

Calling out Jason Fried for bad business advice - EuclidCapital2
http://blog.scottolsen.net/?p=144

======
tptacek
This poster has missed the point of Jason Fried's post by a cosmic distance.

He talked to a CEO last week who fell ass-backwards into a huge deal that he
can't win without recruiting 2-3 "enterprise SAS sales persons" "ASAP". Why,
if he followed Fried's advice, he'd never close those deals!

You want to take the advice of people like Scott Olson if this is the
situation you'd like to find yourself in: bouncing from make-or-break
high-6-figures enterprise deals dogfighting with 3 other companies doing
exactly the same thing you do. There is indeed a playbook that most direct
sales enterprise software companies run from, and if you don't mind quietly
crying into your hands for 5 minutes every day when you start your day sitting
in the lobby of a telecom company you're pitching in Jackson Mississippi, you
are well served by its plays[1].

I can't read Fried's mind, but here is the sense I get from how he writes ---
and this may be my own bias here --- he would rather gnaw off and consume raw
his own big toes than run this kind of company. He's writing his own playbook
for his company. And in that playbook, he doesn't "staff up". He's unlikely to
wind up in a situation where he has to delude himself that he can ramp up 2
sales reps so that they can close a _single deal_ whose window is _days to
close_.

Instead, the point of Fried's model appears to be: grow headcount as slowly as
possible, and instead of posting job reqs, leave yourself maximally exposed to
motivated talent. Exposed: running a company that people love, and that people
are inclined to ping for openings. Motivated: people who are seeking out the
opportunity to work with you. Talent: people who can prove themselves with
something other than a sheet of paper that looks identical to everyone else's
paper.

Scott Olson's friend can't do that. He runs an enterprise software company
that needs "Enterprise SAS Salespersons". Guessing, regardless of the "deep
technical rocket science" involved, that top talent isn't beating down the
doors to get an interview at that company --- unless it's attached to a
monstrous 1099 consulting rate.

But, I mean, what do I know? All I can say for reasonably sure is that Fried
is crying his way to the bank because of this mean post.

By the way: I've lived in Chicago all my life, started 2 companies here, one
of which I'm at now, and I don't know anyone who (a) works for the park
district or (b) is hiring people with UofC MBA's. Scott might just have needed
a better social circle here, and some different career choices. As someone who
has spent a couple years in the valley, I will attest to the fact that it is
easier to find people talking about the "rocket ride days at Netscape" there.
That wasn't enough of a win for me to stay, but hey, if "heady stuff" like
that does it for you, mazel tov! You be a mensch in the valley, I'll keep
growing a business in Chicago.

[1] This playbook is also the reason every VC-funded enterprise software
company with less than 10MM revs has products with pilot pricing at $70,000,
and why they all have the exact same 3-person VP/Marketing, Dir/Marketing, and
Marketing Communications Manager marketing team, solely responsible for giving
the CEO a "marketing plan" that in no way influences the sole product the
whole company develops. It is also the playbook that recruits 3 "sales
engineers" so that there are enough people staffing the pointless industry
conferences the playbook dictates they must spend $200,000 on every year. And
it's the reason you're getting fucking obnoxious phone calls from "inside
sales" people every other day.

And since nobody who actually knew what they were doing would ever go out of
their way to subject themselves to this kabuki startup built out of PowerPoint
"lego" slides and strip club visits, you _do indeed need resumes_ to execute
this plan.

But hey. Little stress balls with your company's name on it. Don't forget the
perks.

~~~
rameshnid
I think fundamentally Jason's advice works for the business of selling web
apps. And scott's got it all mixed up with general business practices of large
corporations.

Jason is a romantic when it comes to what worked for him and he is preaching
it to the world. Scott just can't handle the fact that preaching still works.

~~~
tptacek
I really think this has more to do with the way that insta- 50-person post-A-
round enterprise software startups work. They really do start with a small
pouch of powder, which, when sprinkled over water, blossoms into a company
with a 1/10 shot of getting acquired for 2x investment dollars in a couple
years.

It's probably really frustrating that all you have control over is the flavor
of that powder. Maybe that's why Olson is so angry. Or maybe something bad
happened to him in the Chicago parks. Some of them do get pretty iffy at
night.

