The folks at Basecamp have been blogging since 1999, when Jason Fried would write by the light of a fire fueled by David Heinemeier Hansson’s savage indictments of the tech industry. A lot has changed since then (with the exception of DHH’s feelings about Silicon Valley). Basecamp’s blog, Signal v. Noise (the site you’re reading right now!), changed platforms a few times. And it just moved again, this time from Medium to WordPress. In this episode of the Rework podcast, Jason and designer Adam Stoddard talk about leaving Medium for WordPress, the blog’s new look, and keeping SvN fresh after all these years.
David Heinemeier Hansson and Jason Fried are fans of Marie Kondo’s 2014 bestseller “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up,” which is back in the cultural zeitgeist thanks to her new Netflix show. In this bonus episode of the Rework podcast, DHH talks about how he’s applied the KonMari framework to code, business decisions at Basecamp, and his own belongings.
On Thursday, November 8, Basecamp 3 went down for almost five hours. It was the worst outage to hit the company in a decade and a stress test of Basecamp’s practices around internal communication, customer support, and calm work. Today’s episode of the Rework podcast goes inside the company on November 8 to see how the outage unfolded.
Business rhetoric is rife with the language of war — there’s constant talk of conquering markets and dominating the competition. These tropes indicate a dangerous way of thinking that can have real consequences, intended or not, on human behavior. In this episode of the Rework podcast, two professors share their research on the impact of violent rhetoric on business ethics, and a member of Basecamp’s Support team talks about communication techniques that get us out of the mentality that everything is a zero-sum game.
Annual, semi-annual, quarterly, 360…no matter what form they take, performance reviews can be anxiety-inducing workplace rituals. In today’s episode of the Rework podcast, we talk to the head of HR at an HR software company (meta!) and a Basecamp designer about why helpful feedback is so difficult to give and receive — and what can be done to improve the process.
It’s time for another mailbag episode where Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson answer your questions! In this one, they discuss how to apply calm company principles to client work and classrooms, and talk about healthy ways for business partners to disagree.
Before the viral unicorn poop video, before the appearances on Shark Tank and Dr. Oz and Howard Stern — Bobby Edwards was showing his invention at conventions and sending it to alternative health bloggers in hopes of getting coverage. The invention? Squatty Potty, a plastic stool that puts you in a squatting position to poop better. Today Squatty Potty brings in over $30 million in annual revenue, but the quirky company’s ascent to viral fame was far from assured. In today’s episode of the Rework podcast, Squatty Potty CEO Bobby Edwards talks about the years of work that went into marketing the Squatty Potty before it got national attention.
DHH is back on the Rework podcast this week for the second half of our interview about his and Jason Fried’s new book, It Doesn’t Have to be Crazy at Work. (Here’s the first part in case you missed it.) In this episode, David talks about taking a calm approach to writing and marketing the book. Also, Wailin gets him to say #blessed (kind of) and has some anxiety about late-stage capitalism. We all get through it together!
We’re still taking your questions for David and Jason to answer in an upcoming mailbag episode! Leave us a voicemail at (708) 628–7850 and you’ll be entered into a drawing for an autographed copy of It Doesn’t Have to be Crazy at Work. ☎️
You might have heard that Jason Fried and DHH have a new book out called It Doesn’t Have to be Crazy at Work that pushes back against the toxic culture of overwork and unhealthy ambitions that’s driving much of the modern workplace. In the latest episode of the Rework podcast, I sit down with David to talk about the book’s genesis, its intended audience, and the role of responsible software design in fostering calm work environments.
The second part of this interview will air next week. In the meantime, we’re taking your questions for David and Jason to answer in an upcoming mailbag episode! Leave us a voicemail at (708) 628–7850 and you’ll be entered into a drawing for an autographed copy of It Doesn’t Have to be Crazy at Work.
