The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 26 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 1 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Basecamp is in a significantly better place following its political discussion ban
“I can tell you the company's in a significantly better place.”
Jason Fried would ban workplace political discussions again despite the employee backlash
“If I had to make it again today, I would make the same decision.”
One-third of Basecamp employees quit within two weeks of political talk ban
“Ultimately about a third of the company quit in a matter of is it a week or two.”
Basecamp does not beta test products or survey users before launch
“This is the thing I think that's so important, and this is why, like, when we build products, we don't beta test them, really, and we, sometimes we get a few people in, but we're not, like, asking people what they think.”
Basecamp will not pursue growth at the expense of profitability
“I don't want to be bigger and have much lower margins. I don't want to be bigger and lose money per customer. I don't want to be bigger and have to take a bunch of money to support that growth.”
Basecamp operates strictly on six-week planning cycles
“I think six weeks at a time. I think six weeks ahead of time, And that's it. We're pointed in a direction, but it's six weeks at a time. That's the only thing I think about. It's the only thing I plan.”
DHH: Basecamp Intentionally Avoids Expanding to Hundreds of Employees
“I don't think we could do the things that we could do if we were 300 people or a thousand people, which is actually one of the main reasons we try not to get to that, Right? Like, I don't want to work at a place that has 300 people or a thousand people that I …”
Jeff Bezos bought Basecamp shares directly from founders, not as primary capital
“So Jeff Bezos bought a small piece of my shares and David shares. None of his money went into the business. The money went into my bank account and David's bank account.”
Jason Fried predicts he will leave Basecamp within ten years
“I'm certain I'm not here in 10 years but I don't know where I will be.”
Basecamp grew to its largest headcount ever following the 2021 staff walkout
“We, we've actually grown significantly bigger than we've ever been. So we rehired a bunch of people and then have hired more since. At the time that happened, we were about 60, now we're about 80, biggest we've ever been.”
Wait weeks before responding to knee-jerk product change backlash
“So what I tend to do is, like, for any, like, immediate change-based feedback, I say, let's just sit on this for a while, and let's see what happens in a few weeks, because once the moment goes away and people start to get used to this thing, maybe they'll end…”
DHH: Information Delivery Should Be Asynchronous, Not in Meetings
“I think meetings suck for that purpose, and I think we're much better off when we use anything from email to Basecamp to other ways of asynchronous communication where someone can write something up, be considered In their thought, using full sentences, formin…”
DHH: Basecamp Employees Know Remote Peers Better Than In-Office Colleagues
“We've had several employees join Basecamp who said after they've been here for a while, they know their coworkers at Basecamp much better than they knew their coworkers at their past job where they were working together in an office.”
Basecamp evaluates candidates with paid, one-week contract projects before full-time hiring
“When we hire people, we actually hire them first for a week, ah, on a contract basis, one week, not in every position, but in some, to actually do a project for us.”
Fried dislikes most CEO duties beyond product building
“It's not all the other CEO responsibilities. I don't like most of those, to be honest, but, like, I'll do them. I'll do them because I get to do the other stuff.”
Fried works strict eight-hour days and wraps up by 5:30 PM
“I work eight hour a day. I'm done at five, five 30 roughly.”
Fried keeps all his financial risk tied up in Basecamp
“So, I'm very, very conservative when it comes to investing. All my risk is tied up in my own business, and my own business is a machine that makes me the money. When I invest in something, it's because I want to support the thing, and if there's a return in th…”
Fried pledges never to make bet-the-company decisions
“I don't do anything that could end me. I would never bet the company on something. I would never Bet the farm on something.”
DHH: Basecamp Strictly Enforces a 40-Hour Work Week
“We work 40 hour weeks, eight hours, five days a week, right?”
DHH: Basecamp Was Profitable Enough to Pay Salaries Before Full-Time Transition
“By the time we moved full-time, there was zero risk, zero, because we were already making more than well enough money to pay our own salaries and have a fair margin.”
DHH: Doubling Headcount Increases Coordination Overhead Exponentially
“The difference between an organization of five people and an organization of 10 people or one between 10 and 20, it's not twice as hard. It's far more than twice as hard, and the amount of coordination overhead that it requires when you double your headcount i…”
DHH: Averages Three to Four Weekly Meetings Running Basecamp Asynchronously
“We have quite few regular meetings on any given week. I'd be surprised if I have more than three, maybe four. And in some weeks I have zero face-to-face or video to video conversations with people. The vast majority of the coordination work that we do, the exe…”
DHH Reveals Basecamp Is Developing New Email Service Hey.com
“I enjoy writing Ruby code, and making Rails, and making Basecamp, and now we're making this new hey.com email service, and I'm excited about that”
Basecamp's team of 60 in 2021 was its largest ever
“Managing 60 people is just hard. This is the biggest we've ever been.”
DHH: Basecamp Operates on Six-Week Cycles Separated by Reflection Breaks
“There's a clock frequency, essentially, at Basecamp. And that clock frequency runs on six-week cycles. Every six weeks, we stop for a week or two and take stock of what we've done in the past six weeks and what we're going to do next.”