------
naner
No advice is universal and the limited application of the 37signals crews'
advice is apparent.

This article is unnecessary.

And it reads like it was written by an MBA-type who is upset that successful
people are ignoring the gospel truth he was presented in college. There are
very few hard-and-fast rules in any profession.

~~~
alphamerik
They lost me at Stanford vs State school, I had to stop there.

Cover letters are an excellent way to judge the intent and character of an
applicant. Sounds like Scott is the one with a chip on his shoulder there...

~~~
tptacek
It doesn't help that the rampant secondhand info we have about Google's hiring
practices (for generalist devs out of school) suggests that they preference
top schools; I wouldn't be surprised if that's where this guy drew that
comparison from.

Not sure why I'm meant to be influenced by how an MBA stumbles through hiring
tech people, though.

~~~
madebylaw
Uh what? I like how everyone in this thread is complaining about judging an
applicant by where their degree came from while simultaneously singling out
people who are 'MBA types'. Double standard much?

~~~
tptacek
No, it's not a double standard. Just like saying 'grellas is more qualified to
give legal advice because he graduated from law school is not a validation of
the law school pecking order.

~~~
madebylaw
Yeah it's still a double standard because you're discounting people's
experience for a 'category' whether that category is 'lawyer' or 'MBA' or
'state school grad'. For example:

"Not sure why I'm meant to be influenced by how an MBA stumbles through hiring
tech people, though."

What if this MBA has 20 years of experience hiring tech people, both for small
and large companies, and who is also an active programmer in their spare time.
Don't you think their hiring advice might be important to consider? And yet
your statement jumbles him in with all those other pointy-haired 'MBA types'.
That is the same problem with only looking at an applicants alma mater is it
not?

Edit: And grellas' comments are awesome not just because he is a lawyer, but
because of his rich experience working with startups and tech companies.

~~~
tptacek
Here you go:

<http://blog.scottolsen.net/?page_id=2>

Do you think he's had 20 years experience hiring tech people? It's possible he
has. And you're right. I know lots of smart MBA's --- though most of them also
have engineering degrees, unlike Olsen.

------
petenixey
What a lot of 37Signals-fanatical-defence and unnecessary MBA bashing.

I'm a huge fan of the _business_ 37Signals has built however Scott Olsen hit
it on the head with his critique of their _advice_.

37Signals do indeed suffer from a "Pernicious Lack of Perspective" and from
"Strident Insistence". If you read Rework (which frankly will only take you an
hour), it is a series of chapters that could each be retitled "And another
thing I really like about what we do at 37Signals".

Their advice doesn't work in all cases and they seldom if ever draw examples
of other companies where it does. This doesn't take from what they have
achieved but it does mean they're often far too far out of their boat when
shouting advice at others.

Kudos to Scott for not only making this point but also being a very good
writer.

~~~
tptacek
It's like you want them to write a book that says "And another thing I really
like about what they do at Boeing...". I'll let Jim Collins write that book,
and then wait for Boeing to go out of business like Circuit City.

------
kleinsch
I've thought for a while that people need to take hiring advice given by
37Signals and Fog Creek (Joel on Software) in perspective. It's a very
different experience hiring when there are thousands of programmers who would
die to work on your stuff than when you're an upcoming startup that nobody's
heard of. That's not to say that their advice is wrong - Smart and Gets Things
Done has lots of great advice. Keep in mind when reading these books/blogs
that people aren't going to launch websites, Twitter campaigns, or rearrange
their lives to get your attention like they do for 37signals and Joel.

~~~
jkahn
I totally agree. Unless you're a business with an established coolness-factor,
you're stuck with contacts and trawling through resumes.

------
lyudmil
"You’d ignore this [information about schools and previous jobs], and go
straight to the cover letter? Really? ... Really?"

Yes, really. That's the point. Merely being incredulous doesn't form a
coherent argument against it. My angle on this is a little personal, which
would probably automatically strip my it of any validity, but let me explain
why. Perhaps it would make a compelling case to someone.

