David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH), co-founder of 37signals, discusses the ethics of wealth with David Senra, arguing that entrepreneurs should unapologetically spend earnings to support master artisans.
“If you sell a product or service and you make a lot of money on it, put that money back into the system, send some of that money to the craftsmen of Italy to create you a beautiful Ferrari, right? Like, there's someone who has to stitch that seat such that it's just right. There are engineers who are putting together that car such that it exists in the world. We would not have Ferraris to pine for if no one bought them. And who can buy them? The people who've been successful in other parts of the business. So therefore, it is your moral obligation to buy a Ferrari if you do really well. Or Lamborghini, or Pagani, or whatever floats your boat.”
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More from David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH)
What-if
DHH: Taking VC funding would have destroyed 37signals without Bezos's backing
“We could not have gotten Jeff's offer, and six months later, some VC would have given us a massive check that sounded super impressive, and it would have destroyed the business, and then we would have sold our independence, and we would have been fucking miser…”
DHH: 37signals offered six months severance to employees rejecting politics ban
“If you can't see yourself at a company where we're not going to discuss fucking Palestine during work hours with your random coworkers, we will pay you up to six months salary to go somewhere else.”
DHH: AI Acceleration Likely to Cause Even Lean Teams to Overbuild
“So this is why I'm quite skeptical about all this new AI acceleration we're having is even us. I think it's quite likely that we could use it wrong to build too much software to get too far away from less software, learnable software that still has to fit in t…”
DHH: 2004 Basecamp version still generates millions in annual profit
“The version we launched in 2004, we stopped selling in 2010. 16 years ago. We still have customers on it. As an individual business, it's still making millions of dollars.”
DHH: Windows is the epitome of having no design taste
“Apple for the longest time Was the undisputed leader in that, especially when you compared it to Windows, which was the epitome of having no taste, of having no sensibilities about how things should look, and having no cohesive vision for what a computer shoul…”
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