REWORK

Earlier this week, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson held a live Q&A about remote work. We're splitting the session into two episodes. Part 1 covers questions about video calls, brainstorming, setting priorities, and good management during a time of stressful transition. If you'd like to watch the Q&A session in its entirety, you can do that on Periscope. You can also check out Basecamp's Guide to Internal Communication.Show NotesJason and David's book, REMOTE: Office Not Required - 00:55The full session on Periscope - 1:00Question 1: In a workplace with a mix of local and remote workers, what are some good strategies for making the remote workers feel more connected and not left out of office events? - 8:12Basecamp's Automatic Check-ins feature - 9:25Question 2: How do you qualify employees and gain trust if you don’t meet in person? - 14:14Question 3: How do you handle the transition in a company that hasn't been very remote until now and can't make a quick switch to writing more? - 18:30A Guide to Managing Remote Teams by Claire Lew, CEO of Know Your Team - 19:40Question 4: How do you handle video meetings with more than 20 people? - 23:44"Is group chat making you sweat?" (Signal v. Noise) - 30:00Question 5: How do you prioritize tasks? What's your productivity system or non-system? - 30:14Shape Up, Basecamp's book about product development - 30:50Question 6: Do you believe any developer/designer/product manager can work remotely? - 36:09Question 7: How would you host a brainstorming meeting? - 38:17Question 8: How do you properly handle large layoffs of more than 10 people? - 40:51"Stanley's Abruptly Closes After 52 Years of Selling Affordable Produce, Longtime Workers Caught Off Guard" (Block Club Chicago) - 44:30Question 9: What are the key things I can do as a manager of a small team to make remote working a great experience within my team, even if our company culture is still catching up after being forced to go full remote? - 46:02

Basecamp is a remote company, so we're less disrupted by the current pandemic than many other businesses, but we're still taking steps to keep folks safe. Jason Fried talks about canceling the company's April meetup and closing the Chicago office. Rework will be taking a few weeks off so we can get set up with recording studios at home. In the meantime, if you're working from home for the first time, we'd love to hear your stories! Please get in touch at hello@rework.fm (you can write an email or send us a voice memo) or leave us a voicemail at 708-628-7850.Show NotesTearing the heart out of Saturday night - 00:06Joe Bob Briggs' series, The Last Drive-In - 0:14Joe Bob Briggs: How Rednecks Saved Hollywood - 00:27Our recent episode about leaving the Chicago office - 1:10RailsConf - 5:59The Distance - 8:57Wailin learned about fomites from this 2013 New Yorker article and now she won't stop talking about them - 10:46

We at Basecamp love to preach the virtues of the 8-hour work day, but where did it come from? (Hint: Not from Henry Ford!) Labor historian Emily Twarog explains the origins of the 8-hour work day and why it was so short-lived in the U.S.Show Notes"This CEO thinks it's crazy to work more than 40 hours a week" (CNN) - 00:34"Extreme Capitalism with Jason Calacanis," the episode that credits Henry Ford with the 8-hour work day - 1:04"Did the 8-hour day and the 40-hour week come from Henry Ford, or labor unions?" (Politifact) - 1:06Emily Twarog | Twitter - 1:10"The Mill Girls of Lowell" (National Park Service) - 1:54The Lowell Offering - 3:04"Fire of 1871" (Encyclopedia of Chicago) - 3:51A history of McCormick's reaper works factory - 4:59An overview of the Haymarket Riot - 5:24A history of the Bread and Roses Strike of 1912 - 5:54The U.S. Department of Labor's history of the Fair Labor Standards Act - 11:02The National Labor Relations Board's FAQs on the National Labor Relations Act - 11:06Fight for $15 - 29:17"She was Instacart's biggest cheerleader. Now she's leading a worker revolt" (Washington Post) - 29:29Emily Twarog's book, Politics of the Pantry: Housewives, Food, and Consumer Protest in Twentieth-Century America - 31:25Beaten Down, Worked Up: The Past, Present, and Future of American Labor by Steven Greenhouse - 31:36On the Clock: What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane by Emily Guendelsberger - 31:45

