

37 Noise - rguzman
http://metarz.net/blog/31/

======
gfodor
At a high level the thing that bugs me about this entire thread of
conversation is that in my mind, there are really only a few areas of things
worth working on:

1\. Alleviating human suffering.

2\. Scientific exploration and discovery.

3\. Building tools or technology that enhances others' abilities to do 1. or
2.

Notice that "bug tracking system", "personal finance management", and "company
collaboration software" are not on the list. (And no, I don't want to hear
about a stretched analogy about how they actually are alleviating human
suffering. Please.) Also notice "social networking" is mysteriously absent as
well. (Edit: To be fair, Twitter has had a few days where I really think it is
making a positive difference in the world. Crapplications on Facebook, not so
much.)

The only excuse to not be working on one of these things is if you are working
towards building some capital in order to do so. Flipping a startup is a great
way to do this.

At the end of the day, all these neat software tools people are building are
not all that important in the grand scheme of things. What they _are_ good for
though, is enabling visionaries to start to address real problems by removing
financial constraints. I am hoping that Aaron will now turn into another Elon
Musk now that he has got a big chunk of $140M to work with. While he is
solving real problems 37Signals and everyone else who has a lower bar for what
it means to be a real contributor to society will be running their "Italian
restaurants" for the next 20 years.

~~~
hyperbovine
That's a noble argument, but I think it's wrong. Someone has got to make the
trains run on time. What I mean is, there will always be people in this world
whose function it is to flip hamburgers, drive forklifts, raise livestock or
work in HR. Without them the whole edifice comes crashing down. Rather than
demeaning those callings, you should acknowledge that it's _because_ of the
hard work of untold millions that a few of us have the freedom to devote
ourselves to higher causes. A lot less research would get done if we all had
to grow our own food.

Also, I have always found the get-rich-so-I-can-do-good mantra to just
something people tell themselves to rationalize their blind pursuit of wealth.
The chance of this happening is hilariously remote. Anyone who is playing the
odds would be far better off taking a job as a social worker, teacher or
relief worker.

Not to mention the fact that you don't exactly need millions to make a
difference. I have a friend (<http://www.qfund.org/>) who took $50,000 and
built a school for 500 children in Africa. She has made more of a difference
in people's lives than the next 500 nerds in they Valley who are trying to
strike it rich so they can build a spaceship, combined.

~~~
gfodor
I guess my post was toned incorrectly if it came off as demeaning. My point
was that if you have the freedom to work on _anything_ , and its your choice,
it's not really worth working on anything that isn't either a means to an end
for a higher goal or on that goal itself.

I'm not saying you can't have fun doing other things, or that its not
necessary for people to do things like keeping the trains on time. Just saying
if you have freedom, you should use it wisely.

~~~
Confusion
What alleviates more suffering: when I do volunteer work in Africa or when I
work as <whatever> here and donate a substantial amount of my income to the
Red Cross? Me comforting some children dying of AIDS or me supplying the means
for a hundred blankets in a refugee camp?

 _Just saying if you have freedom, you should use it wisely._

Who's going to be the judge of that? It would suck pretty bad if Elon Musk had
decided to spend his life in Africa as a volunteer, now wouldn't it?

~~~
hyperbovine
_Who's going to be the judge of that? It would suck pretty bad if Elon Musk
had decided to spend his life in Africa as a volunteer, now wouldn't it?_

Who's to say? Everything the guy touches turns to gold. If more smart, vibrant
people like him went to Africa instead of chasing pipe dreams around Silicon
Valley and Wall Street, Africa might be a very different place today.

BTW he did spend part of his life in Africa, he was born there :)

------
mahmud
This is the gist of his argument and it's not at all supported:

" _But no. 37s is a brand. They sell basecamp and books. Their sales go down
when less people prescribe to the "getting real" ideology. And out the window
goes intellectual honesty._ "

Rewrite the article so this is the premise and the rest the supporting
arguments. Otherwise it's just a premise sandwiched between irrelevant
anecdotes.

~~~
jacquesm
I don't think having a major officer posting an entry based on a false premise
is good for your brand in any way.

So I don't buy the ulterior motive angle. Jason Fried must by now be seriously
regretting choosing Mint in the way he did to make his point. He's lost a lot
of credibility while trying to argue something that actually needed to be
said.

Let's get passed the point of the Mint exit being VC driven, and let's look at
the larger picture he is painting, because I do believe it is correct.

~~~
dschobel
Has it ever been proven that the Mint exit _was_ under VC duress?

Didn't Aaron publicly refute this himself?

~~~
jacquesm
No, it wasn't. One of the investors has said so in quite clear terms, besides
that there are plenty of people quoting 'sources' saying that that was a
nonsense story.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/mintcom-founder-wanted-to-
sel...](http://www.businessinsider.com/mintcom-founder-wanted-to-sell-vc-
conspiracy-wrong-2009-9)

[http://www.texasstartupblog.com/2009/09/18/jason-time-to-
get...](http://www.texasstartupblog.com/2009/09/18/jason-time-to-get-out-of-
the-tub/)

<http://blog.josephnet.org/?p=96>

He should have simply not made that call without the evidence to back it up.

------
petercooper
I was a SvN subscriber since it started (used to follow 37s when they were
doing their design stuff) but unsubscribed when they posted that $100bn
Twitter thing for similar signal/noise ratio reasons - though hopefully I'll
go back one day. Despite that, this post is a bit noisy itself and doesn't
make its point clear.. :)

