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Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How Basecamp's CEO Lost 30% of His Team, Faced Backlash, and Came Back Stronger | Jason Fried | E153
01:03:31
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- [00:01]
Jason Fried
We decided that we were not going to talk politics at work anymore. 30% of the company quit over it. We were just like under enormous stress. It was actually strangely probably one of the best decisions we've ever made ever in the history of the company. We've got people here who are committed, people who wanted to join us after this. People are like, you guys have a place where I can do the best work of my life and not have to deal with all this stuff.
- [00:22]
Ilana Golan
Jason Fried. He is the co founder and CEO of Basecamp. And Jason Fried has built multimillion dollar businesses by doing exact opposite of what most experts advise us.
- [00:33]
Jason Fried
People take business too seriously. I think at the core of it still has to be a fun thing to do. And I think you'll do better work if it's fun work to do.
- [00:41]
Ilana Golan
How does a leader build like a thicker skin, especially for people pleasers?
- [00:46]
Jason Fried
As a leader, it's not my job to make people like me. You want to make someone happy, but are you making everyone else unhappy? That's not a good trade or a good balance. So I'm always trying to think of
- [00:55]
Ilana Golan
like, you know, everybody wants to be in profitable, but sometimes there's going to be, I don't know, the dot com bust. Suddenly you have all these salaries and it's like there is a oh, crap
- [01:07]
Jason Fried
moment in the moment. It can be very difficult to make a hard decision because the immediate feeling is maybe you're scared, maybe it could be the wrong call. Maybe a bunch of people aren't going to like it. So I just go like,
- [01:22]
Ilana Golan
Welcome to the Leap Academy with Ilana Golan show. I'm so glad you're here. In the Leap Academy podcast, I get to speak to to the biggest leaders of our time about their career, how they got where they are today, the challenges, the failures and countless lessons. So lean in. This episode is going to be amazing. I'm on a mission to help millions reinvent their career and leap into their full potential land their dream roles. Fast track to leadership, jump to entrepreneurship or build portfolio careers. This is what we do in our Leap Academy programs for individuals and teams. And with this podcast, we can give this career blueprint for free to tens of millions. So please help my mission by sharing this with every single person you know because this show has the power to change countless of lives. Dio. Okay, so let's dive in. Jason Fried. He is the co founder and CEO CEO of 37signals, the makers of Basecamp, the New York Times bestselling author of books like Rework and it doesn't have to be crazy at work. And Jason Fried has built multimillion dollar businesses by doing exact opposite of what most experts advise us. So you're gonna love this. He stays small on purpose. He prioritizes profitability over growth. And I love it because in Leap Academy, we chose to stay profitable and create mega impact for professionals and careers versus scale at any cost, like you were often advised. And if you are also looking to build a profitable business side hustle, create portfolio careers like we teach in leap. Lean in. This is going to be so cool. So dive in. Jason, so great to have you on the Leap Academy show.
- [03:14]
Jason Fried
It's fun to be here. I'm looking forward to this. Thanks.
- [03:17]
Ilana Golan
Oh, it's going to be so fun. So I'm actually going to take you back in time to when you were a kid, when you were, I think, tinkering with, selling stereo equipment and shoes and I don't know what else. So take us back in time. Who was Jason as a kid?
- [03:33]
Jason Fried
Ooh, I was a little bit curious. I've always liked business and making stuff and selling stuff and reselling stuff. But mostly it was stuff that I was interested in doing to speak to the entrepreneurship pieces. I used to really be into stereo equipment and that kind of stuff. And so I would find this stuff and just mark it up and sell it to my friends who also like this stuff. But it was always stuff that I wanted first. And I'm like, well, if I want it, they probably want it. And so I could like make a little tiny business here. But it wasn't really a business. It was just me selling some stuff to my friends. But it was fun because it was a little bit mischievous, to be honest. A little bit, like, cool to figure out how to buy stuff cheap and sell it for a little bit more. Again, it wasn't really about the money. It was just like fun to do it. Like, wow, I could actually spend $60 and make 70 or make an extra 10. That's cool. Like, I don't know. That's kind of cool. It's like, it felt like an unlock. Like, oh, wow, this is a possibility. And then I got into doing other things with business. But yeah, I was just kind of a curious kid, always curious about making things happen, doing stuff that I was into, finding other people who are into that kind of stuff and just being a little bit of a punk, to be honest. I was a little bit hard to raise, I think, but, you know, that was just my nature.
- [04:47]
Ilana Golan
Suppose as they say, they're always the more interesting kids when they're hard to raise. But tell me, first of all, I do see a theme that we'll probably go back to, because when you like something, you kind of assume other people like it. And I think there's a little bit of a theme there, so we'll take it later. But what about selling physical goods? What do you think it taught you as a kid? And how does that help you dictate? How do you see design and software today? Like, what do you think he taught you?
