
geofft
It sort of seems to me that the story continues to have a clear villain, the
business man, and a clear victim, the other fisherman who will spend 20 years
scaling before he gets back to the life he wanted—and so the right plan is for
the original fisherman to treat the businessman and his American ideas as a
threat to the community. Tell the other fishermen that if they go along with
the businessman's plan to destroy the community and sell it to American
interests, they'll be excommunicated from the village and their original
business will be dead long before the businessman returns with lawyers. But if
they change their minds, they'll be welcomed back with open arms.

~~~
clutchdude
Well, you can always modify it as the fisherman being unable to compete with
the influx of capital to a competitor and ends up having to work for them.

That the community would be hit by a natural disaster but the prospering
fisherman provides the influx of cash for emergency relief whereas doing
nothing meant no means of recovery.

The story of preservation/destruction of habitat, the community
improving/declining, the prospering fisherman rising but still (not) finding
time to enjoy chatting with friends, and other dramatic flairs to help sell
whatever flavor of capitalism you believe in.

------
ppeetteerr
I really like their approach but I want to comment on the Mexican Fisherman
story.

Neither the fisherman nor the banker have it right. You see, the banker may be
overly ambitious, but the fisherman is not taking precaution against future's
uncertainty. You can be sure DHH has enough money and he doesn't need the
headache of running a big business. The fisherman, on the other hand, may want
to consider the day he cannot fish and not expect the seas to provide until
his very last day.

~~~
wavefunction
The Mexican fisherman leans on his family and friends, his community, when he
runs into trouble.

The banker relies on a socialized bailout.

~~~
oldcynic
The fisherman feels shame and regret for having to turn to friends and family.
Especially now his community is struggling as a result of having to bail out
the finance sector.

The banker is happy to be getting on with business as usual.

~~~
astral303
Sad but true

------
sodapopcan
It's insane how making a profit seems to considered "uncool" in the business
world. Basecamp and particularly Jason Fried's writings (I realize this is
particular article is by DHH) are super inspirational. I wish that building a
solid, profitable business as opposed to being so focused on growth and
finding more investors was more of the norm.

I want to work at Basecamp even more now, haha.

~~~
amarkov
I doubt that anyone on the business side considers it uncool to build a small
but profitable company. It's definitely cooler than having a VC shove you
along the path to an acquisition by BigCorp Ltd.

Engineers sometimes consider those companies uncool, but that's just because
they usually can't pay market rate for the best engineers.

~~~
sodapopcan
I just mean it seems to be the path-more-taken. I'm basing it on my limited
experience and my reading about running a business (which a did a bunch of but
certainly never did an in depth study). A lot of companies I look at while
looking for employment either want to sell or trying to grow to a mammoth
size. Don't get me wrong--there is nothing wrong with that! It's just that I
personally prefer to take the paycut and work for companies whose owners are
slowly building a lifestyle and tightly knit team and wish I would see more of
that pop up in job listings.

~~~
manigandham
Its definitely not. VC funded startups are 0.1% of the global businesses out
there. For every VC company there are 100k small businesses working on being
productive and profitable.

~~~
sodapopcan
I'm talking profit _focused_ vs growth focused. Guess that wasn't very clear.
Obviously making a profit is somewhere on 100% of every company's agenda.

------
Bjorkbat
Controversial opinion incoming, but I've found their writings less valuable
over time and see them more as opinions with an elitist tone. This is coming
from someone who owns a copy of Rework and might just go over it again for
it's unique quality of life advice.

Lately I've really noticed that you don't just get advice anymore, you also
get a little bit of commentary on how the rest of the tech industry is dumb or
insane or both because those fools are doing it the old way and we're doing it
our own progressive and enlightened way that we figured out on our own after
we sat down, put on our critical thinking caps, and tried something different,
and lo and behold it worked.

This latest exercise stands out as particularly offensive because there really
isn't any advice or wisdom worth sharing. They're just telling us that
Basecamp had the best year ever and they don't feel like improving on it so
they're not hiring at the moment. Correction, it's actually a hiring freeze.
Same thing, except the phrase "hiring freeze" is normally used in the context
of something bad. They're going to use it in a different context to, you know,
get more claps on Medium. On top of all this they felt the need to do a little
compare and contrast between what they're doing vs what the rest of those
unenlightened fools in the tech industry are doing, i.e. reinvest profits into
new ways to grow.

Whatever. There are plenty of businesses that are happy with where they're at
and settle-in, Basecamp is different because they're a tech company and they
feel the need to blog about it. As for those companies that are growing, well,
I think it's perfectly fine to keep growing, just don't turn your company into
the equivalent of foie gras.