I'm originally from Bulgaria and graduated high school there. For obvious
political reasons I hadn't traveled at all and I wanted to study in the US. I
got into private and public schools, but the difference in the standard of
living at the time was such that even with substantial financial aid I could
only afford to go to a state school. Still, I'd get to see the US (New York in
particular) and the draw of the adventure was enough to get me to go.

After school, like most international students, I took advantage of a program
that is essentially an extended internship (OPT). There were hard time
constraints, so I needed to find a job quickly. I ended up working at a
consulting firm you never would have heard of doing mostly Java with a bit of
Rails. It was a great place to work and I learned a lot. If the respect and
trust of the people you work with counts for something, I'm fairly confident I
got good.

None of this is something I could convey in a resume. Worse, Mr. Olsen would
dismiss me outright because I have gone to a state school (because I was poor)
and done Java (because I couldn't afford to sift through the market). Feel
free to attribute this to cognitive dissonance, but I find his views arrogant,
ineffective, and lacking a human approach. His argument is a pernicious over-
simplification of a complex, human problem.

~~~
amirmc
_Worse, Mr. Olsen would dismiss me outright because I have gone to a state
school ... and done Java_

Mr Olsen makes no judgement in his post as to which of the two candidates is
'better'. He just asks the question "You’d ignore this information, and go
straight to the cover letter?"

~~~
lyudmil
You're correct that he doesn't make an explicit judgement, but there are two
things to note: (1) he used the rhetorical question to prove a point (he meant
something by it), and (2) the obvious answer to the rhetorical question is
"No." Therefore, it's fair to ponder what the equivalent statement would be if
it weren't written in the form of a question.

The way I interpreted it was "No one could rationally ignore this information.
Clearly one should factor it when making a decision about which cover letter
to read first, which candidate to interview first, etc." I don't think that's
an unfair way to read this, and it clearly implies something about the
qualities of former candidate with respect to the latter.

------
0nly1ife
SvN, Getting Real, and Rework are an indirect marketing campaign for Basecamp.
Sensationalized, aggressive, and confrontational articles attract more readers
and more Basecamp signups. I love 37signals, but sometimes I wonder if they
are providing me with good radical business advice or if they are raising
controversy to attract attention.

~~~
tptacek
Both, of course.

~~~
blasdel
Based on a conversation I had with Jason Fried, I'd say neither.

They publish this stuff primarily just for the sake of writing it. It's an
outlet for a company that purposefully avoids adding features to their
products if at all possible. It's a deliberate practice to keep themselves
creative — the megalomaniacal marketing is just added ego-gravy.

------
protomyth
That "guy doing IT at law firm" might be the best programmer for your project.
Using life circumstances to judge talent is equally as stupid as looking for
bullet points (Stanford, Facebook) on a resume. Maybe his/her family needed
the money, the health benefits, or some other event prevented him/her from
pursuing their dream job/education. Hire a person, not a list.

~~~
jamn
Sure. You could have a PhD grad from Caltech A and a community college grad B
such that B is more skilled for the job than A.

But if you have a very small amount of information and time to make a
decision, where would you place a bet? It's certainly very unfair for the many
talented graduates from lesser known universities. However, I find the idea of
recruiting based partially on these bullet points valid from a expected
proficiency optimizing perspective.

The talented guy doing IT at a law firm has some options to signal his talent.
For example, he can create or become a top contributor in an open source
project. I am sure many talented people who feel unfulfilled in their jobs do
this.

~~~
tptacek
If you're in the jam where you have very little time to make a decision
between two people based on their school and their job application, you may
have screwed the whole process up several steps earlier.

Try to avoid getting in this jam; make that an explicit goal of your
recruiting (and, more importantly, business planning) process. You may find
that Fried's "chuck the resumes" advice starts making a whole hell of a lot
more sense.

~~~
jamn
I disagree. A recruiter that uses resumes effectively frees up time that lets
him carefully inspect only those candidates that made it through this coarse
filtering process.

I've helped my friend do recruiting at his startup (albeit, not in the US).
There are hundreds and hundreds of applications, and the constraint I pointed
out becomes evident. Is it really cost-effective to personally interview and
understand the context of every single resume-submitter, including those with
absolutely no experience? How about someone without even a compsci degree and
no experience to make up for it?