- [05:17]
Jason Fried
That was all I had. It was all that was available. So it's not like I chose that. But what I learned was that if I like it, then I will enjoy finding other people who like the same thing. I don't think, and I have, because I've had many jobs in my life, but selling stuff I don't believe in, or selling stuff I don't like, or selling stuff I don't think is any good is not very fulfilling. Sometimes I have to do it because you got to make a living. But I could tell very early on if I was just fired up about it and excited about it as an enthusiast, it's easier to sell something that you're already excited about. There was that. But physical stuff always still appeals to me very much. I mean, I make software for a living, but I crave. This is weird. I was gonna say I crave not making software for a living, but I totally love making software. But I crave, like, I love architecture. I love the physical world. I miss that stuff, you know, when you're staring at a screen all day. So I still keep myself quite busy with other things beyond software. But physical objects are cool. There's just a design to them. There's choices you have to make that are limiting. Like, software can sort of be anything, but a physical object has to kind of be a certain size, be a certain weight, has to be a little bit more understandable. You can only pack so many things into it before it doesn't have any more room. There's something nice about the constraints of a physical object that I think I've carried with me into software, because software, unfortunately can become anything, which is a good thing and a bad thing, but often turns into a bad thing as products get more and more complicated over time because you can just keep shoving more stuff in there, and that's what ends up happening. So physical objects don't have the same constraint. So I think I'm like, fundamentally attracted to that idea. And I think of software as if it was a physical object and I think that helps.
- [06:54]
Ilana Golan
Well, I definitely wrote a note that eventually I want to hear what else is interesting in Jason's world. But you started kind of a Web Design Agency, 37 signals. But were there jobs before that? Like what were some of the early things that you've been doing? And then what made 37 signals come to life?
- [07:14]
Jason Fried
So I graduated from college in 96. So 95 is sort of when the Internet, the Internet we know today kind of came into being. I mean it had been invented earlier than that, but the graphical browser was like 95, 96. So I kind of grew up in that a little bit. Before that though, I was making software for myself again using something called FileMaker Pro, which was like a visual databasey thing where you could make software without knowing how to like really code. But you got to put your own visual interfaces on it. And I made a tool to organize my music collection because I had a lot of tapes and CDs and I would give them out to friends and I'd never get them back and I'd forgotten who I gave them to. And like, who has this one? Who has that one? So I made this system to keep track of what I owned and who I lent it out to and all the different tracks on it and stuff. And I put that up actually on this pre Internet on AOL America Online. And I included a text file that said, if you like this, send me 20 bucks. Here's my address. It was like my home address. And I started getting some envelopes in the mail from people sending me 20 bucks bucks. And I realized like, wow. I built this system for myself. Other people seem to need similar things. They're willing to pay me for that. This is like a dream come true in a sense. I can make what I want and I can get paid for it. So fast forward a little bit. Then the Internet came around in 95 and I just got fascinated by it. It kind of blew my mind. Before that I had a bbs which is like a dial in thing where people could call in to your with a modem. It was like early. This is like late 80s, early 90s, early days.
- [08:42]
Ilana Golan
Yeah, yeah.
- [08:43]
Jason Fried
So I, I was into like networking and comp. Computery things, sort of. But the Internet came and it blew my mind. And I just learned back then I had a huge advantage and everyone did, which is no one knew what the hell they were doing because this was all brand new. Nobody knew anything. But you could go to a website and go like View Source and You could see how a website was made. And so I just sort of dissected these websites and learned how to make things from the websites. I'm like, oh, I'll just save this file and mess around with it and see what happens if I change this and change that. And I learned that way. And that's how ultimately the web stuff started. And eventually 37 signals started after I got out of college. I've been working since I was 13. I worked in a shoe store and a grocery store, another shoe store, another place, and sold my own stuff and sold some software and made some stuff and whatever. I've always just stayed busy making things, selling things. It was just fun for me. But I think the web was the first time it really felt, like, natural, like, wow, this is maybe a career. Maybe there's something here for me. I majored in finance. I didn't want to work at a bank. I didn't want to go, like, work in, like, some business y thing. I just, like, did it because I felt like I could major in that and get away with it.
- [09:48]
Ilana Golan
And I was curious, Jason, did you need to work all throughout or was it just part of the curiosity?
- [09:56]
Jason Fried
Well, I mean, my parents made me start working when I was 13 because that's when I could get a job part time. Then that's what I did. I'm like, well, I work in the summers. Did I have to work? I didn't have any spending money in college unless I did something. My parents paid for college, but I didn't have any money. So this is where I made my money. And then after college, my first job was actually I took a job in San Diego with a guy who I was doing work for while I was in college as a website designer, like freelance. And he hired me out of school to work for him as a web designer. So that was my first job. But I realized about, I don't know, three months in that I wasn't built to work for anybody else. So I quit, moved back to Chicago, and that's when I started basically freelancing as a web designer, which ultimately became 37 signals. I had bills to pay once I was out of college, for sure.
