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`0:31:34`

But you could imagine it could have been swapped. So it's not that Basecamp couldn't be this big venture scale, whatever you want to call it, although look, hey, we have the same number of customers roughly than they do. Are we? I guess we are venture scale in that respect. But again, point is…

`0:32:21`

Same thing with Uber. Uber's another example, and these are easy to pick, but they're great examples really. When Uber was getting started and they had to proliferate all over the country to begin with and all over the world. So it was this reliable thing you could think of just you would think of…

`0:33:08`

I don't know what you need the money for other than marketing. And it's interesting because marketing's losing them a lot of money. So it's an interesting thing. But anyway, you can talk to them about that. I want to start chatting about your ways of working, how you operate at 37signals. There…

`0:33:56`

That whatever we choose to do can take no longer than six weeks. So this is not an estimate of time, it's an appetite, which is a radically different approach. It doesn't sound like that much of a different word, but it really is. An estimate is like how long do we think it's…

`0:34:42`

Some things were like, we have a one week appetite for this. This is not that big of a deal. If we have it, great. If we don't have it, that's fine. We're willing to spend a week on it. Not that it could take a week, because it could also take 12 weeks…

`0:35:32`

They create the work that needs to get done to fulfill the idea that we've written up and designed essentially, and they figure out how to do it. Then we trade. So they might get into something that we've said, we have about six weeks. Well, we're only give it six weeks and two…

`0:36:19`

Because if we say we're going to give it six weeks and we give it seven or eight or nine or 10, then we're not really giving it six weeks, we're giving it 10, then we don't really have a system. There are times though, when there's a couple days left when…

`0:37:04`

So there are some contextual decisions to make at that point, but fundamentally that's how we approach work. And this prevents long running projects that never end, which by the way are the most demoralizing kinds of projects. Things that you're stuck on that you don't want to do that never end, sucks. And…

`0:37:51`

But if it's like this is going to take nine months and you're on week four and you're like, I hate this, bad. So we want to stay away from that sort of thing. You have these quotes along these lines about planning, long-term business planning is a fantasy. I don't plan…

`0:38:38`

Do you see this work in businesses that aren't your business this approach? Well, let me talk about promises for a second. Promises are the downfall of every business. Every time we've made a promise to get something out in a certain period of time and we kind of inevitably seem to miss it, it…

`0:39:26`

There's nothing easier than promising work later. And the further away it is, the easier it is to promise. And so this whole, by the end of the year, oh, red flag. Just remind yourself whenever you say that to yourself, go, oh, wait a second. Wait, wait, what am I doing right now? Because you…

`0:40:14`

almost have to plant a new seed somewhere else, let's just say, and then grow something new because it's very hard to change in flight and change what you have and change what you're used to. So what we often encourage people to do is keep working the way you're working, but some…

`0:40:59`

the criticality out. Because what ends up happening is that when people try to try something new on something really critical and it doesn't work, they'll never try it again. They've destroyed all future opportunities to try this again, because everyone knows how bad it went last time on something that really mattered. And…

`0:41:48`

Exhausted. But also pretty good. You can. Yeah, yeah. It's funny because I was a sprinter in high school, so I love sprinting. But if you go all out, you might feel high for a minute, but you can't go all out again. You've got to really catch your breath and you certainly like…

`0:42:36`

And that's why I don't like the word because you can't layer that back to back to back to back. You cannot sprint back to back, to back, to back in life. And you can't do it at work. People do it at work, but I don't think it actually works. So…

`0:43:22`

going to ship in two days, or kind of fixing some bugs and messing around with some stuff that they wanted to get to, but no one ever had time to and was never scheduled. So that's kind a good time to do that. In the meantime, a few of us are shaping up the next…

`0:44:09`

Can you just talk about how you actually operationalize that and what you find happens when you approach things that way? I'll just admit that that's the only way I've ever known how to work. I don't know how to make decisions by numbers or I don't find any joy in it…

`0:44:57`

them about this particular decision. And it's why when companies hire executives, what are they looking for in executive? They typically go judgment and experience. They're not like they can read an Excel spreadsheet. That's not the thing that matters. Anyone can read that or anyone can read a chart or you can learn…

`0:45:44`

And I just feel like I'm comfortable admitting that that I don't really know why I'm making these calls, but I'm making these calls regardless. And I'm not looking at a number and going, if this is fifty-one percent versus forty-nine, I'm going this way for sure. That could…

`0:46:32`

Give your gut credit. It's absorbed everything. And plus the things that you don't know it absorbed that are valuable. It's easier to do that if you're the founder running the company, obviously. Is there something you find that you can do to help your teammates approach things that way too? Do you…