It's just disappointing. I looked up to them, still kinda do, but this is just
marketing spin designed to make something boring and innocuous look radical.

~~~
ravitation
If this were a Medium post, I'd give you lots of claps.

And I'd highlight this...

> They're just telling us that Basecamp had the best year ever and they don't
> feel like improving on it so they're not hiring at the moment.

And...

> There are plenty of businesses that are happy with where they're at and
> settle-in, Basecamp is different because they're a tech company and they
> feel the need to blog about it.

I do enjoy their approach, quite a lot actually. But I'd enjoy it more if they
spent more time sharing real experience and learnings (and failures), and less
time projecting often absurd things on mainstream "entrepreneurial culture"
while telling me how they're so much better.

------
razialx
Congratulations. You've figured out how to make me want to apply to your
company! In the same way that I will never stop wanting to move to Norway,
since they don't want me, I will now forever desire to work for Basecamp... I
am so easily manipulated.

~~~
eitland
Getting into Norway doesn't seem too hard - but I'm open to be told why I'm
wrong.

Here is what I found: "Broadly speaking, the award of a residence permit
depends on two things: your country of citizenship and your ability to
financially sustain yourself and any dependents. This generally means you need
a job offer, or you must prove financial sustainability if you are coming to
Norway to study or for some other reason.

It is possible for some people to move to Norway as a job seeker, but this is
only allowed for a relatively short period of time. If you don’t manage to
find employment during that time, you will have to leave the country, and
there is a waiting period before you will be able to return." \-
[https://www.lifeinnorway.net/norway-immigration-
guide/](https://www.lifeinnorway.net/norway-immigration-guide/)

~~~
razialx
Interesting. I just recall reading an article that went on about how your best
chance of getting in is to marry in, which is unlikely for myself as I'm
happily married already!

There was never anything specific about Norway (as compared to the other
Scandinavian countries that generally top happiness indexes and such) just
that the article said that I _couldn't_ live there.

~~~
eitland
Stackoverflow careers often list a number of jobs close to where I work in
Oslo.

It seems to me if one gets a real job offer then there is a good chance to get
a work permit.

------
mankash666
The only thing novel here is the blogging/marketing. Lots of profitable
companies don't hire when they don't need to - they don't brand it a "hiring
freeze", blog about it and have strangers fawn over the concept.

------
norswap
While I love their philosophy, part of me can't shake the feeling they are
rubbing it in our faces for marketing purposes.

~~~
fjsolwmv
It's a corporate blog. That's the entire purpose of it.

~~~
mattgreenrocks
Plus, it's hosted by Medium. The entire modus operandi of tech Medium is
shameless self-promotion.

------
beastcoast
It’s notable that Amazon, despite record growth, is also in a hiring freeze
for nearly the entire Retail business. Leadership is also simplifying the
management chain to reduce bureaucracy.

------
c8d3f7b49897918
They are stopping at the lower end of Dunbar's number.

Smart guys.

------
cardboardedge
Just a question, I don't use Basecamp or similar products-- does Basecamp have
competitors who are great at product and execution and who are pouring more
resources and time and focus (like, where the team doesn't split their time
between their product and a major OSS project like ROR) into their offerings?
Is there no such competitor that has a better product that poses a threat to
Basecamp's retention of users?

------
traviswingo
Amidst the craziness that is the startup battlefield, its always a breath of
fresh air to hear from the Basecamp founders. I feel more people should take
this realistic approach to starting and running companies, and stop putting
their life's work on 17 red.

------
dblohm7
Anything larger than ~50 people and it becomes harder to maintain the company
culture. Kudos to them for recognizing that they're happy where they're at.

------
xrd
Who will be the first to hack into this now unhireable fortress and get a job
with them? They have just made getting hired there a quest for every rails
developer in the world. Changing the hiring and recruiting process, turning it
on its head.

------
ravitation
What do people who use Basecamp think of the product?

(This is a slightly reworded version of my initial question... Who uses
Basecamp?)

------
xrd
I gave them 11 claps. I've never done that before.

------
rokhayakebe
Revenue?

------
taw-an
sure, but how do the employees feel about it? what happens when support work
balloons but you have the same amount of staff?

this is just an excuse to extract more profits coated in technofounderbabble.

~~~
drelihan
If support volume grows, there are three options: 1.) hire more staff 2.) keep
staffing levels the same and force workers to take on more for the same pay or
3.) look at why support volume is growing and a) fix some avoidable reasons
that require support ( small fixes in UX can go a long way ) , b)
automatically solve some of the support issues ( improved documentation ), and
c) have the support staff build themselves better tools so they can more
efficiently handle the support volume rise.

If you are an owner, #3 will not only improve your products, but also likely
to make your entire company much more valuable over time. If the staff are
also owners or there is a system in place such that the staff benefits when
the owners benefit, they will likely be on board for #3 as well. If #3 is not
sufficient enough to provide support, then hiring should be done.

~~~
Tepix
There is another option: Raise prices.