- [10:40]
Ilana Golan
I know, well, that's when you start. And I got into intel before I even knew one line of code. So it was very different days, like you said. Like, everybody was just, like, frantically trying to figure this thing out. So, you know, enough, I guess, web design. And you're a tinkerer. Like, it's just very clear that you love to do things. What made you start 37 signals. And again, for people listening, like, I think even the word entrepreneur didn't exist. Am I right? Like, at least I never heard of it.
- [11:10]
Jason Fried
Yeah, it was like some French word. I'm like, I don't know what that means. I have no idea. Entrepreneur. I mean, who knows?
- [11:16]
Ilana Golan
I still can't spell it, but yeah, me neither.
- [11:19]
Jason Fried
Me neither.
- [11:20]
Ilana Golan
So, so what made that start?
- [11:23]
Jason Fried
Well, I was doing stuff for myself for a little bit. This is after I left that job in San Diego, went back to Chicago, got an apartment and started working on my apartment as a web designer. And I did that for about, I want to say a year or two. And then I realized I basically barely left my apartment, frankly. I was just in my apartment working and doing whatever. Like this is kind of a lonely existence. I don't know. I mean, I had friends, but like during the workday I was working solo. At some point I'm like, ah, I don't know, maybe I should go get a job. Maybe I should do this professionally with someone else for a while. I don't know. So I interviewed in a few spots and met a couple people who I really liked. One guy was named Ernest Kim. Another guy was named Carlos Segura. And about a year later, Ernest is like, you know what? I was going to work for him at this place called Organic Online, which is a big web agency at the time. He's like, a year later, he's like, I'm leaving this. I don't want to do this anymore. What are you doing? I'm like, I'm still nothing. He's like, well, why don't we hook up? We both knew Carlos. Why don't we just start a web design company or an agency together? Fine, let's do that. Then I won't be alone and I'll be with a couple friends and let's do this. So we just did that. I don't even know if we did it properly. We didn't like get a lawyer and set up a contract. We just said, well, the three of us, we each threw 10 grand in which we had in savings to kind of get this thing going. We worked out of Carlos's office. He already had an office doing something else, some graphic design stuff, and we just made it work. Now both those guys left a few years in. And so I was solo after that for a while until I picked up another business partner. And I've been with him for 20 some odd years now. But that's how it all just kind of evolved. And then we picked the name because Carlos. So do you know Nova, the show nova? It was on pbs. Yeah, right. Science show.
- [13:03]
Ilana Golan
Yeah.
- [13:03]
Jason Fried
So there was a show and they were talking about the search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, the SETI project. And at the time it was like Carl Sagan and this other guy, I forget who it was, was kind of running this thing, I think. And they were listening to signs of life in space, you know, and intelligent. So they were analyzing all these signals and it turned out that there were 37 signals that at that point were unexplained and potential signs of life elsewhere. And Carlos just heard this 37signals and goes, that's cool. The domain's available. What do you guys think? We're like, that's cool. We don't have a name.
- [13:37]
Ilana Golan
Let's do it.
- [13:38]
Jason Fried
So that's how that all started. It wasn't very deliberate. I've always been a go with the flow. Like, I don't know, who cares? That sounds cool. Let's do it. We don't need to overthink these things because I think at some point you talk yourself out of things. Like, if I really would have sat down and go, what do we think of this name? Well, usually companies don't start with numbers. That's a bad idea. And like, you could just talk yourself out of anything if you just.
- [14:02]
Ilana Golan
Well, you can procrastinate for months or years on and bring experts advice, and all of this just on the name. Like, I've seen that happen as well. So, yeah, so you have this name and eventually you start pivoting towards software, which becomes basecamp. First of all, how did that come about? And I think just creating software is still gets really expensive really fast. And you guys chose a different way and a different path to do it. Like.
- [14:31]
Jason Fried
Yeah.
- [14:32]
Ilana Golan
How did you pivot?
- [14:33]
Jason Fried
Well, we were doing client work, so we were doing website design for clients and we were getting pretty busy. We were getting popular and it was great. And we had a lot of client work and there was just three or four of us at the time. We were just like doing too many projects at once and lost track of what we were doing and who was doing what and when things were due and who said what when, and client feedback. Word that. Who's got that? I don't know who said. And you're using email and the phone and meetings and you just like, lose track of stuff. And so we're like, we need a better way to track this stuff. At the time, Microsoft Project was the project Management tool of choice. And I looked at that, I'm like, this is taking it from the wrong direction or the wrong angle. Like, it was all about charts and graphs and statistics. It wasn't about communication and keeping things on the record. It was just wasn't about collaboration in any way, shape or form. So we decided to build this thing internally for ourselves. And as we began to build this, we began to use it with our clients. It became very clear that there was a good product here that like, again, going back to the thing we talked about earlier, like, this is something we needed. And then you realize, oh, wait, they need it too. They're like, what is this thing? Can we use this for our own projects? We're like, it's just this thing we made. I don't know. And eventually like, no, no, there's something here. So we fixed it up because, you know, when you use something for yourself, build something for yourself, it's a little rough around the edges. You put up with things that other people won't. Fixed it up, cleaned it up, gave it a name, called it Basecamp, put it out in the market, and then about a year, year and a half later, it was generating more revenue for us than our consulting client work was. So we slowly morphed into doing Basecamp full time once it could support us, because it was just more fun, frankly, and it had more legs and we'd have to find new clients and deal with clients. It was just kind of like a. We had to find customers, but they're different than landing a project.
