It's just important I think to understand why you are leading someone in a certain direction and I'm not sure that it's always that well thought out Hello and welcome I'm Shane parish and this is another episode of the knowledge project a podcast exploring the ideas Methods mental models that hope you
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So make sure you check it out On the show today is Jason free the co -founder and CEO of base camp and the author of rework And it doesn't have to be crazy at work When I look for examples around people running a business the way I want to run a business Jason immediately comes to mind in a world of VC
capital sloshing around base camp has bucked the trend and grown on profits and A while ago.
They changed their name to base camp.
It used to be 37 signals So if it sounds a little unfamiliar and you're familiar with 37 signals, it's now base camp We talked about everything but we talked about why you shouldn't measure yourself against the number of goal Running a business live parenting and like everything else under the Sun and I
have to warn you Jason's philosophy is Infectious.
It's time to listen and learn What's one of the biggest lessons that you learned from your parents growing up a number of them, but I would say Always figure out what the right thing to do.
Is there any given situation?
It's not always that you're gonna do the right thing But but know what the right thing is I think that's something that I've always taken away from my folks my folks I've always seen them do the right thing even when it's inconvenient And I think that that's something that's really stuck with me I mean like
we don't all live by that all the time, but we try we try so I'm always looking for like you know, hey, it'd be really nice if I didn't have to do this, but really the right thing to do is to do this or You know in a situation where you see something where it'd be more convenient to look away, you know
But you're like the right thing to do is to stop and help that kind of thing Do any examples come to mind either through running base camp or growing up that you witnessed your parents do that.
I saw it a lot so once so growing up I Had a friend named Freddy and Freddy Freddy's family didn't have a lot of money my family was Okay, we're doing pretty good and and Freddy and I used to play basketball outside we had a basketball hoop outside in our driveway and It came time to play basketball
like it's a tryout for basketball and junior high or whatever it was Actually, this was not even a tryout.
This is just like a junior high basketball team sort of thing and Freddy couldn't afford to it was like a hundred bucks or something and couldn't afford to do it and I remember my dad Just taking care of that for him Because it was the right thing to do Freddy love basketball we used to play all the time
and It'd be you know, you could say like well his parents didn't want to do it or couldn't afford it like oh well But my dad's like, you know, that's just not right.
Like he should he wants to play It's it's not his fault the kids 15 or whatever like if we can help him out.
Let's help him out So that's like a one example and that's a monetary example, but it wasn't really the money so much it was the thought and it was a recognition in the situation that this kid wanted to do something and he's being held back because his folks couldn't afford it and Let's if we can so let's
let's help so I think that was like one specific example I think that's an awesome example.
Is that sort of like the impetus behind?
Base camp and working shorter hours to where it's trying to do the right thing versus what the easy thing is I think it's doing the enough thing So talk to me about that like this is sort of counterintuitive, right because we live in this cultural pressure whether we sort of like whether it's tangible
or we just know it exists and It's to work harder to work longer You're on a treadmill and there's like nine people waiting to take your job sort of and if you're not working hard Then somebody else will perhaps We haven't created a situation we made sure that we've created an environment where that's
not the case where it's not about people aren't looking around as they who's working the Hardest and as I wrote actually in a blog post about this like look we're making software This isn't hard work really like hard work to me is manual labor Something your back is sore by the end of the day.
You're really really beat up We're fortunate to be able to do the things that we're doing here.
We get to sit in an air -conditioned room We get to work on the computer.
There's very little risk involved with all this stuff.
So I Tend to reserve the word hard work for like really physical hard work But that's just maybe an aside, but we just we don't look at it that way We look at essentially an output kind of which is you know Is the work getting done if the working it's done in five hours a day and that's that's enough
And frankly like you shouldn't need 10 12 plus hours a day to to get enough good work done The reason why a lot of people are working those longer hours is not because there's 12 hours of work to do It's because they can't find time within those 12 hours to actually get a few contiguous hours of time
To actually do the work they need to do so their work the work is spread out across so many different things and so many different Places in a given day that they can't piece it together in a relatively short period of time So it's spread out and that's why people are working longer.
It's not that there's more work to do I totally agree when I worked for the government, you know I was actually only working like two hours a day like everybody else every you know, everything else is meetings.
It's context shifting It's sort of like non productive time.
It's constant interruptions And it really disrupts not only your flow but the quality of your work absolutely, and and there's more and more research coming out on this and studies on this and books about this and People pay more attention to it.
And we've always try to create an environment here base camp where everybody gets a full eight hours a day To themselves basically everyone's day is their own day and how they spend it is up to them And if someone wants some of your time, they have to ask you for it We don't have for example, we don't
have shared calendars at base camp So I can't see anyone else's schedule and they can't see mine So I can't take their time and they can't take mine if they want some of mine or I want some of theirs We have to ask each other for it like physically ask like hey Jason, are you free or hey Jonas?
Are you free or hey and are you free at three o 'clock for you know?
20 minutes to talk about something and she could say yes or no or whatever But it's a negotiation because it's valuable time is very valuable and so you negotiate and versus a countering system where you click an empty box and You basically send an invitation through a system and it's very rare that people
decline invitations Unless they truly can't make it but the the the spirit is someone asked for my time So I'll give it to them even though you know But it's just it's just inhumane system that's doing it so we just want to make sure that that people are talking to each other if they need each other's
time because time is Incredibly valuable and to ask for someone else's time You should have a good reason for it and it shouldn't be just something you can fill into a field You know in a form can we geek out on that a little bit?
Like talk to me a little bit more about the internals of how base camp is run How things are allocated how teams come together what the process is like on the inside?
