For what it's worth I think this is a weak argument. The posts at Signal v Noise never encourage you to "slow down" for the sake of slowing down... they just encourage you to think about starting up in a different light. If you can take life as a startup founder easier, yet be more productive or generally have a more fulfilling experience, so much the better.
Anyway it seems an unlikely strategy that to quell competition 37signals tries to injure everyone's productivity by way of deliberately poor advice. I just don't see how the author makes that logical step (or the point isn't defended well).
If the author really thinks 37s doesn't like competition, he should address why they would open source the framework created from their flagship product. Seriously, why would a company that wants to prevent others from competing with them give away the tools they use for increasing productivity and making it easier to realize innovative ideas?
37signals is trying to spread what they think are good ideas - the techniques and models that have worked for them. If you've ever talked to them you'll find they do this because they're passionate ideas, not because they want to harm an entire industry. Jason Fried has been talking about "embracing constraints" for how long now? And he does it only out of malice? He speaks about these ideas at events and organizations to people who would never compete with 37signals because he's scared of competition? This idea is so stupid it's laughable.
The only point he might have (and I don't think he's even making it) is that 37signals is not what most people think of as a startup. Over the past few months it seems like 37signals has been trying to change part of the definition of "startup" - they're trying to change the class of companies to which the term "startup" applies but keep the connotations of independence, adventure, and creativity.
Why, subterfuge! That way whenever anyone accuses them of having a disinformation blog campaign, they can point to their open source project to deflect blame. Wheels within wheels.
That would have been a better point to make, you're right.
As noted elsewhere, AMTTI is more of a personal rant board. I'll work on making the content a bit more cogent in the future as I'd like it to mature beyond that...
Criticism is fine (and I think there is room for a good critique of 37signals). Just pretend that you're saying what you're writing directly to the person in question, and adjust your tone as a consequence.
Yea, I was thinking the same thing. Discourage people in general from working hard in order to discourage potential competitors from competing with you? Too far fetched. Too funny.
IMO this is just someone who's jealous because 37Signals has been successful while retaining a healthy work-life balance.
Too many people these days take pride in their ability and willingness to work ridiculously long hours for extended periods of time.
The only thing that 37Signals is doing is encouraging developers to write code and be healthy doing it, rather than killing themselves and wasting their youth away on technical debt.
The secret to doing what they do is to write code with fewer bugs, not put in extra hours writing in extra bugs because you're too tired to think straight.
Comments
For what it's worth I think this is a weak argument. The posts at Signal v Noise never encourage you to "slow down" for the sake of slowing down... they just encourage you to think about starting up in a different light. If you can take life as a startup founder easier, yet be more productive or generally have a more fulfilling experience, so much the better.
Anyway it seems an unlikely strategy that to quell competition 37signals tries to injure everyone's productivity by way of deliberately poor advice. I just don't see how the author makes that logical step (or the point isn't defended well).
Only my take.
If the author really thinks 37s doesn't like competition, he should address why they would open source the framework created from their flagship product. Seriously, why would a company that wants to prevent others from competing with them give away the tools they use for increasing productivity and making it easier to realize innovative ideas?
37signals is trying to spread what they think are good ideas - the techniques and models that have worked for them. If you've ever talked to them you'll find they do this because they're passionate ideas, not because they want to harm an entire industry. Jason Fried has been talking about "embracing constraints" for how long now? And he does it only out of malice? He speaks about these ideas at events and organizations to people who would never compete with 37signals because he's scared of competition? This idea is so stupid it's laughable.
The only point he might have (and I don't think he's even making it) is that 37signals is not what most people think of as a startup. Over the past few months it seems like 37signals has been trying to change part of the definition of "startup" - they're trying to change the class of companies to which the term "startup" applies but keep the connotations of independence, adventure, and creativity.
Why, subterfuge! That way whenever anyone accuses them of having a disinformation blog campaign, they can point to their open source project to deflect blame. Wheels within wheels.
That would have been a better point to make, you're right.
As noted elsewhere, AMTTI is more of a personal rant board. I'll work on making the content a bit more cogent in the future as I'd like it to mature beyond that...
You should blog when you have something to say, not just because you want to critique someone.
Criticism is fine (and I think there is room for a good critique of 37signals). Just pretend that you're saying what you're writing directly to the person in question, and adjust your tone as a consequence.
Yea, I was thinking the same thing. Discourage people in general from working hard in order to discourage potential competitors from competing with you? Too far fetched. Too funny.
IMO this is just someone who's jealous because 37Signals has been successful while retaining a healthy work-life balance.
Too many people these days take pride in their ability and willingness to work ridiculously long hours for extended periods of time.
The only thing that 37Signals is doing is encouraging developers to write code and be healthy doing it, rather than killing themselves and wasting their youth away on technical debt.
The secret to doing what they do is to write code with fewer bugs, not put in extra hours writing in extra bugs because you're too tired to think straight.