- [16:16]
Ilana Golan
But there's also something really scary about what you're describing because to dumb it down to some people that are listening, and maybe I'm wrong, but you need to move from doing big, probably bigger consulting projects that will bring I don't know how many dollars, tens of thousands to start, right? And starting suddenly take, I don't know, whatever minuscule a month for a 30
- [16:40]
Jason Fried
bucks a month, right? Yeah. Well, you know what? We didn't deliberately say we're going to make this Basecamp thing work. We just said we're going to make this Basecamp thing for us. Eventually we realized other people are going to want this. We didn't stop taking client work immediately. We feathered it in. You know, we kept taking client work and then we Basecamp kept growing. It was kind of like this scale, like client work basecamp. And eventually it was like this, and then event like this, and then Basecamp was paying for us. So it could have taken three years, it took a year Year and a half. It could have taken five years. I don't. Or it could never have happened. But we didn't plan on it happening. We just made sure that we still had money coming in. So basically our client work funded the development of Basecamp and the development of that business until it took care of itself. So it would have been scary had we said, okay, we think we've got something here. We have, like, no revenue coming in. We're going to shut down the client business and focus entirely on the software business. That would have been a mistake. Instead we're like, let's just keep doing the client work. It's bringing the money in, and then we'll just do less and less and less and less and less of it as this other thing grows. And I think that's the way typically to reduce a lot of that anxiety and fear and existential risk, frankly. I mean, had we not been able to make Basecamp work and if we shut down our clients stuff, we could have been dead, like, dead in the water, you know? So I think that's the way to do it. Transition slowly.
- [17:57]
Ilana Golan
And I love that. And I think this is. Ties nicely to some of the messages around artificial goals and the artificial goal trap that I think sometimes you talk about. Can you talk a little bit about how did you find those artificial goals? Because you're right. In general, advisors will tell you, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. And we'll have these made up valuations and growth and metrics and all the cool stuff that usually never pan out. Right. So, Jason, take us there for a second.
- [18:26]
Jason Fried
Part of this is just ignorance, to be honest. I didn't pay attention to that stuff. We didn't take any money intentionally. We didn't need to take anyone's money because we had our own money coming in from our customers. And then Basecamp grew to the place where it could support itself. So I didn't need anyone's outside money. So we don't have anyone's expectations. When you take money, you also take expectations. I didn't take money, so I didn't take expectations. I just like. Or like, wow, this is amazing. We're doing this thing and people like it, and it's paying our bills and paying our salaries and like, this is great. So there was never this goal, like, well, let's get to this size, or, let's get to this number of customers. It was just like, can we just keep doing this? This is great. Wow, how lucky are we? And then it gets bigger and bigger and bigger over time. But it gets there on its own. We didn't take it there because we wanted to take it there. It just, that was the momentum and we rode it. We rode our own wave here essentially. And that's where we are today. Still 27 years later, we're just riding the wave of momentum and interest and people like it and they sign up. We still don't have goals, we don't have revenue targets, we don't have expectations on how many customers we're going to have. As long as we're profitable, got to make more money than you spend. That's business. So for us, as long as we're profitable, we're good. So if we do better one year and not as well the next, that's okay. As long as we're still profitable even in the year, we're not doing as well as the previous year. Got to be profitable. We have been profitable every year for 27 years. And that is our only financial target, is that the rest of it is watch your costs, be careful, don't be an idiot, Take risks, but don't put yourself at risk. And primarily, don't allow yourself to just get carried away because everyone else is spending money in this way. Or you see some competitor that's blowing a bunch of money on ads and you think we have to do that too, because if we don't do it, they're going to take our whole business away. And truth is, in most industries there's plenty of room for plenty of people to do plenty. Well, there are some zero sum industries, but most are not. And you can just do well and they can do well. And at the end of the day, I think your only true competitions are your costs. You've got to make more money than you spend. That's kind of it.
