Hacker News Reader

Comment by newhouseb | Hacker News Reader

I attended this talk in person, and have to say it was easily the most entertaining of the series I've seen all year.

The most interesting take-away was that DHH wants to build scalable companies in the sense that profits grow non-correlated to the workforce, ie. you don't hire 2 more people for $500million more in profits. Someone asked, wouldn't it good to employ 100k of people and create 100k jobs to which DHH said, no it's better for my personal wealth (which is the point of all good business) if I keep the profits to the smallest number of people possible - those 100k people should actually go out and make shit instead (his words). Food for thought.

View on HN

It is interesting to consider how many jobs (globally) have been created, or shall we say, how many people's professional life has been shaped, by the software framework that DHH released to the world. So in a way, he has created jobs. Without ever diluting his revenue from 37signals. (comments?)

Personally I really enjoyed this talk. As a business school grad who taught himself to programme and now works for a bootstrapped web startup, I still value what I learned at business school. I think DHH is a bit harsh with the 'unlearn' label. I consider the core principles learned at b-school to be very important to shaping my everyday thinking. It is the specifics (DHH's example of Porter's five forces applies here) that can be forgotten. But those specifics were a great tool for developing the overall business mindset that he also describes. I don't regret my time there whatsoever.

"how many people's professional life has been shaped, by the software framework that DHH released to the world. So in a way, he has created jobs."

This suggests that were someone not using Rail they'd be unemployed. But, really, if there were no Rails then people would have been using (say) Nitro, or sticking to some Java or PHP framework.

Or like lots of people who are/were new to programing an exiting, creative and forward thinking framework to allow anyone to learn and create functional web apps inspired them to learn and to create when they were not programming before.

That was part of my point. Rails got massive attention, but it wasn't unique.

I don't consider a job to be the absense of unemployment. I consider a job to have attributes, that is, my job is my role. So when I say 'created a job', I am talking about his influence in shaping a role and hence affecting somebody's life significantly. I thought about mentioning that explicitly in my comment but decided to leave it out. Again, just a thought.

I enjoyed the talk very much, especially the part towards the end about management and how people whose sole job is to manage are a large problem because they start making shit up to manage because they need to fill out an eight-hour day. I think he does make a logical error about b-school, for example, in saying that because customers don't care whether you did the 5 forces analysis or not such analysis is irrelevant. B-school probably has tools such as 5 forces that may help you build a better product or position it better and just because your customers don't see or care about that analysis does not make it irrelevant. Kind of like building a web service on ROR.

Can you share some of those core principles that you use daily?

I think his quote was a little more inspiring than the Gordon Gecko version: his comment (in response to a question from an Indian gentleman as to whether a company with 100,000 employees wasn't more socially beneficial because it provides 100,000 people with jobs) was that if you desire to make a positive influence on people, rather than employing them you can teach them to "go out and make shit". Then you're both better off.

And, hey, I've never gotten a buck from 37Signals but in terms of job creation DHH only has maximum 99,999 to go :)

That's awfully different from a "little Italian restaurant", which is never, ever going to grow beyond a certain size.

Gordon Ramsay started with one restaurant.

So did Batali with Po, Lupa, Esca, etc. Italian!

So did Colicchio with Craft.

The chain was founded in 1958 by Dan and Frank Carney. They chose the name "Pizza Hut" since the sign they purchased only had enough space for nine characters and spaces.

From Wikipedia.

> Pizza Hut

We were talking about Italian restaurants though. Pizza Hut fare is about as Italian as Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Also, I think that his whole point was about a "nice little Italian restaurant", not about a franchise.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com