What does that look like and how many people are you now just to start it with sure?
We have 55 people in the company and different teams work slightly different ways So I'll talk about like product development, which is primarily my responsibility.
I guess everything's my responsibility I run the place but I mean, that's kind of where I spend most of my time on product development we basically Choose work to do every six weeks and we do work over a six -week period of time I mean I can get into how we choose that but let me kind of set the set
the framework here.
So Sit what we call six week cycles and during those six weeks we pick off three to five ish projects and each Each cycle of six weeks.
There's usually two to three different product teams working on the features We've decided to work on and those teams are three people or less Oftentimes it's two people and we basically decide that there's there's a Six weeks is enough time a big fundamental thing about base camp is this idea of enough
and I've already talked about that like enough Time during the day and six weeks is enough time to make substantial progress on something that's important And it also forces us to make sure that we understand exactly what it is That is important in any feature that we're building because if you give
it three months, it'll take three months We give it six months.
It'll take six months and the exciting thing to me is to figure out What's the six week version of this idea?
And then we can really boil it down at the into assessment so we pick work every six weeks assign it or Throw it up for grabs two different product teams and they can decide who wants to work on it And then they get to work and these teams are autonomous They're not checking in with anybody Automatically,
they check in when they feel like they need to check in or they have questions or if I want to look at something we'll look at something but but they're given the full responsibility to complete that work in that amount of time and 90 plus percent of the time they do and so that's at a high level how
we work on product How we come up with these ideas every six weeks is a different process.
That's typically three of us Thinking about what we want to do next so we don't have we don't have a roadmap So we don't have I don't know we're gonna do actually I have no idea We're gonna do eight weeks from now.
I just don't know And nobody knows but as a cycle is coming to an end Maybe a few weeks before that a few of us begin to get together and think about what what do we think we should do next?
And we start to think about the things that we wanted to do and things we should do and how things are going currently and new ideas that have come up through customer requests and throw a bunch of stuff on the table and Over the next few weeks.
We we bat it around think about it sketch it out Write it up play with it and figure out if we think there's enough of an idea here.
That's it's solid enough That's well formed enough that we're confident can be done in six weeks that we can then hand it off to a team versus throwing teams ideas that are really Barely baked and then they have to take a lot of their time to actually think them through and then there's not enough time
Actually to do the work So before we hand work over to a team We feel like we've got it 90 % of the way figured out and then exactly how the team does it is up to them But we can see a path to the end there and then I'll kind of stop there because maybe there's a bunch of details Talk about no, no, man.
I want to get on this stuff.
This is interesting If you're okay with that, how are the teams sort of like so you give autonomy to the teams the two or three person teams How is success or failure judged and then in in your mind?
What is the difference between?
average and Astonishing in terms of deliverables um Like what makes somebody above average?
Yeah One of those teams versus sort of like average and then what are the metrics that you sort of like do you outline?
This is what success looks like beforehand.
Yeah, or is it kind of like hey, here's an idea It's a little bit fleshed out go implement it.
Yeah, we're different in that We don't have any goals or any metrics for success we have an idea for a feature, let's say or a way to improve the product and Because we use the product every day We're the number one customer of the product and and and because we know our customers who use the product
We have a pretty good sense at the end if it was an improvement or not It's not a matter of how many people use it It's not a matter of like this is now used 18 ,000 times, but we're aiming for 22 ,000 So it's now a failure or like it We're aiming for 17 ,000 the unique use uses a day or whatever and it's
18. So it's a huge success No, it's like how do we feel about how this turned out?
How do we feel about how the project also went?
It's not just about the output and outcome It's about how did it feel as we went like our people burned out?
Do people hate each other now who liked each other six weeks ago?
You know, what did this make our company stronger or weaker?
Did this improve personal relationships or damage personal relationships?
Like it's a more holistic viewpoint or outlook I should say on how this thing turned out like you could technically End up with a great feature that customers love but it could have completely destroyed morale internally to me That's if that's not a good outcome It might be a good outcome on the customer
side But if you're damaging your company internally, you can't do that very long until it actually ends up really damaging things on the outside Too so we look at the whole thing and this includes like individuals, too So for example, if somebody's been working on three really hard things in a row,
essentially I'm using the word hard here But let's just say like three challenging projects in a row The next project might be like we might throw them something that's a lot simpler just so they can decompress a bit so I'm thinking about like who's been working on what how they've been doing what are the string
of products that been working on look like and Where do you what do I think that this next batch of work would fit in with them as a human?
um, so we kind of look at things that way we also do post post mortems or or Whatever.
It's always a weird word to use but At projects are done We look back on them a few months later and just get a sense of like after we have a little bit of distance Like how do we feel about it?
What do we think went right what went wrong?
What could we have done better?
We do get feedback from customers obviously and so like we incorporate some of that in the review as well And and then of course, there's like a glaring mistake like a major We made a major mistake then when we go back and fix it immediately Otherwise, we let it ride for a while and kind of just re
you know revisit it a few months later and see how it all felt There's two things.
I want to sort of like tease apart in that response The first is use the word feel and I thought that was really interesting because We're in this sort of age of machine learning and sort of algorithmic driven Insight, can you talk to me a little bit or expand upon your thoughts around that?
Yeah, I know I put a lot of value on on feel and intuition and gut and these things We're not a data driven company in terms of product development We use data a lot for improving performance in terms of our infrastructure Making sure that we get back to customers and reasonable amount of time Which
is like currently about 10 minutes if you email us you'll get a response in about 10 minutes And we look at data though in those ways But in terms of how does something feel to work on how does it feel to develop it to deliver it?
How do we feel about it when it's done?