~~~
tptacek
You're not following. If you have a job req you need to fill right now, you're
right. But the fact that you're hiring that way suggests you've made some
decisions that are making life less pleasant.

To be in a position to blow off resumes, you need to run a company like
37signals does. You need to chill out, do excellent work, collect fans, and be
open to interesting people who go out of their way to bug you for jobs.

The very best people in the industry don't give a shit about your job reqs.
The minute they actually get on the market, they're snatched up, because their
friends track their every motion and are alert to the slightest sign of
unhappiness in their current job. You think Mark Dowd, Zed Shaw, or Tom
Preston-Werner are going to fill out job reqs and send out resumes? That's
naive.

By running extremely lean, rocking out the business, and building stuff people
like in an environment that builders like, 37signals can drag in A+ players
when they become available, because they aren't clogging up the decks with
people they fished out of a pile of resumes. Your friend, maybe not so much?

------
chc
This guy seems to have precisely the problem he accuses Fried of
demonstrating: He doesn't do things a certain way, so he assumes they just
aren't done like that.

When Fried warns against growing your business too fast based on pipe dreams
rather than actual, quantifiable needs, this guy says, "Oh, come on, who does
that? He's arguing against cartoon characters!" But a lot of people really do
get caught up in the ideas of what they should be doing to grow their business
according to some blueprint and don't stop to consider whether it's best for
the business at this stage. I think Paul Graham has written about this too,
where too much venture capital will put pressure on startups to become big
business-y in a hurry, to their detriment.

------
rit
I have mixed feelings about this.

I sure as hell don't think just because Person 1 went to Stanford and Person 2
went to State School that one is better than another.

Maybe part of it is that I'm from Pennsylvania and we happen to have some
fairly good state schools like Penn State.

Or the fact that when it comes down to writing code, where you went to school
means absolutely DICK. Hooray, you spent 4 years learning Java at exorbinate
cost. So what?

What does matter to me - and shows in the resume, incidentally - is what you
did after school ( or instead of it, in my case ).

------
camworld
This article could easy be titled:

No-name Blowhard Slams Accomplished Internet Entrepreneur in Half-Assed Effort
to Validate Gigantic Ego

I've known Jason Fried since 1998 or so and he's a stand-up guy. Over the
years he has built his own successful empire by carefully hiring the right
people and nurturing them in the proper ways. While his advice is
unconventional, it is by no means bad advice. What works for him and 37
Signals will likely work for others.

------
steveklabnik
I was always taught that saying "In my opinion" was bad form. You're making a
statement, of course it's your opinion! To say so is just repeating yourself.

So when I read REWORK, I see it as "Here's how I built my business. You could
do the same." When I read Crush It, I hear "This is how I, @garyvee, built my
business. You could do the same." I don't hear, "This is always the way that
it works in every business ever." Maybe that's just me.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
In my opinion, I think you're wrong.

In some cases (like mine above) it is unnecessary to specify that it's your
opinion, because it's truly and obviously an opinion. But not every statement
made is someone's opinion [1]. For example:

    
    
       "In my opinion, the earth revolves around the Sun."
       "In my opinion, Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States."
       etc.
    

Because some statements are clear and simple facts, it can sometimes be useful
to delineate opinion from fact, especially in cases where it's not explicitly
clear which type of statement is being made. In _most_ cases, I think that
it's pretty clear from the context that 37signals' is writing from their own
experience and sharing their opinions, and thus littering their writing with
"weasel words" would diminish the quality of the writing.

However, in many cases (including some by 37signals), writers intentionally
leave out the "weasel words" not because their statements are obviously
opinion, but because they know it will get people riled up and serve as good
linkbait. Ironically, they often fall back to this whole idea of "of course
it's only my opinion, weasel words are bad writing, etc", which strikes me as
kind of a reverse-weasel. Write as if you're stating absolute truth (in order
to get links), even when you aren't, and then hide behind "good writing" when
people complain.

[1] I'm really not interested in the greater philosophical questions of
whether it's opinion that the earth revolves around the sun. If you are, be my
guest, but I'm fully prepared to just accept some things as fact. The earth
revolving around the sun is one of them :)

EDIT: I might have been using "heliocentricism" wrong, so I removed it to
prevent ambiguity.

~~~
nudge
Reverse-weasel is my new favourite concept.