Jarred Lustgarten left a Wall Street career to start a rug-cleaning business with $600 in borrowed money and a stack of flyers. A decade later, J.L. Carpet & Upholstery is profitable and Jarred has a very visible reminder on his hands of his commitment to his vocation.Show NotesIrin Carmon's website | Twitter - 00:40J.L. Carpet & Upholstery - 1:23Irin's tweet about Jarred's tattoo | Jarred's tattoo - 1:50New York Daily News columnist Harry Siegel's tweet in response - 2:18New York Rug Life - 2:49Lisa Wagner's website, Rug Chick - 15:52Park Slope Parents - 17:39Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik - 26:32

Basecamp the app is over 15 years old, which means Basecamp the company is responsible for safeguarding more than a decade's worth of customer data—including 370 terabytes of data stored in non-active accounts. In this episode, Basecamp data analyst Jane Yang talks about a big, ongoing project at the company to clean up those inactive accounts and give former customers what we all deserve: the right to be forgotten on the Internet. Two Basecamp alums also return to share the history of the company's data incineration protocol.Show NotesJamis Buck on Twitter - 2:05Jason Fried's tribute to Jamis - 2:22Eileen Uchitelle's website | Twitter - 3:15the tweet by @FiloSottile about data being uranium, not gold - 7:04our episode about the credential stuffing attack - 13:04blog post explaining how Basecamp notified customers about the credential stuffing - 13:32Basecamp's cancellation policy - 21:46Basecamp Personal - 21:53Tom Anderson from MySpace is on Instagram now and his profile photo should look familiar - 23:48Mazes for Programmers by Jamis Buck - 26:24Basil & Fabian by Jamis Buck - 26:25

Basecamp co-founder and CTO David Heinemeier Hansson and entrepreneur and angel investor Jason Calacanis debate the gig economy, democratic socialism, and whether the American dream is dead. The conversation in this episode is adapted from a longer interview that can be found in full at This Week in Startups.

Some of our most famous poets had day jobs: Robert Burns was a tax collector; William Carlos Williams was a doctor; Audre Lorde was a librarian and professor. Poetry has a lot to say about work and can serve as a meeting place, a provocative memo, or a break from the daily grind. In this episode, we hear from the creator of Poetry At Work Day and the editor of Poetry magazine about the power of verse in the workplace. And some Basecamp colleagues share poems that are meaningful to them.Show NotesDays of the Year - 00:08The origins of "Be A Pineapple" - 00:55Poetry At Work Day 2020 - 2:00Take Your Poet to Work Day  - 2:18Laura Barkat's website | Twitter - 2:26"The African Chief" by William Cullen Bryant - 2:45Tweetspeak Poetry - 3:06"Wasp" by Tony Hoagland - 4:12Don Share | Poetry magazine - 5:04"The Instruction Manual" by John Ashbery - 5:22"Toads" by Philip Larkin - 6:22Our recent episode about moving out of Basecamp's current office - 6:57"My First Memory (of Librarians)" by Nikki Giovanni - 7:06"Evangeline" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - 8:08Tweetspeak Poetry's Daily Poem email - 11:58The Poetry Foundation's Audio Poem of the Day - 12:05The Slowdown podcast - 12:11"On Clothes" by Kahlil Gibran - 13:15"This Is Just To Say" by William Carlos Williams - 14:41"This is just to say we have explained the plum jokes in your Twitter feed" (Vox) - 14:56Lotus-eaters (Wikipedia) - 15:43"The Lotos-eaters" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson - 15:59"A Ritual to Read to Each Other" by William E. Stafford - 16:31Kat Gaskin on Instagram - 22:02"A Blessing For One Who Is Exhausted" by John O'Donohue - 22:19

Every year for the past decade, Mert Iseri has chosen a new skill to learn. This annual challenge has taken him from a magicians' club to chess tournaments where he's competed against eight-year-olds. In this episode, Mert talks about chasing the joy of being challenged just the right amount and what he's learned from being an enthusiastic beginner.Show NotesMert Iseri on Twitter - 2:49Basecamp's Continuing Education Allowance benefit - 3:22SwipeSense - 4:45The Game of the Century - 8:24Chess Grandmaster Maurice Ashley - 9:15Pioneers Palaces - 10:03Garry Kasparov's seminar on MasterClass - 10:14Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - 14:49Lillstreet Art Center - 21:44It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson - 24:33Chicago Magic Lounge - 28:59Chicago Magic Round Table - 30:00Free Solo - 32:56Max Maven performs B'Wave - 38:52

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