I think that That that's sort of it's a it's a difficult thing to measure with numbers.
It's more of a again, like this the problem is is that Again, like I said if you deliver a product a feature or a product that hits it out of the park on certain metrics Perhaps but it damages the people who worked on it together and that can easily happen and happens a lot Not here necessarily, but I
hear about it. I read stories about it We're like the product was great But man like it was three product managers quit along the way and someone else's like this is the last project I'm ever doing here And like like there's shrapnel from these things and and there's there's there's um, there side effects
So like if you're only measuring the output in the outcome in terms of like how customers felt about it But you're not really thinking about how people actually humans felt about it.
I think you're missing a big big picture now of course if you don't really care about the people in the company and you're like I'll just replace them if they if they leave because there's a million people knocking at the door who want jobs here I mean you can do it that way I don't think that that's
a really great way to run a company But you can do it that way too and then you maybe don't care about the feel so much But we care a lot about how things feel here and how people feel about the work they're doing and who they're working with and how things went down so yeah, we're in it maybe a approaching
a different age in a sense, but I Think the personal touch and the human touch and the human like that the understanding between people is a certain specific and tangible That's that's actually very valuable Especially as a manager or someone who's running a company I think you have to understand how
people feel on a day to day basis about a bunch of different things to figure out if You're going the right direction What are some of the lessons that you've learned in the last decade running a business?
But not only running a business but running a business The way that you want to you don't seem like you're very influenced by sort of outside factors I try not to be I try to be quite ignorant actually about um like the trends in the industry and who's doing what and Competitors and what their products
are doing. I I find that the more I pay attention to that the less free I'm able to or the less free my mind is Essentially because you're just colored by what everyone else is doing and then you don't have as much space for your own thoughts I think so I I just like to kind of you know I'm aware what's
going on, but I don't like to look at those things in detail I much prefer to pay attention to things outside my industry like I Get a lot of inspiration take a lot of inspiration from architecture from from art from nature From going on long walks like that kind of stuff versus like looking at the hottest
new app or the new Collaboration thing that just came out or whatever I I think you're much better off looking broadly looking outside of your own walls then And looking too close at the things that are really close to you So I just to me like I've always tried to run things that way in a way that makes
sense to me And hopefully there's enough people around here who would also make sense to hopefully enough customers out there who would also make sense to you like we've never been a company that's interested in dominating an industry or or taking market share from anybody or trying to have millions
and millions of customers like we only need to you know find a small number technically of customers who really believe in what we're doing and we see the world the same way and And we found many of them over a hundred thousand people pay us for base camp Every month so like it's a great business But
like a lot of people would look at that and go that's not enough you need millions of customers And you say well you do if your costs are out of control, and you have thousands and thousands of people But we have 55 people so we can build a really wonderful business a lot of impact doing in our way
without having to pay attention To what everyone else is doing I like that a lot It sounds a lot like one of your investors when you were saying that it sounds like Jeff Bezos a little bit Is that where he he doesn't seem overly focused on what other people are doing he seems to be doing his own thing
But generally aware of things and he's an investor with you guys correct.
Yeah kind of So he bought he owns a piece of base camp He bought those shares from David and I so like he he never invested in base camp the company Essentially like his money that was never put in the business to run the business We've always a hundred for the 20 years as we've been as long as we've
been a business We've always been a hundred percent funded by customer revenues, right?
But he did buy a piece we did sell him a piece of the business in 2006.
Yeah, he's been someone who's forever been interested or publicly been interested in being misunderstood And I've always admired that about him, which is he's just gonna do it his own way And he has different ideas in the rest of the industry and and I'm sure he pays attention to things and sometimes
he does He will follow the industry another time.
So he'll create a new industry But I don't think he's overly concerned with what other people think about how he approaches his business We definitely a very different perspective on how to run a business You know, we're going to keep our business as small as possible.
He wants to build the business biggest business in the world, right?
He's the richest man in the world.
I am NOT Never will be but different points of view and never would want to be either by the way, but different points of view on how to treat people and run businesses and whatever but Fundamentally, yeah I think we share that point of view which is like just because other people are doing it this way
does not mean that that's how you should do it Who are some of the people that you admire that are running businesses that you maybe don't look to for inspiration?
But sort of like keep tabs on and then why?
Well, I admire Anybody who stays in business for let's say more than five years so I like for example, a Friend of mine runs a small grocery store down the street from from where I live and I admire Him because he has something we don't have which is that he gets to know every one of his customers by name
Um, I can't know a hundred thousand customers by name But but people walk into his shop He knows who they are or he could get to know them and he gets to know their preferences and he gets to know Them and he gets to know their family and he can say hey jim.
Hey bill. Hey sally whatever and That's something that I think is really cool He can also experiment much faster.
It's funny like you think in technology You can experiment really quickly with ab tests and stuff, but he can experiment even faster He can he can just like Put something on the counter or you check out and see if it sells faster than it did when it was on the shelf like You can play around I think
in the physical world a lot better a lot faster In fact that in the technical world and you can also pick up on things You can see things that you can't necessarily see the technical world We all again like think there's so much data available to us as far as customer preferences and whatnot But like
I don't think very few I would say very few things Beat just paying attention just looking and picking up all the subtle nuances of of How someone picks something up and looks at it.
Do they turn it around?
Do they hold it do they like why do they put it down?
How long do they think about it, you know all those things so The guy I used to work in a grocery store when I was growing up and I used to work in the produce section And I used to love to watch how people would choose fruit and vegetables Like some people take a cantaloupe and they and they like knock
it and they listen to it Some people smell a cantaloupe so people look at the colors of the cantaloupe like I don't know what the right way is But i've always I was always fascinated just to watch people make their own decisions about why this one and I think he has that So I love that There's a shop
down the street also for me that sewing machine repair shop It's been in business for like 80 years which just blows my mind, you know Then there's technical businesses and I pay attention to I really um admire what stripe is doing And and kind of how they're doing it.