- [20:34]
Ilana Golan
We need to pause for a super brief break. And while we do, take a moment and share this episode with every single person who may be inspired by this. Because this information can truly change your life and theirs. Now I want to check in with you. Yes, you, are you driven, but maybe feeling stuck in your career or a fraction of who you know you could be? Do you secretly feel you should have been further along in your income, influence or impact? Do you ever wonder how to create not just a paycheck, but the life you want with a paycheck? The thought leadership, the legacy, the freedom. Because that was me. And that's exactly why I created the Leap Academy program which already changed thousands of careers and lives. Look, getting intentional and strategic with your career is now more important than ever. The skills for success have changed. Aq, adaptability, reinventing and leaping are today the most important skills for the future of work. Building portfolio careers, multiple streams of income and ventures are no longer a nice to have. It's a must have. But no one is teaching this except for us in Leap Academy. So if you want more from your career and Life, go to leapacademy.com training. Check out this completely free training about ways to fast track your career and you'll even be able to book a completely free strategy call with my team. That's leapacademy.com training. Too many people finish their workday feeling frustrated, drained and unfulfilled. The good news is it doesn't have to be that way, and you don't need necessarily a new job to fix it. Patrick Lenteoni, author of the Five Dysfunctions of a Team and more than a dozen other bestsellers, created the Working Genius assessment to help you pinpoint the kind of work that gives you energy and the kind that drains it. Over a million people, including myself, have taken it, and it completely changed how I lead and how I show up every day. So if you're a CEO or entrepreneur or someone who just wants to level up in business and in life, working genius will give you the clarity and the confidence to operate in your strength and really find greater joy in what you do. Because confidence isn't about pretending that you're good at everything. It's about knowing where you're truly gifted. So take the Working Genius assessment today. Get 20% off with the code. Leap@workinggenius.com that's working genius dot com. You'll be glad you did Take me to hard years. It's easier said than done. Everybody wants to be, in general, profitable, but sometimes there's gonna be, I don't know, the dot com bust and suddenly you have all these salaries and it's like there is a oh crap moment. Or maybe not. Jason, take me there.
- [23:27]
Jason Fried
I will say for us, it's never been that way, but there's a reason for that. Part of it is luck. Part of it's luck and timing. We kind of launched this thing at the right time and early and built up a great big customer base and the whole thing. But also we kept our costs. I mean, we're small. We're still 62 people. That's it. I can tell you that many of our competitors have thousands of people. Some of these are public companies. And I can see they're like thousands and thousands of people. Their marketing Budget alone is like $100 million. That's not who we are. We have 62 people at the company. We've had been up to about 80 some odd. We're 62 now. We've been smaller, been bigger. Here we are. And even in lean times, tough times, there were like.com bust and Basecamp launched in 2004. So.com was like 2000, 2001. But as a consulting firm, that was a little rougher. But we still had, we had like three people. So, you know, it's not as hard at three people to deal with things. It's hard if you have 30 and you got payroll you can't make and too many people sitting around and like, that's terrifying to me. I never want to be in that position. It could always happen and maybe one day it will, but it hasn't. Primarily just because we've kept our costs as low as we possibly can. We take very, very good care of people and pay top of the market, but we just have fewer people, a tenth of the people, less than a tenth than many of our competitors have. So that helps us weather the storm, to deal with difficult times, to deal with change. And we've been very fortunate in that respect.
- [24:56]
Ilana Golan
Now, did you always have this mentality or at some point it's like, oh my God, can I be this big company? Because there was this whole trend of take as much money as you can, grow as fast as you can. Like there was this whole wind was blowing towards that. Was there a moment where you said, you know what, this is just not going to be my path?
- [25:15]
Jason Fried
We've never taken venture money. We did take one outside investor in 2006. It was Jeff Bezos from Amazon. He bought a small minority share in our company. But the money went to me and David. David's my business partner, so none of his money ever went in our business. Our business has always been 100% funded by customer revenues. The money that went to us was not life changing money. It was good money, but I would have had to work again. But it took some risk off the table for us in that moment. It said, hey, if this thing's a total flop, at least we didn't go to zero. Like we put a little bit of money away in the bank and we feel a little bit more confident now that we can keep pushing in our own way. So there's a little bit of that. But we have maybe a couple times like slipped into this mindset, like, what if we could be 10x as big as we are today. Like, wouldn't that be amazing? And we'll like go down that road for a little bit and then we just start stumbling over ourselves. Like, what? That this is not us, this is not who we are. The things we have to do to do that aren't the things we want to do. We try to be very self aware. Even if you slip sometimes and go, that's not who we are. And so what? So what if we're 2x or 3x bigger? Like, does it really matter? No, it doesn't matter. And to do the things to get there aren't worth it to us. Now someone might go, you guys aren't ambitious enough and you're leaving money on the table. And I go, yeah, maybe you're right and I just don't care. The point is, is that in my opinion, you want to get to this place where you're very comfortable with enough. Enough can be a very big business and a very good business. We generate tens of millions in annual profits. That's a great business. Now, could we do way more than that? Maybe we could. I don't really care. We found our place and we get to serve our customers, we get to serve ourselves, we get to take care of the people we want the way we want, at a high level. We don't have any of the external pressures that most companies feel when they have to live up to some other expectations, when they have to show massive growth. I don't want any of that. That's like too. Frankly, it's too hard.
- [27:07]
Ilana Golan
It is. But I wonder if there's like a moment where you build that conviction to say, you know what? This is who I want to be.
