REWORK

Sahil Lavingia once believed his startup was headed for unicorn status, but his journey through Silicon Valley—the viral launch on Hacker News, $8 million in venture capital, the glowing press—led to a very different outcome. In this episode, Sahil reflects on life outside the literal and figurative confines of Silicon Valley, and the satisfaction he gets from building a sustainable business.Show Notes"Is Venture Capital Worth the Risk?" (The New Yorker) - 00:51"The deal Jeff Bezos got on Basecamp" (Signal v. Noise) - 1:55Sahil Lavingia on Twitter | Gumroad - 2:05Vibram shoes - 6:00Jon Wheatley founded DailyBooth, a YCombinator company - 7:22"Pinterest Has Already Pinned Down $10M At A $40M Valuation" (TechCrunch) - 7:31Bebo is a now-defunct social networking company - 7:54"SoftBank's Vision Fund Is a Graveyard of Broken Tech Startups" (Vice) - 9:47"Gumroad Gets $7 Million Series A From Kleiner Perkins For Indie E-Payment Platform" (TechCrunch) - 11:43Basecamp Personal - 15:45Her (film) on Wikipedia - 21:01The 4-Hour Workweek - 29:10Sahil's big essay on his experience, "Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company" (Medium) - 32:58

Basecamp co-founder and Chief Technology Officer David Heinemeier Hansson has been ranting on Twitter about monopolistic practices in Big Tech for a while, and he recently got an unexpected opportunity to air his grievances about Google, Apple, and Facebook in front of a congressional subcommittee. In this episode, David debriefs on his experience and Basecamp's data analyst, Jane Yang, talks about her work helping David prepare for his appearance.Show NotesJudiciary Committee page about the hearing, including a video of the event - 1:37"Pick A Fight," our episode about why David enjoys arguing on Twitter - 2:38"Open Source Beyond the Market," David's 2019 RailsConf keynote - 4:59"The Google Ads Shakedown," our episode about our displeasure with the way Google handles ads in search results - 5:51"100% Facebook-Free," our episode about pulling Basecamp from Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp - 6:42Previous subcommittee hearings on "Online Platforms and Market Power" - 8:01David's prepared remarks - 8:35Congressman Ken Buck - 11:25The other witnesses were Patrick Spence of Sonos, David Barnett of PopSockets, and Kirsten Daru of Tile - 12:13"PopSockets CEO says Amazon uses 'bullying with a smile' to press for lower prices" (CNBC) - 13:02"Everything we know about Apple's Tile-like item tracking device" (9to5Mac) - 19:22"Apple's Flashlight Is Why We Can't Fund Nice Dumb Things" (TechCrunch) - 19:40The story of Steve Jobs calling Dropbox a "feature" is recounted in this 2011 Fortune article - 20:23"Here's how we can break up Big Tech" (Elizabeth Warren) - 26:29Goldman Sachs estimated that Google paid Apple $9.46 billion in 2018 to be the default search engine - 26:50The European Union's landmark antitrust case against Microsoft required it to offer a choice of browsers to Windows users - 27:08NerdWallet's explainer of the Glass-Steagall Act - 27:24A New York Times explainer of the Overton window - 31:13

Basecamp CEO Jason Fried is back in the studio with an update on the company's Chicago headquarters. Basecamp will be leaving its office this summer after a 10-year run, and Jason is looking at a number of options—including a space that will bring him full circle with one of his original 37signals partners. Show Notes"Office Space," our last episode about the fate of the Chicago office - 00:45Brininstool+Lynch, the architects behind Basecamp's office - 6:54Carlos Segura, who co-founded 37signals with Jason and Ernest Kim - 13:13Coudal Partners is the Chicago design firm that makes Field Notes - 20:49Chicago artist Nate Otto has worked with Basecamp for many years - 21:17You never forget George Pappageorge - 21:33