Um, and then there's people like charlie monger who've I don't know But who I admire greatly for his his clarity of thought his Steadfast commitment to value and to being straightforward and common sense and in all that stuff So I I take inspiration from a whole bunch of different people A good friend
of mine runs a gym personal trainer.
He's down the street from me And it's just him and i'm jealous of the fact that he gets to run a business and it's just him Like I love my employees It's kind of nice not to have any too to be honest, right?
Like if we're just being honest about business, it's like it's nice to truly do your own thing your own way Right.
Um, and so I really admire that too But of course at the same time like if he's sick he's out of business for three or four days Like I don't admire that.
So of course having employees and having a Process in a company there's huge value in that too But I just like to look at all sorts of different businesses But as long as you're staying in business and you're making more money than you spend I I respect you I have a hard time though sometimes with tech
businesses That are quote successful or held up as successful examples of businesses that are actually fundamentally terrible businesses Um, I think like things like companies like uber as an example Of course, they have some maybe some more moral issues perhaps too, but like for a while at least But
I don't I think they're losing they continue to lose My last count like billions of dollars talk to me a little bit about that I mean just in the sense of so you've been effectively bootstrapped from cash flows since day one.
Yes How do you feel about competing against people that seemingly can take unlimited losses because they're funded by?
People willing to gamble a lot of money on an ultimate outcome.
Yeah. I mean I I don't care basically because they're they're um their performance or their lack of performance or their Success doesn't really necessarily affect mine in the fact that like I said earlier, I I only need some customers They need all customers Um, and so they can take as much as much
as they want and there's probably going to be plenty enough left over for me anyway And and not only that like at some point they will go away One of the great ways to to to quote win in business is to just to stick around Um, and the best way I found to stick around is to be profitable because that if you're
profitable You get to stick around as long as you want Of course, that's not to say that we couldn't be beat one day or something could go catastrophically wrong Like of course every business dies every single one of them die often.
They kill themselves though Um, they don't change.
They don't do something right.
They don't pay attention to customers.
They get cocky. They get greedy whatever it might be It's usually those things.
It's not um, that's a competitor has more money than you and outspends you It might be true in a in a specific market where it is really winner take all But I don't think it is in our industry and that's why there's hundreds of companies Roughly doing kind of similar things that we're doing and many
of them are going to do quite well Some of them won't but it's not that there's no customers left to take it's it's not that It's just like that Some people's products don't fit the market or some people's prices don't fit the market or They give things away for free and they run out of money because they
can't pay their employees or whatever it might be so Um, i've never i've never looked at like how much money someone has raised um as as as like a thing to be afraid of or anything like that in fact, I always think like And I don't envy you the position you're in you have you've raised 50 million dollars
Um, the expectations on your shoulders are enormous.
There are no expectations on my shoulders Um other than to continue to develop a good product and take care of our customers and take care of our employees But those are expectations I can manage versus um A billionaire who put a bunch of money into into your company who wants to make more billions
off of you and You're on a certain schedule of of of growth that has to be Sharply up and to the right otherwise Like you're not going to be fulfilling the investment requirements and criteria and therefore they could choose to Push you out or take you public when you're not ready or sell the company
when you don't want to like I would never ever want to have those expectations on my shoulders So I don't envy those kind of companies and i'd much rather be in my position I would frankly honestly not trade my position with anyone else in the world as far as anyone else running a company What are your
expectations of yourself?
I just want to do the right thing And and do the best work I can On balance not every day is going to be that day Um, and not every decision I make is going to be the right one and i'm going to make mistakes and screw some stuff up Whatever, but on balance.
I want to make sure that that i'm trying to do the right thing as often as I possibly can And making sure that that I create an environment where other people who work here can do the best work of their careers I think if someone decides to work here, they're saying no to A million other opportunities.
Um, and so I feel like it's it's I have to respect that And to create a place where they can do their best work Because that's that's their career Like they should be able to do their best work and flex their muscles as best they can and flex their mind as best they can you know and Part of that again is getting
back to the point where I want to make sure everyone has full amount of time to themselves Do their best work and I also want to be supportive and provide enough autonomy and all those things So those are the expectations I have for myself, but I I don't have expectations or run growth.
I don't have personal goals I don't want to be Seen in a certain way.
Like I don't need to be in the media Like I I don't have that kind of stuff I also don't have any interests or desire to change the world or anything like that I just want to make a good product.
I want to work with great people.
I want to be intellectually challenged I want to be able to to put my ideas out there and see if they stick or not And then also of course like have a good life outside of that certainly family and the whole thing.
So That's kind of it for me.
I think that's a Really?
Philosophy. I hope so Because it's it's what i've got.
So I hope I hope it's sound But it's it's it's less common than you would want right?
Like and maybe or less common than I would like to believe that that sort of people you seem to have a very inner scorecard And take a lot of satisfaction out of just doing good work and craftsmanship and it sort of like harkens to a different era Almost than the one that we're in I try to just understand what enough is and um
I've told this story before uh But I think it's a good one to bring up here, which is like I remember Once I was trying to run I used to run a lot outside um, or I ran track and stuff and after college I Couldn't I wasn't good enough to go to the olympics, right?
So like Anywhere close getting up, but I've always enjoyed running I remember like trying to to run a certain time like I don't know what a six -minute mile or whatever it was at the time Um, because I was more of a sprinter.