~~~
cabacon
Quite related, I think, is preterition: the act of mentioning something by
saying you won't mention it. I seem to encounter it from computer/math people
a lot, it's nice to have a name for the action.

------
iamwil
37 hires from across the country. They've talked about telecommuting often.
They don't have just resumes/job candidates from Chicago. That weakens his
hypothesis.

~~~
sabat
Not at all. Whether they hire from around the world, Jason is still from a
technological podunk town. He ain't from the big city, and he's presumptuous
enough to believe he knows it all anyway.

------
mixmax
Reading through the comments there's a lot of defending 37signals. I think the
poster is absolutely right though.

There was an interview with Marissa Meyer on The Charlie Rose show where they
talked about recruiting talent for Google and Marissa was asked what her
experience was. Since it's Google they had obviously tried to do all sorts of
predictions on how well a new employee would turn out based on cover letters,
interviews, resumes, etc. What she said was interesting. The only predictor of
how well a new employee would do his job was his resume. Nothing else gave a
statistically significant prediction.

So Marissa and I think the poster is right and Fried is wrong :-)

~~~
amirmc
Here's a link to the video (from 41m25s):
<http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10129>

~~~
dlo
Thanks. I took the liberty of transcribing the latter part of that section.

"We basically found that their background and references are the best
predictor. You can't use them exclusively, but it's true: The best predictor
of future performance is past performance. And that's what we really found out
through the regression models. We also found that there were a few
interviewers in the company who were very, very good. They were several
standard deviations off, meaning that they could tell in an interview where or
not someone was going to be good or not. In some cases, they would be aberrant
and reach a different conclusion from the other interviewers, but they would
be correct."

------
mkramlich
I'd like a feature where I can hit one button to grant a +1 vote to everything
said by a particular user within a given thread, without even necessarily
reading it beforehand. It would save me a lot of time regarding tptacek today.
:)

------
barmstrong
Jason's point was a great one - historically people focused too much on
resumes, and that is often a mistake today because their work speaks for
itself.

You're probably objecting to the all encompassing way it was said, which I
could understand. I think Jason would agree that resumes aren't 100% useless
in every case.

But writing from a "lets tell both sides of the story" perspective is boring
and accomplishes nothing (everyone knows there are two sides to every story).
If you think the pendulum has swung too far in one direction, then writing to
push it the other direction is all you can do.

~~~
michael_dorfman
_Jason's point was a great one - historically people focused too much on
resumes, and that is often a mistake today because their work speaks for
itself._

Except, that's not a great point-- it's a pretty trivial point, and one that
was hammered to death by Spolsky, t al., a decade ago.

And, it's not a matter "let's tell both sides of the story", as much as "pay
attention to the context."

Fried has found something that works for 37signals. That's good, as far as it
goes. To try to generalize from that into "This is the way everybody should do
things" is not only arrogant, it's crazy.

If Fried were really interested in doing his readers a service, he'd examine
_why_ his system works at 37signals, and outline the context which makes it
appropriate-- so that if the reader's context is similar, he can adjust the
advice accordingly.

~~~
tptacek
Wait, which of these points were made by Spolsky a decade ago? I have a near-
fannish devotion to both of these people's writing, and I think you're either
misremembering or have misread Fried's bit.

------
jonpaul
I really hate to resort to name calling, as I realize it reduces the name
caller's credibility... fuck it. Am I the only one that thinks this guy reads
like a douche bag? "Mr. Fried", "The Pernicious Lack of Perspective (PLP) is
metastasized through the entire corpus of their “business advice” work."....
or maybe it's this guy's writing style? Maybe, I'm use to reading so many
informal blogs that have a conversational tone? I don't know.

Help me out.

------
dhh
This guy reminds me of Stephen Fowler:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzIDaRY82fU>

