Rewriting Basecamp & Fighting Software Bloat

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about what the product does and how it works. I'm trying to buck the trend, right? The human nature is about expansion, typically. Like, things tend to expand. But in the physical world, there's also limits that push back on those expansions. Like, if this mug was burning hot, we would know that's a bad design. If this handle, if there's no handle here, and I had to hold it this way, maybe not a good mug. Like, there's physics here. You look at this. If this thing was made of a really, really fragile material or something that would melt if it got wet, you'd be like, "That's a bad design." There's some things that are telling you this is a bad design. In software, you don't get that. Software can be anything. It's infinitely malleable. And what ends up happening is because there's nothing pushing back,

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it just expands forever and gets worse. Software slides downhill. It gets better for a while, then slides downhill. So, I'm conscious of that, and I'm always trying to make sure that every new version we make of something is a little bit simpler in the fundamental ways than the previous version. It might have more features, but the experience hopefully is simpler. That's the big challenge, and actually, frankly, the most fun part of building products over the long term is, can we buck the trend of having them slide downhill and instead maintain or make them even better over time? — Why is that fun? — It's hard, and that's fun. It's a bit of a puzzle. It's a bit of pushing back against the forces of nature, typically, which again, would be to expand.

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It's forcing us to come up with clever solutions to problems, more creative solutions to problems. It forces me to understand what something really is and not what it could be or what I think other people think of it as, but like, what is this really trying to do? And it's fun to have these insights. So, my favorite thing in life, frankly, is to have an insight. And I don't get to decide when I have them, right? No one does. You just have one, right? Maybe it's in the shower, maybe it's whatever. You just have an insight. And it's cool to work on a problem in software and then have an insight about how to make it simpler. And I find that, for me, for whatever reason, I bounce into those insights very frequently, making software, more so than pretty much anything else I do. So, it's fun to make something new because I get to have more insights into how to make it simpler and better. And that's just like, for whatever reason,

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that's where they come from, the shower and the software. — A lot of the conversations that Jason and I have are about craft, about the importance of putting your soul into your work and making the best possible product that you can. Our conversations remind me a lot of the conversations I have with my friend, Karim, who is the cofounder and CTO of Ramp. Ramp is the presenting sponsor of this podcast, and Karim is one of the greatest technical minds working in finance today. Karim is obsessed with crafting a high-quality product and using the latest technology to constantly create better experiences for his customers. Ramp has one of the most talented technical teams in finance, and they use rapid, relentless iteration to make their product better every day. In the last year, Ramp has shipped over 300 new features. Ramp is completely committed to using AI to make a better experience for their customers

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and automate as much of your business's finances as possible. In fact, Karim just wrote this: "AI is all I think about these days. It is our duty to be first movers and push limits so we can make the greatest possible product experience for our customers." Many of the fastest-growing and most innovative companies in the world are running their business on Ramp. Make sure you go to ramp.com to learn how they can help your business save time and money. Let AI chase your receipts and close your books so you can use your time and energy building great things for your customers. Get started today by going to ramp.com. We were talking a lot about this conversation I just had with Tobi Lütke. I know both you and I admire him. — Oh, yeah. — And what I love about Tobi, that you have in you as well, is when you talk to him, the next response out of his mouth is not predictable.