I was never a good long distance from anyway I remember like running going for run and not not getting that And I remember like feeling like I was disappointed.
Yeah, I ran a 610 instead of a six And then you think about like why would I be disappointed with that like quite different questions like did I enjoy the run?
Yes Did I get fresh air?
Yes Did I feel like I worked my body my heart my mind?
Yes Did I see things as I ran that I was excited about?
Yes. Did I just get some fresh air?
Yes, like how are any of these outcomes negative?
But if you measure yourself against a number or a goal like six minutes and you don't hit that Then you can feel disappointed or you feel like I got to work harder next time But like why do you actually have to work harder next time?
Like what was wrong with this time?
And I just kind of came to these conclusions and I continue to come to these conclusions In business there was a time when we tried to set some Goals, like can we hit this number and we started doing things that weren't us like we started advertising We don't advertise we started buying ads on facebook
try and move the needle and we feel like you know what?
We don't like facebook.
I don't like their company Why are we giving them money so we can hit some number that we made up?
Why why why again? Why we don't have to do this and we just kind of realize like We're going for something that we thought we were supposed to do and try to do and whatever and we eventually realized we don't Need to do this.
We stop doing it and everything's just fine still So I just think that my experience with setting goals and hitting numbers and hitting targets Um, you're either you either do it and then you do it and you set another one Um, so it's like this never -ending quest to keep setting numbers or you don't
do it and you're disappointed How about just not doing it at all and just doing the best you can like I'm gonna try to do the best work I can every day regardless of if there's a target or not If you need a target to do your best work, it feels a bit artificial to me.
That's suspicious me I don't think it's it's just you.
I mean, I have a couple of friends who run sort of fairly large software companies And it's it's really interesting for me to watch their sort of psyche year over year um, and It's a constant state of failure And then the moment where they hit an objective usually a revenue target or something It lasts
for like a day and then it's always like oh, well next year we have to do 30 percent more and it's like this perpetual state of stress and you can see it in terms of like how they age and Sort of how they feel about themselves and their self -talk changes and it's just a really interesting sort of way
to live right where you're Perpetually not achieving something that you you've convinced yourself perhaps that you want to achieve but maybe wrongly Well, yeah, I see it in our industry is sick with that.
I think um Primarily I would guess because it's a high growth industry first of all so like there's this expectation you're supposed to live up to and when you look at all the Let's say the great companies in the industry that people consider great on the outside They're all growing rapidly.
So I want to be one of those so you kind of aim for that There's that there's that there's also investor pressure I don't know if these folks that you know have taken investment outside investment, but if they have They have to deliver yeah, and they have to deliver for someone else They're not really
delivering for themselves I mean they you could say they are in some respects because maybe one day they'll make a lot of money off the deal or Whatever fine, that's totally cool.
But for the most part you're trying to deliver for someone else um and um I just for me.
It's just not a satisfying way to go through life um I I don't I don't think that aiming for things Is really like we we like we aim to do a good job Because because that's like the satisfaction of putting in a good day's work And then you line up a bunch of good days in a row and you have something
there and you're excited about the work And and sometimes you think you're really on to something and you're motivated by that But that's all intrinsic motivation.
It's not like some some numbers from target You're supposed to hit for someone else or for some other reason.
I just i've never been driven by that really I don't I don't think it's it's really healthy and um I do see a lot of people who if they were to take a step back Um and look at what they actually have they should be really proud of it But instead they're disappointed because they are they're disappointed
or like always teetering on disappointment Because they're setting these really difficult Uh targets to hit and it's like why you've been so hard on yourself.
I don't I don't see the reason for it, right?
I don't think a lot of those people look back favorably on this period of life It's kind of like the you know, ebony's are screwed, right?
You want to be the most successful widely known person and then you get what you want But then at the end of your life, you just want to redo.
Yeah That's true. I mean, there's certainly things I'll want to redo in my life I'm sure too as you get to the end you you maybe you know, you reflect and whatnot like I should spend more time here should have done this or should have been nice for this person or whatever it might be Right, but I wouldn't
want to regret my career, you know that kind of thing because you're how you treat people your relationship Of course.
Yeah, of course in like you're gonna do that for 40 years of 50 years of your life.
Maybe If somebody on that like I want to look back on that and go I I did my best Yeah Versus like I didn't do well enough for someone else and that that's not how I want to measure and by the way I don't even think of measuring like I don't think I'll look back on my career I I just don't think I would actually
look back on my career In evaluate it in that sense.
I I how do I feel on a day -to -day basis is kind of what I look at How do you uh switching gears just a little bit here?
Like, how do you feed your brain?
What sort of books do you read?
Do you read magazines?
Do you? Sort of like keep your eyes open to what's around you?
Like how does that how do things crop up in there?
Yeah, it's it depends right now The last four years have been more challenging.
We have two kids who just had another baby A few months ago.
So like you know, I don't have a lot of thank you I don't have a lot of personal time at the moment like I I do I go home at 5 30 But like, you know family dinner kid in bed at seven kid gets up at 5 30 So I got to go to bed by 8 30 or 9.
So i'm not a complete waste, you know So I haven't had a lot of free time lately I do enjoy reading books But because I don't have as much time I find that i'm listening to books more frequently because I can I find like I can listen for 20 minutes in the car on the way into work, you know and like
kind of with audio books or podcasts or That sort of thing.
So i'm consuming that but um, I hate that.
I use the word consuming.
I Consuming content is like the worst thing I can imagine.
Um I I listen and try to learn and pay attention to things that are interesting to me.
So Um mostly non -fiction stuff Um, I like autobiographies.
I like learning about people.