Matthew Vincent, a member of Basecamp's Ops team, spoke at Nomad City 2019 about life as a remote worker. Close your eyes and pretend you're in the Canary Islands as you listen to this audio version of Matthew's talk.Show NotesMatthew Vincent's Nomad City speaker bio - 00:30Nomad City - 00:34d20 System (Wikipedia) - 1:23"Thirteen Months of Working, Sleeping, and Eating at the Googleplex" (Bloomberg Businessweek, July 2015) - 2:21"Which Googler holds the record for living at Google HQ?" (Quora) - 2:23Ben Discoe's LinkedIn - 3:06Entry in Basecamp's handbook about the Continuing Education Allowance - 7:18The tweet that Matthew references - 9:00Automatic Check-ins - 14:00Basecamp's Employee Handbook - 21:36Shape Up by Ryan Singer, Basecamp's guide to product development - 21:48All of Basecamp's books - 22:03Videos for Nomad City 2019 talks - 28:45

Welcome back! We're kicking off the new year with an episode full of practical advice about onboarding new employees. Ashley Bowe from Basecamp's customer support team talks about how they welcome and train new colleagues, and leadership coach Karen Catlin of Better Allies shares advice and examples of what companies can do to build more inclusive cultures.Show NotesBasecamp's Support team - 00:47The Better Allies Approach to Hiring by Karen Catlin - 1:03"Hire When It Hurts," our episode about hiring - 2:51Entry in Basecamp's handbook about summer hours - 6:44"I've never had a goal" (Signal v. Noise) - 7:36Shaun talks about not eating lunch for a week in "Workaholics Aren't Heroes" - 9:03Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson write about the joy of missing out in this Quartz essay - 14:39Karen Catlin on Twitter | her website | Better Allies on Twitter | Better Allies website - 19:28The Uber leather jacket debacle was chronicled by Susan J. Fowler in her now-famous essay about working at Uber - 22:43

Listeners may remember that last year Wailin watched ALL of the holiday rom-coms and decided to share them with me on our ill-advised holiday bonus episode. Well, we're bringing it back! This year Wailin made Shaun watch The Knight Before Christmas. It's got magic, chivalry, time travel, wide-legged pants, and an inexplicable post-credit scene. Is the holiday bonus episode still ill-advised? Yes. But, is it fun? Also, yes! Happy Holidays to all of our listeners and we'll be back in 2020 with more stories.

In this anxious era of bullying, teen depression, and school shootings, tech companies are selling software to schools and parents that make big promises about keeping kids secure by monitoring what they say and write online. But these apps demand disturbing trade-offs in the name of safety. In this episode, we dive into the normative, privacy, and transparency implications of this software for both schools and families, and examine how the rush to fix societal problems with technology can amplify harm to young people while enriching companies that stand to profit from increased surveillance.Show NotesGennie Gebhart's bio | Twitter - 00:38Electronic Frontier Foundation - 1:02The EFF's 2017 report on student privacy (PDF) - 1:12"Facial Recognition Tech Comes to Schools and Summer Camps" (Wall Street Journal) - 1:32"Heal the Internet," our episode on removing tracking pixels from emails - 2:06"Big Brother at the Office," our episode on workplace surveillance - 2:10Previous episodes on Big Tech include "100% Facebook-Free," "The Google Ads Shakedown," and "Nevermore, Amazon" - 3:19"Breaking the Black Box," our episode about algorithmic bias - 3:24Caroline Haskins on Twitter | her stories for Vice | her stories for BuzzFeed News - 3:51BuzzFeed News' series on schools and surveillance - 4:04"Gaggle Knows Everything About Teens And Kids In School" (BuzzFeed News) - 4:06Gaggle - 4:08Bark - 7:05This Vice article takes a closer look at Bark's self-reported safety statistics in North and South Carolina - 7:29ManagedMethods - 8:31Bark's FAQs about its Parent Portal - 8:57Ryan Stanley's op-ed for the Juneau Empire - 10:14"School computer monitoring program makes botched debut" (Juneau Empire) - 11:10"Schools make adjustments to Bark" (KINY in Juneau) - 11:15More anecdotes about false positives can be found in this Guardian piece about school surveillance - 12:25"Cruel and Unusual Punishment: The Shame of Three Strikes Laws"