- [27:15]
Jason Fried
I mean, I think that's probably always forming. I would say that in the last 10 years we've became very clear about who we are. I think part of this is just maturity and age and experience. And there were times, I think the business was younger where we didn't know what was going to happen. And gosh, maybe we should take a bunch of money because who know, knows what's going to happen. But I think now we're in this place where we're very stable. We understand the market, we understand our customers. I wouldn't know what to do with someone's money. We're not the kind of business that would even know what to do with it because we're not built that way. The place I've always tried to get, I've always wanted to build a business that I want to work at. So I've done that. This is the business I'd want to work at if I was looking for a job. That's number one. The second thing is I want to build a business that I would not trade with anyone else, so there is no other business on earth that I would trade for mine. And if you do those two things, I think that you're pretty secure in where you are and who you are and what you're doing. And I think once you settle into being able to say that, for both those things, I think you're in a good place, wherever that is. That's how I feel. At least.
- [28:14]
Ilana Golan
I love that. Do you remember the early days, though? Like, again, you were very lean. You were three brilliant co founders starting to do, you know, whatever.
- [28:24]
Jason Fried
I'm not sure we were brilliant. We may have been very stupid, but we. You're giving me too much credit.
- [28:30]
Ilana Golan
Yeah, well, you built something that I love, so you do get a lot of credit. And I think the transition from there's like money in the consulting business and it's moving slowly towards this. Like, it's a brilliant way to start funding this thing. Right. But take me to the early days, because software can also get really expensive to create. It takes time to market. It takes time or money to get the word out. Was there moments that were like, terrifying? There was a moment like, I don't know, can we do this? Like, what? How does it go?
- [29:05]
Jason Fried
I know people typically don't believe these kind of. But there wasn't terrifying moments. I understand what you're looking for. I wish I had some of that for you to share, but I don't, I really don't. Primarily because we've always been very careful about our costs and I think this is just. I don't know why, but this is lost on people in the tech industry. People don't understand why it's so important to watch your costs. They just spend. All the talk is revenue, valuations, how much you've raised. These are all spending numbers. But what are your costs? What does it cost you to run your business? Like, we've just been very careful about that. So we haven't had that. I mean, I would say there's been moments when, like, we've had a few moments. Like, I would say there's one in about five years ago that we had, which was a pretty significant moment for us, which is we enacted a policy. This was back in 2021.
- [29:58]
Ilana Golan
Tell me there. Yeah, take me there for a second.
- [29:59]
Jason Fried
This is recent. We decided that we were not going to talk politics at work anymore. Because there was just an atmosphere, well, an atmosphere in the country in general, but an atmosphere at work where people were just like, everything became political. Nobody trusted each other. People were wondering, which side are you on? And then people like had to work with each other, who they just didn't give the benefit of the doubt to anymore. And a lot of conversations just became political and like, this is not a. I don't like this environment. I don't want to work here anymore. I don't want to work at this place where we're talking this like outside of work. It's all this. Can we just focus on the work that we do, we make software, can we just do that? But it became very difficult to do that. And so David, David's my business partner. David and I eventually decided, we're not doing this anymore. We don't want to work here if this is the way it's going to be. So no more politics at work. We're not talking about. You can talk politics all you want personally, whatever, but we're not mixing it at work. Sorry, not happening anymore. Made this big line in the sand, drew it. And 30% of the company quit over it, which was a big number as 20 some odd people at the time. Huge. That was the first time where there was a real existential risk, like, are we going to lose so many people, so many critical key people that continuity is going to be impossible. And like we're just toast. We've came very, very close to that.
- [31:18]
Ilana Golan
So take me to that date you announced this thing. I mean, it's still kind of on your shoulders. If I'm getting this right and you understand that people are leaving or they're freaking out or whatever. And most CEO will probably panic at that point or maybe backpedal themselves or whatever and take me even to the middle of the night. Like, is that hunting you? Are you trying to figure this out? How is that, like I would freak out?