~~~
undees
The dollar-bill one? I'm curious as to why that post is the one that killed it
for you -- I thought it was kind of cute. There have been a couple of posts
that have prompted me to wonder why I bother reading SvN, but that one seemed
harmless.

~~~
petercooper
It was them trying to play The Onion or Valleywag, except it seemed more like
a tantrum related to the pushback on some of the previously contentious posts.
It felt like a "we're better than you" play to me, and there had been too many
posts like that in the weeks before.

------
tjogin
While I think Jason Fried's post on the Mint exit was atypically ignorant,
quite frankly — I don't think they wrote it believing that it would make
everybody dislike the idea of a $170M exit. I think he was just expressing his
opinion, like the rest of us. As ignorant as it was, it was still just an
opinion, it wasn't scheming. There weren't ulterior motives.

~~~
dasil003
_There weren't ulterior motives._

Weren't there? It seems to me there are _always_ ulterior motives. That
doesn't mean he was conscious of those motives when he wrote the article, or
that they were in any way sinister, but when selling a philosophy is your
bread and butter then there is a very strong tendency to turn a blind eye to
any realities that don't jive with that philosophy. Even those of us who
aren't selling anything do this all the time, so imagine when your livelihood
is on the table.

~~~
tjogin
Ulterior means "intentionally hidden" — it's not really possible to not be
conscious of something intentionally hidden.

------
hyperbovine
Anyone else finding it increasingly hard to care?

~~~
rguzman
I thought that myself about 20 times while writing it and submitting. There
seems to be plenty of discussion online about the mint post.

------
ssharp
The 37Signals blog still has a ton of great information in it - particularly
on design. However, their opinions on anything outside of design have been
getting more and more obtuse. There is more noise than signal these days but
they're still relevant enough to read.

Their one-size-fits-all approach to business models has always been as
ridiculous as their holier-than-thou attitude towards funded startups. They
just seem to be getting more gratuitous as of late. The company clearly had a
mental investment in Mint and were disappointed by their exit. That investment
and let down led them to act immaturely.

~~~
jonny_noog
Such disclaimers as the below would seem to directly contradict your claim
that they espouse a "one-size-fits-all" approach:

[http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch01_Caveats_disclaimers_an...](http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch01_Caveats_disclaimers_and_other_preemptive_strikes.php)

Or is your complaint that they don't find it necessary to preface every single
post on SvN with such disclaimers? In fact, this complaint would be addressed
by that same link.

I'm not trying to defend the Mint post by any means (although I do think, as
someone else already mentioned, that the larger picture being painted by the
post - once you get past the drama that has been generated - is interesting),
I'm sure that post (and probably a few other posts) could have been handled
better by Jason. But please, let's stop parroting the same old hyperbole about
37S.

------
run4yourlives
Why is everyone looking for a damn messiah/devil all the time?

It's always a dichotomy with some people, either you agree with people like pg
always all the time, or you are expected to be a 37Signals "fanboy" and
worship at their alter.

Hell, they are just people folks. People with valid experiences, but people
nonetheless. It is perfectly acceptable to agree with certain things a person
says and not with others. More importantly, disagreeing with a person on a
topic _does not automatically render their views on other topics invalid!_

You do not need to be in one camp or the other, you can choose on a per topic
basis, and hell, you can _even change your mind_ as your experiences change
and you gather more data. I know that some can't believe it, but even pg can
sometimes be wrong, wildly so.

Stop kicking a dead horse already. Fried told you what he felt about a
particular topic, and you're acting like he sat around the table at his secret
liar in the Bahamas playing out a masterful attempt to better the 37Signals
brand. Come on.

------
mhartl
_37 Signals is ..._

It appears that the temptation to misspell _37signals_ extends even to its
parody, "37 Noise"---which clearly should have been called _37noise_ (or
perhaps, to make the analogy more exact, _37noises_ ).

------
borism
Executive Summary:

everything written on start-ups should be taken with a grain of salt.

~~~
jacquesm
Start-up people should be a bit more careful about what they write. There is a
reason why big companies see blogging as a danger, imagine the CEO of some big
company making a public gaffe like that. It wouldn't go down very well, it's
your credibility, and by extension the credibility of your company that is at
stake when you blog.

Better be a bit more careful, even if you feel strongly about a subject (or
maybe especially then).

~~~
borism
maybe, maybe not. I prefer that dying breed of big-co's CEOs that speak
clearly what's on their mind instead of usual BS corporate speak. Remember
that Larry Ellison rant on cloud computing last week? Or ousted Seagate CEO
Bill Watkins saying " _let's face it, we're not changing the world. We're
building a product that helps people buy more crap - and watch porn._ " in an
interview. That's what I mean and that's what I miss.

Anyway, I wouldn't call 37Signals provocative posts gaffes. They're meant to
stir up things, sure, but they're usually written in quite good taste (unlike
many pieces critical of them) and they clearly express 37signals LLC vision
and principles.

~~~
jacquesm
If it's well thought through I have absolutely no problem with it. It's just
that your 'soapbox' is now standing on a global stage and if you are not
critical about what you write you might end up doing your company a
substantial amount of harm.

I like the Bill Watkins quote.

A variation to it was from someone that said "The best business models will
get people laid". Not sure who came up with it first though.

------
borism
good write-up that will calm down some people's nerves hopefully (especially
in VC/angel community, as they seem to be most pissed off.)

------
kwamenum86
...drivel