~~~
sthomps
Good point. I forgot how much of a slime bag that guy was.

~~~
douglasputnam
Mr. Olsen's essay is what we commonly call a rant. Though he doesn't fully
reveal in his tirade why he perceives Jason Fried as a dangerous enemy who
must be defeated, we can deduce the real reason for his seemingly bottomless
anger: oxytocine poisoning.

Oxytocine is the love/hate hormone; it binds a cohort together and
simultaneously creates aggression towards outsiders. Oxytocine is responsible
for the condition known as The Fanboy Syndrome. Whether by design, or by
instinct, each utterance from the lips of Jason Fried and Davie Heinemeier
Hansson carries a payload of powerful semiotic messages that alter the
target's brain chemistry. Sometimes the target will become a Fanboy, and
sometimes the target will feel a threat to a pre-existing Fanboy alliance---
then comes the rage.

As members of the tech community, we endure constant oxytocine bombardment by
masters of manipulation. With each new version of Android, with every semi-
annual dose Steve Jobs charisma, with every shift in the Facebook security
policy, in the Ruby vs Python vs Java flame wars, we are exposed to massive,
and sometimes fatal, doses of harmful hormones. It's important to remember
that we are not animals; we can take defensive measures. When next you feel
your Fanboy or your Hateboy urge rising from the depths, do not resist it.
Resistance is futile. The path to freedom from oxytocine slavery is to
acknowledge it, to embrace, and then, to let it go.

~~~
joshbert
What a beautiful and informative post. Thank you, sir.

------
ahpeeyem
37Signals' philosophy and their business practices ARE different to a 'normal'
business or startup's - their advice goes against the conventional wisdom.
That's what makes what they have to say worthwhile and valuable for
discussion.

I Googled around a little bit for an example here, here goes.

Nobody is gathered around arguing the soundness of the approach or the
appropriateness of the attitude of Ben Angel, founder of Nationwide
Networking, what seems at a glance to be a somewhat successful business
consulting and entrepreneur coaching business.

Why?

Presumably because Ben's advice is conventional, safe and mostly like everyone
else's. It may be more likely to be suited to your business, but it's not new
and it's not interesting, is it?

37Signals built a very different, opinionated business. It worked because
either they got all their opinions exactly right (not likely...), or because
building a business that way makes people like you - and makes you successful.

~~~
djtpomi
Have you ever explored EOS, the Entrpreneurial Operating System? If you
haven't read TRACTION by Gino Wickman, I stongly recommend it for anyone
trying to grow an entrepreneurial business.

------
VictorHo
I see a lot of hate towards this article, but there are definitely nuggets of
truth here. Yes his tone might be a bit defensive, and yes he might sound like
an "mba-type" with a "chip on his shoulder". However, the basic point that we
should consider all available information when looking for a new hire is a
good one. The resume contains many useful data points, and it is ludicrous not
to take it into account. Should I base me entire decision on it, or even a
large part of it? Maybe not. But to completely disregard it? That makes little
sense.

While "Stanford vs. State School" might not be the best argument, the point
still holds. It is useful information, and all else being equal the Stanford
kid probably has a track record of a harder work ethic. Make a decision solely
based upon it? Absolutely not. But it would be poor business sense not to take
it into account.

------
winternett
I write quite well and could indeed craft an excellent custom cover letter but
I refuse to include cover letters when applying for jobs and I've never had
problems landing great interviews and jobs. Letting my experience and
educational background speak for me has never let me down, and I'm no rocket
scientist. If an employer ignored my resume, its probably better that I don't
work for them, its the first sign of arrogance and disregard to throw away the
intellectual capital of time honored industry practices as an employer as a
blanket statement backed by faulty reasoning unless you're hiring someone for
a writing job. I don't include cover letters because it leaves room for
discussion when I'm called in for an interview.

~~~
humblepatience
Wait so, why don't you write a cover letter again?

on right because...