- [31:43]
Jason Fried
Yes. There was a period of about a week, ish, where probably if you were to take my blood pressure, it probably would have been like, I don't know, 190 over 95. I mean, bad. We were just like under enormous stress. Fear. I mean, there was some feeling of shame. It was weird. It was a weird, really weird mix of like, oh my God, we've. Did we just tank this thing? Is this the end of our careers? And it was about a week of. I don't know what's going to happen. Not everyone quit immediately. People were pissed. And then we talked about this internally and had a couple calls with some people, and all of a sudden, flies started dropping, basically. Or that's maybe the wrong. Yeah, just like I get, oh, they're leaving. Oh, my God, they're leaving. These three people are leaving together. What is going on? And then we had more calls with internal managers and just try to. The leadership team sort of started falling apart a little bit. And some people were very strong and were totally committed to sticking around. Other people weren't sure they were wavering. I mean, it was like the wheels were coming off for a minute. And it mostly was, I don't know what's going to happen next. It wasn't like, okay, that person left, which is a bummer. Real big bummer. But, like, who else is going to leave now? And who do we have left? And we have a business to run. Like, we have customers who depend on us right now still. How do we make sure things are still up? This did not affect our customers at all. We had no downtime, no issues whatsoever. But I'm like, this could flip and tip into that. David and I had committed early to. We're not changing our decision. We're not changing our mind, because we believe this is right. We are convinced that we're making the right decision. But then it's like, well, okay, but do you want to be a writer? Do you want to be in business? And we're like, actually, we want to be right. We want to be right about us. We want to make sure that we are principled about this. This is very important to us. And if we do go down over this, we can live with that. Like, really, we did get to that place, but it was really rocky. I also began to make phone calls to every person who's still around. I also wrote up an apology internally and publicly, but not sorry about the decision. Because I wasn't sorry about the decision. What I was sorry about, I think how we communicated it. We communicated it publicly at the same time we did it privately, which is typically how we do most things. How we've done things historically is we are a very open company. We just share pretty much everything publicly. But because this was such a complicated situation and we shared this publicly, what ended up happening was a lot of people, especially on Twitter, began to pile on us, called us all sorts of terrible names and put an enormous amount of pressure on our employees, like, how could you work at this place with these name, name, name? And so it created this huge public pressure where people are like, wow, if I stay Here, is it going to ruin my career? Is my resume going to have a black mark on it? Because it's like, oh, there I was at this company during this time, and I stuck around. Like, there's a lot of pressure. So I feel like had we done this again, we would have done the same thing, but we would have talked about it internally first, gotten very clear about it, fielded all sorts of questions, had a conversation about it, explained ourselves even more clearly about it. And then if people were going to leave, that's fine. But I didn't want. I know a number of people because they reached out to us after this, like, months later, who wanted to come back, who felt like. I felt like I had to do this for my career because I was worried about literally being, like, tarred and feathered and ruined. And I totally understand that kind of pressure. I completely could empathize with their decision, but there was an enormous amount of public pressure, and I think that's probably what I would have not have done again had I had the chance, you know?
- [35:28]
Ilana Golan
And at that point, by the way, the two of you, how do you help each other? Because you can also sink each other to be frantic. Right? I mean, it's a really hard, volatile place. And I think sometimes one and one makes zero, and sometimes it's two. But somehow you guys, like, made it together. I mean, again, you worked with each other for a while, but this is a really hard moment.
- [35:52]
Jason Fried
That's a great point that one and one can make. Two or zero. That's a great. Actually great thought there. Well, David and I both really thought this was the right decision. So there was no wavering on the decision, which was. That's the cornerstone of this whole thing. Had we really disagreed on that, that would have been. Because then someone could have been like, I told you I didn't want to do this. Then you're down this very dangerous, dark road with your business partner. So we both believed. So we actually kind of almost went back to back and huddled with each other. In a sense, we are the core of this. We believe this decision was right. We also got a tremendous amount of support from other business leaders who wrote us privately. Almost nobody would say anything publicly because they were also afraid. This was. Got to remember this time was a very interesting time in American history where people were being just tarred and feathered for any little thing. And which side do you want? Like, anyway, long story short is we got a ton of support.
- [36:52]
Ilana Golan
Yeah. I mean, there was Covid and there was Mask, and there was, like, Trump or whatever. Like, there was just so many things together. Like, all the things together, all the things.
- [37:00]
Jason Fried
You know, it was just a lot of things. People were just exhausted. We. So historically, we had these two meetups every year where we'd all get everyone together physically and get to see everybody and, like, share our humanity with each other. And we didn't because of COVID And we weren't the only company, of course, everyone. But that was really missing. We hadn't seen each other for, I think, 18 months together. So you kind of drift apart when it's purely virtual. And then things, you know, politics creeps in. And it was a very difficult time anyway, tons and tons of other founders, CEOs wrote us privately offering support, saying this is the biggest issue they have in their company. And they really admired the fact that we made this decision and that this was going to provide cover for other companies to make similar decisions. And it just. It was very helpful to have that support, even though nobody knew about it. It was all private, quiet support, but it was very helpful for us to know. And then a few people reached out who'd been involved in other sort of controversies and whatever, and said, look, this is the worst moment it'll ever be. Time will heal this. Just hang in there, Let things settle. I don't know if you know who Alan Watts is. Alan Watts is like a philosopher and a writer, and he had this great thing about the best way to clear muddy water is to just do nothing. You can't keep agitating it. It's got to settle. Don't agitate any further. Just let it settle, and then you'll have clear water again. That was the advice we got, and we did that. And it was actually, strangely, probably one of the best decisions we've ever made ever in the history of the company. Company's been a totally different place since then. A much better place to work, a much more productive organization. We've got people here who are committed, people who wanted to join us after this. It was great for recruiting, ultimately, which we didn't expect at all. People were, like, running away from politics at the time, and they had nowhere to go because every workplace is full of politics. So they're like, you guys have a place where I can do the best work of my life and not have to deal with all this stuff. This is great. So we built back up and made it work, and here we are. But that was the incredibly trying time, and I didn't sleep very well under enormous pressure, under enormous stress. I felt like I Literally felt like maybe a couple times, like I might crack psychologically. Almost like I was just under a lot of pressure. And my wife was very helpful. Having kids was very helpful. All these things of, like, you know what? There's more to this than. Than work. I have a life outside of work. Had I been a solo founder in my early 20s with no relationship and no kids, like, I think that would have been incredibly hard for me because that's, like, in a sense, all I would have had. But having a family and, like, not dealing with work after work was very helpful.
