The great joy of having built a successful business that employs a broad team of talented people is that I get to fish for exactly the kind of problems that most interest me, most of the time.
\nUsually, this coincides well with the needs of the business. When we moved out of the cloud, I spent months getting Kamal off the ground, so we didn't have to get mired in the complexity of Kubernetes. Fun problem to solve!
\nAnd of course, the origin story of Ruby on Rails is that Basecamp gave birth to it all back in 2003. Because I simply wanted Ruby to work well for the web, and we needed a platform to build the business.
\nBut sometimes it's also a bit further afield. We had our big clash with Apple over the App Store's monopoly abuses back in 2020, but it wasn't until 2024 that I severed our exclusivity with the Mac on the engineering side by moving to Linux, and ultimately building Omarchy.
\nI don't always get to choose, of course. There are occasionally urgent problems that just need our, and therefore my, full attention as a company, or humdrum issues that I just happen to be best qualified to tackle. But this is increasingly rare because of all those great people we've managed to assemble at 37signals.
\nAnd that's how it should be! Building a successful business should yield dividends beyond just the financial ones. It should afford you more opportunity to press your comparative advantage, so you spend most of your time on the projects that stimulate a little Call of the Wild.
\nNever to the point of being too good for anything, mind you. Taking out the trash is still everyone's job some of the time. But mostly, I want to be sitting by the pond of interesting problems, fishing for the ones that catch my eye and hook my motivation.
\nWho could wish to retire from that?
\n", "content_markdown": "The great joy of having built [a successful business](https://37signals.com) that employs a broad team of talented people is that I get to fish for exactly the kind of problems that most interest me, most of the time.\n\nUsually, this coincides well with the needs of the business. When we moved out of the cloud, I spent months getting [Kamal](https://kamal-deploy.org) off the ground, so we didn't have to get mired in the complexity of Kubernetes. Fun problem to solve!\n\nAnd of course, the origin story of [Ruby on Rails](https://rubyonrails.org) is that [Basecamp](https://basecamp.com/) gave birth to it all back in 2003. Because I simply wanted Ruby to work well for the web, and we needed a platform to build the business.\n\nBut sometimes it's also a bit further afield. We had our big clash with Apple over the App Store's monopoly abuses back in 2020, but it wasn't until 2024 that I [severed our exclusivity with the Mac](https://world.hey.com/dhh/linux-as-the-new-developer-default-at-37signals-ef0823b7) on the engineering side by moving to Linux, and ultimately building [Omarchy](https://omarchy.org).\n\nI don't always get to choose, of course. There are occasionally urgent problems that just need our, and therefore my, full attention as a company, or humdrum issues that I just happen to be best qualified to tackle. But this is increasingly rare because of all those great people we've managed to assemble at 37signals.\n\nAnd that's how it should be! Building a successful business *should* yield dividends beyond just the financial ones. It *should* afford you more opportunity to press your comparative advantage, so you spend most of your time on the projects that stimulate a little *Call of the Wild*.\n\nNever to the point of being too good for anything, mind you. Taking out the trash is still everyone's job some of the time. But mostly, I want to be sitting by the pond of interesting problems, fishing for the ones that catch my eye and hook my motivation.\n\nWho could wish to retire from that?\n", "dateCreated": "2026-10-19T01:26:53.998049939+00:00", "date_created": "2026-06-03T07:10:51+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-06-03T07:11:51+00:00", "date_published": "2026-06-03T07:10:51+00:00", "description": "The great joy of having built a successful business that employs a broad team of talented people is that I get to fish for exactly the kind of problems that most interest me, most of the time. Usually, this coincides well with the needs of…", "external_url": "https://world.hey.com/dhh/a-pond-of-interesting-problems-5f697567", "git": { "commit": "ebb0941c5c06a2ab2377342d607535262a3e969e", "path": "items/world-hey-com/2026/06/2026-06-03-a-pond-of-interesting-problems.md", "permalink": "https://github.com/aymericbeaumet/aggr-instance/blob/ebb0941c5c06a2ab2377342d607535262a3e969e/items/world-hey-com/2026/06/2026-06-03-a-pond-of-interesting-problems.md" }, "id": "urn:aggr:item:50fa4dd457a2bad7dc3af823629e895777d75e81", "isBasedOn": { "@id": "https://world.hey.com/dhh/a-pond-of-interesting-problems-5f697567" }, "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://world.hey.com/dhh/a-pond-of-interesting-problems-5f697567", "@type": "CreativeWork", "archivedAt": { "@id": "https://aggr.aymericbeaumet.com/items/world-hey-com/2026-06-03-a-pond-of-interesting-problems/#webpage" }, "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "David Heinemeier Hansson" } ], "dateModified": "2026-06-03T07:11:51+00:00", "datePublished": "2026-06-03T07:10:51+00:00", "headline": "A pond of interesting problems", "timeRequired": "PT2M", "url": "https://world.hey.com/dhh/a-pond-of-interesting-problems-5f697567", "wordCount": 326 }, "name": "Archived snapshot: A pond of interesting problems", "preview": null, "reading_minutes": 2, "replicated_at": null, "source": "world-hey-com", "source_name": "David Heinemeier Hansson", "summary": null, "tags": [], "temporalCoverage": "2026-10-19T01:26:53.998049939+00:00", "title": "A pond of interesting problems", "url": "https://aggr.aymericbeaumet.com/items/world-hey-com/2026-06-03-a-pond-of-interesting-problems/", "word_count": 326 }