I like learning about history.
I like nature So I pay a lot of attention to that and then there's also things i'll do like I have um I I like to go on walks.
I like to pay attention to nature I like to you know, like I said pay attention to architecture and that kind of stuff and so In any given experience i'm trying just to look around and pay attention to the details It's like how something came together and why it is the way it is and so it's sort of that perpetual
low grade Paying attention and then when I have those moments of downtime or whatever i'll i'll listen to something or read something occasionally.
Um I wish I had more um time to dig into a number of books Um, and hopefully in a few years i'll have a little bit more of that But right now it's been a little bit challenging Are you like a 1x audio guy or are you like 2x?
How does that I've experimented with um speeding things up and um, I've decided to come back to 1x Um, so I used to be I would do like one and a half or two Um, mostly on podcasts sometimes on audiobooks and it kind of depends some reads are some some authors who read books They seem like at 2x speed.
It's fine, but others it's a little fast But point was is that i'm like what what am I rushing?
Why am I why am I trying to pack?
Everything into my head like there's time to get to these things and if I don't get to them I don't get to them.
So i've gone back to 1x I also think it's I don't think it's necessarily a good thing to have information come at you that fast Because you're in a hurry to get it.
I think it kind of creates this expectation of everything coming at you fast I don't think that that's necessarily that healthy either So i've just gone back to one ago.
It takes nine hours to listen to this book instead of five or whatever like oh, well That's fine.
I'll get to you know Yeah, I could have saved five hours But like over the course of my life like big deal Um, I'd rather just listen to it in the author's actual voice and just take it take it at that speed It's always interesting when I meet people who've listened to the podcast and they think my
voice sounds weird because it's not at 1 .5 Or or 2x and I always find that interesting.
Yeah, I could imagine like training your mind To be able to listen even to 3x speeds or people Down the road reading books at a slower pay at a different cadence or something to like, but again, it all comes down to like What's the rush?
Why are we why do we need to pack all this stuff in?
Is it because we don't have enough time?
Well, that's maybe okay, then maybe maybe because there's external circumstances But still like so if you just don't get to everything in in life, then you don't get to everything in life and by the way like that book you're speeding up reading like You have enough time for that.
Yeah So anyway, that's my current my current thing i've gone back to 1x, but I had experimented with with faster reading What sort of things that you do that are maybe counterintuitive or not?
Widely done amongst your peers in terms of how you raise your kids or how you think about raising your kids I've decided not to ask people about like parenting so much because I don't like I don't know.
It's hard to evaluate right, so it's like I don't know how to compare basically I'll just can say like for the most part we've With our four -year -olds are three -month -old.
I can't do anything yet, of course, but like our four -month -old our four -year -old.
Sorry kind of really believe in in child -led learning And he's in Montessori school.
He really seems to enjoy that we kind of let him get into whatever he wants to get into and I'm actually a fan of a book called The self I think it's called the self -driven child and that's sort of our style But it's not for everybody and I don't I don't want to be preachy about it or anything like
that but for us it works pretty well like our particular kid he he He seems to want to go into a bunch of different things and we just sort of let him go where he wants to go And let him play a lot and I i'm not like someone who's academically folk.
I've never been of There's my english is not so good there I've never been someone who's been academically focused in terms of like it's so important that you learn these things by these times and These topics or whatever.
So, you know I think it's important for kids to play and to just explore and be creative and whatever and And if he gets into this or my daughter gets into that like whatever they get into is fine with me I'm not into pushing anything on anybody so I think I want to dive into this academic focus a little
bit maybe with a I'm going to think a little bit out loud here, but it seems like there's increasingly um a system whereby we're driven to pass a test to Demonstrate knowledge, but that success is often pushed by parents as well who view Their success as a parent tied up to their child's sort of like
academic success But it seems to be missing the broader point about what really makes for a successful life I'm wondering can you expand on that with some of your thoughts?
I've seen sort of two groups of parents around that like there's the parent who Was very academically successful growing up went to maybe an ivy league school, you know and and feels like their kid needs to do that too because they Understandably like that's how they went through life and they've been
successful, you know in terms of Someone's a doctor now or someone's a lawyer now or someone's a whatever now and like that's their path And I get that and I'm bringing my path to the picture because like I was basically a c student And so like I'm like, it doesn't really matter that much and that's
my perspective and not theirs and their perspective is not mine so there's also of course a situation where someone's uh, someone's parents maybe didn't go to school ever and um, and they want their child to to to to be educated and and to To have a better life than they did and they see education as
the path for that and I totally get that too So there's just different different approaches.
Um, I think it's more about um, would I?
Try what I What I don't want to do I guess is to apply unnecessary pressure Saying like you have to be this way or you have to learn this thing or you have to do this or else you won't x y z I don't like the or else you won't x y z Angle right and if you don't go to school and don't get good grades,
you won't x y z. I I don't like that part of it I think education is important.
I think it's important to be creative and to to pay attention and to be curious and all those things but um, you can Not enjoy school and be very smart.
You cannot enjoy school and and And do something new that no one's done before.
I mean School is a means to certain ends, but it's not the means to any end.
Um, so I just don't want to apply that kind of pressure I think what's more important perhaps is just like seeing things through Knowing why you're doing what you're doing.
Um Building some self -awareness and knowing yourself I think is maybe the most important lesson ultimately Which is of course like a lifelong lesson because your self changes over time if I was to maybe Encourage or instill something in our kids.
Hopefully it would be like find your path figure out what you what you like Find out what what drives you what you're really curious about and go into that and and and and there's a lot of you know Depth in anything.