 _its the first sign of arrogance and disregard to throw away the intellectual
capital of time honored industry practice_

cover letter is industry standard too, yo, but you disregarded it

~~~
winternett
Having a cover letter is an extra, your resume is the center piece. You can
have a resume without a cover letter, but you can't have a cover letter
without a resume. Not including a cover letter helps me to get in the door, if
a potential employer is serious about hiring me, I have no problems preparing
or giving them past writing samples. I am an individual , and I'm not bound by
EEOE rules, that's another reason I can disregard time honored industry
practices, and how its a bigger deal if a company ignores resumes.

------
JanezStupar
I feel divided. The articles feel like two different articles mixed together.
One extremely insightful about workings of the Enterprise world. And the other
- bashing of Jason Fried on the grounds of awfully picked examples. Now I
believe that Mr Olson is the one suffering the PLP.

As far as I perceive Jason Fried he's extremely self confident and may come
across as arrogant to some. But personally I'm fine with that. I like people
who know they're good and are not ashamed to feel good about it. And I like
when they talk about it. I also like how this particular kind of people know
better than talk about stuff they know nothing of.

------
yosho
Blogs get attention by being on one side of the fence instead of straddling
the fence.

Obviously Jason Fried doesn't want to write "Resume's work sometimes, other
times pay attention to the cover letter," That's just boring.

------
mkramlich
All advice should be taken with a grain of salt. Interpreted and adapted to a
particular set of circumstances. Anything 37Signals says is no different.

Personally, I've found a lot of wisdom in what JF/DHH have said. Does
everything they say apply, literally, in 100% of situations? Of course not.
But there is/was a whole lot of traditional/oldskool advice out there that is
too extreme in the other direction, and what they advocate is a refreshing
alternative that DOES work for them, and DOES work for other folks.

As always, YMMV and caveat emptor.

------
mkramlich
Here's the deal: 37Signals is a so-called lifestyle business. Except it gives
them a pretty damn good lifestyle. So if someone wants to lead the same kind
of lifestyle, listening to them provides a model for how one might achieve
that. If you want something different, or if you're going after a radically
different kind of customer, their stuff might not apply.

~~~
axod
", listening to them provides a model for how one might achieve that"

As long as you've built up a massive blog readership and are selling them
koolaid about how totally awesome you are. Oh and if you create rails.

~~~
tptacek
Yes, axod! Building things people want is indeed a prerequisite of 37signals-
style success, and it is indeed worth noting that it is _not_ a prerequisite
of enterprise software success.

It is so weird to me, this "critique" of 37signals that says "but, they did
all these awesome things, _of course_ they're successful". This isn't a get-
rich-quick scheme.

~~~
axod
So you're saying it's completely possible for anyone to create the next rails?

The issue isn't that I disbelieve they did awesome things so they're
successful. Sure - they did good stuff, and got some luck. The question is,
can it be replicated by others, and is their advice useful to people looking
to build companies.

Their advice is _SO_ narrow. It's basically "how to build 37signals". So for
me, it's not really very useful unless I invent a time machine, and decide I
want to build 37signals before they do.

~~~
tptacek
People created frameworks before Rails. They continue to create frameworks
now. Someone will be the Rails of Node.js, for instance. But calling 37s a
successful "framework company" seems sort of inept; their customers, by and
large, do not seems like Rails users. Indeed, Rails users seem like exactly
the kinds of people who think that Basecamp and Campfire are trivially
reproduced and not worth the money.

All I'm saying is, if you think that having a popular blog is the key to
37signals success, then go start a popular blog. Nobody is stopping you. God
did not reach out from the heavens and give SvN to 37signals.

Meanwhile, how many people work for Github? 4? What parts of 37signals' advice
_clearly don't apply to them_? Are there no other examples of small companies
with strong revenue that we can come up with?

~~~
axod
FWIW, I run a small business with strong revenue, haven't taken funding, etc.
I just disagree with most things 37Signals say :)

------
joshbert
I really like Rework and 37signals in general, so I might be biased. Having
said that, I'll have to join the feeling that their opinions aren't that
radical, just different, and that you can take it with a grain of salt and
still get several golden nuggets.

For all I saw, the OP missed the point.

------
martinc
Advice is advice. You're free to take it or leave it.

------
harscoat
no mention of Groupon Chicago based?

------
ddemchuk
The fun part about advice is you don't always have to take it

------
shareme
I think both the original article author and the rebuttal get it wrong..

Hiring is process and much like any engineering adventure you are attempting
to find tools and sub-processes that control this human adventure for a
desired outcome.

There is no one magical one right way to combine those subprocesses and tools
into one magical hiring process.

Its like any engineering process, you measure, verify and measure again and
than make changes on those inputs.