Get out your Bunsen burner! It's time to do some experiments. In this episode, we talk to two businesses that aren't afraid to try new things. First, the three founders of The Mad Optimist, a soap company in Indiana, talk about letting customers choose what they pay for their products. Then Natalie Nagele, the co-founder and CEO of software company Wildbit, talks about an ongoing experiment with four-day work weeks and what she's discovered about productivity, happiness, and deep work.Show NotesThe Mad Optimist website | Facebook | Instagram - 00:45You can find The Mad Optimist's live revenue number in their Humanifesto under "We practice radical transparency" - 9:43Natalie Nagele on Twitter - 16:51Wildbit website - 16:53Basecamp's entry on Summer Hours in the company handbook - 16:57Deep Work by Cal Newport - 18:54

Dave Teare is the co-founder and official "heart and soul" of 1Password, which recently raised $200 million in its first round of venture capital. Basecamp is a longtime happy customer of 1Password and also a longtime critic of venture capital, so the funding announcement led to some back-and-forth on Twitter between Basecamp co-founder David Heinemeier Hansson and Dave Teare. In this episode, DHH and Dave get on the phone to hash out their feelings about venture capital and what this funding round means for 1Password's future.Show Notes"Open Source and Power with Matt Mullenweg," our episode featuring a phone call between DHH and Automattic's Matt Mullenweg - 00:34DHH's tweet about Automattic's funding round - 00:49Dave Teare on Twitter | 1Password - 00:561Password's blog post announcing the funding round - 1:02DHH's tweet about 1Password's funding announcement - 1:04"A love letter to DHH and others concerned about our recent funding announcement" - 1:30"Bezos Expeditions invests in 37signals" (Signal v. Noise) - 1:551Password co-founder Roustem Karimov on Twitter - 3:10DHH's Ruby on Rails demo about building a blog engine in 15 minutes - 3:30"Conceal, don't feel" is a lyric from Frozen's Let It Go - 14:14"Inside WeWork's week from hell: How the mass layoffs went down" (CNN) - 19:16"The day I became a millionaire" (Signal v. Noise) - 21:22"It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work" - 25:31Apple's Differential Privacy policy (PDF) - 26:25Our Incredible Journey (Tumblr) - 31:42"The Mess at Meetup" (Gizmodo) - 32:08"Meetup wants to charge users $2 just to RSVP for events — and some are furious" (The Verge) - 32:18"Patreon now offers creators 3 plans, with fees ranging from 5-12%" (VentureBeat) - 32:45An irate forum post about Dropbox's new storage plan - 33:12"GitHub is trying to quell employee anger over its ICE contract. It's not going well" (LA Times) - 34:55"The deal Jeff Bezos got on Basecamp" (Signal v. Noise) - 39:20"How to Fly a Horse" by Kevin Ashton (Wikipedia) - 41:00

Workplace cultures in politics and tech share many similarities: Overwork is glorified; long hours are the norm; employees are expected to respond to communication instantly, no matter the day or time; and those that opt out are seen as lacking hustle or ceding ground to competitors. Marty Santalucia, a political consultant in Pennsylvania, wanted to do things differently. In this episode, he talks about applying calm work principles to an industry that's known for the opposite dynamic.Show NotesNPR's Up First podcast - 00:51FiveThirtyEight's Politics podcast - 00:55Dan Sinker's website | Twitter - 1:15impeachment.fyi - 1:21Marty Santalucia on Twitter - 2:55MFStrategies website | Twitter - 2:58"Sanders Campaign, Workers Ratify Union Contract" (NPR) - 22:23Bonus link! The New York Times asked 2020 Democratic candidates how much sleep they get a night and filmed the responses.