Um, so I think that's my take on it I think as far as by the way, like I think getting to your original point about like parents wanting to do something Our parents wanting to see their kids do something To make them to make the parent feel better I think we all do that in one way or another.
Um Uh, you know, it's a matter of pride in some cases It's a matter of of you know Maybe I didn't do well in life but my kid can and so like, you know that makes me feel better that kind of stuff So I I wouldn't criticize any of that.
It's just um, oh, yeah, there's no judgment on my part Yeah, no me neither But it's more about like at the end of the day like why are you it's just important I think to understand why you are Leading someone in a certain direction and i'm not sure that it's always that well thought out What are some
of the things that you see as the ceo out of people coming out of school who might have good grades?
But ultimately are ill positioned for success in the workforce versus people who might have had Mediocre like both you and I were C students.
I was a D student too.
I mean like different grades But they're well positioned for not only a long career but for Much success, however, they wanted to find that yeah The thing that surprises me most about people coming out of school Is how poorly school teaches people how to write and communicate actually?
um I read cover letters and whatnot and i'm just surprised that you know You can graduate college and not really know how to Explain yourself.
Well not really know how to get to the point Not really understand what it's like to to make your case or to make a case um, and that just surprises me and I think it's It's unfortunate and and I don't know if it's a matter of writing not being taught Properly or the type of writing that's being taught
in school being very academic based versus like actually communication Um, you know you write a lot of papers in school You're not really communicating to other people you're kind of writing something to a teacher.
Yeah, that's not the person but it's more about like trying to show your subject your your awareness or knowledge of a particular subject versus like trying to persuade A number of people to to listen to what you have to say or um Try to to make a point or share an idea or put something in a certain light
where people go. Yeah, that's a good idea Let's go that way.
You just don't see a lot of that.
Um, so i'm surprised by that I think you know when I look at people and consider hiring people I Looking at the writing is the first thing I actually look at right and then I kind of look at just their general curiosity In the different you can look at it in different ways depending on the person and the role
and stuff but Um, are they really curious about what they do?
Or are or are they just trained in it?
How do you tease that out?
um, well some in some cases like if you're a programmer you could say like and this isn't always the only way to do it, but Someone might contribute to open source in their spare time because they just kind of like that But that's not always fair because not everyone has time to do that and everyone's
been exposed to that but that's one way Um, if someone's into into design, like for example, uh, one of our designers a guy named jonas I remember when I was looking at his application.
This is I don't know seven years ago.
Whenever when we hired him or however long it's been Um, I was impressed because he he was a tinkerer.
He he was a designer but played with Like just played with design in his projects that he showed he had like a lot of personal products they weren't just client products they're personal projects and they were sort of creative and interesting and an abstract and Like experimental and that kind of stuff
and like this guy just likes to play with design and I like that, you know, um uh Another designer we hired she she's not worth it anymore.
But she um, She uh, one of the things I liked about her is when she we were looking at her work together she would say, you know, I'm not so sure I like what I did here and and To get the job.
We were like looking at her her body of work, basically, and she's like uh, I don't know if I like this that I made and I like that because that's a certain sense of like introspection and and like Self -critique that I think is really valuable.
So there's a curiosity there, too Is that like here's my best work because people put their best work forward and like this is my best work and she's like This is good But like, I don't know if I would have done it this way if I had another chance like I liked that So there's it depends on the person and depends
on the situation But you can usually tell who has just like work to throw on the table and say my work speaks for itself and other people who say Like I just like to do this stuff And so I tend to gravitate towards the people who just like to do this stuff Of course, they have to be capable and they
have to do great work also, but That they would kind of do this.
Anyway, I like that And somebody I like that a lot.
Um, you've written two books now What did you learn from writing the first book and then what was the need for the the second book?
I'm assuming you're referring to rework and perhaps it doesn't have to be crazy at work Yeah, was there more books in that island?
A couple others also just um one called That's okay.
No, no, totally fine.
I just want to make sure i'm talking about the right thing for you.
Uh remote and then Getting real was another book that we did a while back But rework and it doesn't have to be crazy at work are the two big books that we've written Rework, which we wrote, um, almost 10 years ago now um Was a book that was about like how?
uh, we run our business um at the highest levels like how we think about um Marketing how we think about product development how we think about hiring how we think about the industry how we think about press Although all like the the sort of you could say it's our cookbook.
Essentially It's like these are our recipes on how we how we make our our dish.
So our our business essentially Um, and then it doesn't have to be crazy at work, which is our most recent book is really more about Pushing back hard on some current trends, which we don't think are very healthy, which is this idea of um People working, you know 80 hour weeks.
Um always available always available instant, you know instant everything everyone being Everyone's saying they're super busy.
Everyone's super busy all the time.
Like i'm not busy I don't want to be busy but everyone's super busy all the time people are working weekends like Whatever right that that like that it's okay to respond to an email a work email on sunday at three o 'clock Like I don't know if it's actually okay to do that But a lot of people do it,
you know So pushing back hard on this trend of like overwork the hustle mania like this all this stuff that's going on out there We don't run a company that way.
We run what we call a calm company calm calm company We wanted to kind of talk about how we do it um And it felt like this is the right time to do that because I feel like things are going really in the wrong direction quickly Actually, so it felt like the right time.
Um, but we write books because um We have something to say and there's no reason to keep it to ourselves um a lot of businesses seem to be They're afraid to share they think they they're they have a special formula a seek the secret formula um, and you know, why tell everyone our internal and proprietary
ways we work it's like Whatever, you know, i've always been inspired by chefs in this regard.
So um chefs great chefs will write cookbooks and they're putting their recipes in a cookbook and They're not afraid of someone taking that cookbook reading other recipes and opening a restaurant next to them and putting them out of business It's just not how it works They want to share the recipes get
the word out about them Maybe when someone comes to town they get they they try their cookbook.
You know what? But the xyz has a restaurant in town I'll try his restaurant or her restaurant and try that because I really like making the recipes And so for us like our books are recipes.
This is how we do things how we think about things and We don't have a marketing budget.
We don't spend any money in advertising So for us the books in a sense are a way to get the word out about our points of view and our ideas And you know indirectly they they promote our company, but we really do it just to share the ideas two thoughts on sort of Um the constant state of work these days
one. Uh, I was with my kids I think it was a couple of weekends ago and we were in a coffee shop and we just They were reading and I was just sort of observing somebody next to me like quote unquote working and it was just like a constant tab change slash slack Slash like it just it looked from my point
of view and I wasn't trying to read the screen or anything like that I was just sort of like watching like how other people work because it's so rare that we get to see other people Actually, you know in their in their environment doing work And I was just amazed.
I was like, oh my god, like do I work like that?
Because if I do i'm not really doing anything and it was this sort of like This realization for me that I was like, oh man I I gotta be more conscious about like how how that looks like and now I pay a lot of attention to myself And the other is like the state of you know Your blackberry goes off or your
cell phone goes off at five and you're eating dinner with your family and you're like texting You're responding.
I I have a thought which is that it's signaling And it's signaling in the sense that you're signaling to your family that you're important by like taking yourself out of that moment with them Which is almost inverse signaling when you think about it, right?
And you're saying oh, well somebody at work needs me So I must be important and that's sort of like the message that people want to convey with that And I I find it really interesting because I always whenever I had demanding jobs that were sort of like More than outside of the regular hours people
would send messages and often It was the people who are unhappiest in their relationships outside of work that were sending messages at like 11 p .m Or 2 a .m Or and you were expected to respond So it almost creates like this this virus of unhappiness because the more you respond the more you get taken
out of your moment with Your family or your life and it gets interrupted So the less happy you get and then you know, if you have people who are working with you you do the same thing Yeah, well it's funny who eats the first part especially about Watching people work because I do the same thing when I
go to a coffee shop, whatever and it's manic It's like switching and tabs and this app and that app and like I'm like, what are you in my head?
I'm like, what are you actually doing?
Like, what do you what do you actually what do you do all day?
Um, because it looks like you're skipped like you skip you just skip around Um, and maybe maybe by the way, maybe it's unfair because maybe they're just having coffee and that's what they do on their break Or maybe you know, like it's hard to know but but I do see that behavior all the time Um, this is actually
one of the reasons why I use a laptop Um, I don't have an external screen.
So I have a 13 inch laptop and that's my only screen Because I think screen real estate is actually like you don't want a lot of it I think you want a little of it Otherwise you end up like you'll walk by people in offices and there's like seven screens up.
Yeah They can watch their chat all day and like yeah, this is not good.
You don't you don't this is not like a NASA mission control or you need to like to pay attention to like critical systems, you know Um, i'm like a one screen at a time kind of person and and I try to stay as focused as I can And I find that to be valuable, but that's just the way I work But I do see
a lot of manic switching and and attention deficit disorder essentially when it comes to work As far as signaling, I think that's a really interesting point and it I think you might be on to something there I think also Sadly, I think it might signal like i'd rather be at work Right.
Um, yeah, that might be the other thing And you know, like look there are moments in everyone's life Where like i'd rather be here i'd rather be there like whatever But I mean essentially it's like i'd rather be there.
Um, yeah and and that's It's probably a subconscious thing, but it's it's unfortunate.
I think um And as far as like the expectation of immediate response like to me, this is a cultural issue Like broadly cultural issue which is really unhealthy Which is this idea that because communication is speeding up faster and faster and faster The expectation is is that someone's response should be
faster and faster and faster The fact that I can text someone Just because I happen to have a second right now to text someone Does not mean that they should be able to get back to me In the same amount of time that it took me to write them Yeah, they should be able to get back to me whenever they're
ready to get back to me And so like at our company in base camp, we try to think you know The expectation is of eventual response not of immediate response that if someone doesn't get back to you Quickly it's because they're working they're doing something more important Right and what you had to say
and if someone gets back to me in in three hours And that's how long it takes they get back to you tomorrow or two days later and that's how long it takes if it's an emergency Different story, but there shouldn't be many emergencies And if i'm really waiting on something from somebody maybe i'll ask
them one more time and then like i'll just back off And and that's fine.
And and you know, there's other things to do in the meantime There there have to be if you're always waiting.
It's like Work is so delicate And so practical that you need that one thing right now or you can't do anything else like something else is wrong, too So the other thing i'd like about the idea of eventual response versus immediate response is that In many ways it forces you to go figure out yourself
Like I need this answer from this person.
Well, like if they're not going to get back to me I just got to figure it out on my own and that's a better outcome.
Ultimately, I think I think that's it That's a great place to end this conversation.
I know the time is up.
So I want to thank you.
Hopefully we can do it again I have a million more questions for you.
This has been a phenomenal conversation.
Thanks so much. Jason you bet shane Thanks anytime and happy to have a good audience Hey guys, this is shane again just a few more things before we wrap up You can find show notes at fernomstreetblog .com slash podcast.
That's f -a -r -n -a -m S -t -r -e -e -t B -l -o -g dot com slash podcast You can also find information there on how to get a transcript And if you'd like to receive a weekly email from me filled with all sorts of brain food Go to fernomstreetblog .com slash newsletter This is all the good stuff.
I found on the web that week that i've read and shared with close friends books I'm reading and so much more.
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