- [39:33]
Ilana Golan
And I'm sure it completely shifted the entire culture of the company. The hiring, the culture, the vibe, all of it. And I'm sure it's not immediate. So do you start seeing the seeds and it gives you hope or what's happening when to see that this is actually, like, a good thing and this is, like, just gonna take us to a different level.
- [39:56]
Jason Fried
It took a while. The first green shoots, let's say, were when we. So we lost a bunch of people, so we had to rehire. And I was like, I don't know what's gonna happen when we rehire. Does anyone wanna work here? Do we, like, completely destroy ourselves? And we put out some job ads and got, like, exceptionally good people who applied, and they were excited to be here because they were looking for a respite from all this political stuff.
- [40:20]
Ilana Golan
Too toxic? Yeah.
- [40:22]
Jason Fried
Yeah. Like a retreat almost from it all. And so to fill a few of these positions with outstanding people was a huge boost for us psychologically and to see that we had this thing stabilized and the people who were still here were very, very much about staying here and then having other people come in who were very much about it as well. We needed that. We needed to make those first few key hires who were, like, all in, just to make sure that there were people who were out there who were still.
- [40:49]
Ilana Golan
Somebody is there. Yeah, somebody's there.
- [40:51]
Jason Fried
Right then it's just. It's just slow going. And you're like, God, could this blow up again? And are some people who are still on the fence, like, is there something we could do wrong to screw this over or screw this up? And we made it through. And the other thing was, I will just tell you, having a few people want to come back, we didn't bring anyone back. But having a few people wanting to come back, like, a year later, two years later, three years later, it was just nice because it was a nice replay of, like, you know, this was a moment in time where a lot of People weren't sure what was going on in the world and they went off and worked somewhere else and they realized, like, this is actually a really good place to work and they came back for that. So that was. We didn't hire them again, but we'd been in touch and it was just, you know, nice to feel that a little bit. I have to be honest. It was.
- [41:33]
Ilana Golan
Right.
- [41:33]
Jason Fried
It wasn't revenge. It wasn't revenge. That's always an ugly thing. It was more like a little bit of satisfaction that, you know, we built a good place to work. And yeah, some people really disagreed with our decision and I understand that. I really, truly, fully, completely do. But also, we did build. We have built a great company and I'm proud of it and I'm glad that other people who've been here, left, saw it and wanted to come back.
- [41:53]
Ilana Golan
That's incredible. What do you think? How does a leader build? Basically, like almost like a thicker skin because again, you went through a really hard time, but you're also very adamant about making those decisions or whatever. But I think sometimes that. Especially for people pleasers, right. I think some people are listening and they're saying, I want everybody to love me. I can't go against the way. Right? Like, how do you do that?
- [42:21]
Jason Fried
I think you grow a thicker skin. Part of it is probably some. I'm okay with people not liking me. I'm okay with that. I have always been opinionated, which means that people aren't going to like me. I get it. So there's some of that to begin with. Also there's a recognition that as a leader, it's not my job to make people like me. It's useful when people like you to some degree, but hopefully it's like more of a respect thing than a liking thing. Because if it's just like a pure friendshipy likey thing, it becomes kind of difficult to sometimes make difficult decisions. There's a shared respect that we have here and some people certainly disagree over certain decisions. But I think people go, well, their hearts and their heads in the right place. Or I still would say that about somebody else as well if they disagree with me. But like, ultimately I have to make the final decision decision and it's on behalf of the company. It can't be just to please someone because if it's pleasing someone but hurting the company, that's the wrong decision for everyone else. That's the other thing to always think about is like, you want to make someone happy, but are you making everyone else unhappy? That's not a good trade or a good balance. So I'm always trying to think of the company as a whole. And the other thing I tend to think about is whatever the decision is in the short term, how's this going to feel in a year? That's how I tend to think about things that are difficult. Because in the moment, it can be very difficult to make a hard decision, because the immediate feeling is one of, like, maybe you're scared. Maybe it could be the wrong call. Maybe it's going to be difficult. Maybe a bunch of people aren't going to like it. You're going to hear about how they don't like it. All that stuff just rushes at you. And then you just realize with some distance, you'll look back on that and go, I'm glad I made that call, even though it was hard in the beginning. So I tend to just try to, like, almost ignore is not the right word, but it's the right spirit of early pushback. Because I go, I know. I get it. Like, people change is hard and difficult decisions are hard. And people may not have the whole picture in mind. Why did I make this call? And I try to explain as much as I can, but some stuff you just can't really explain. And it's a feeling. It's like, I just think this is the right call. So I just go, like, okay, in 2027, you know, January 2027. Well, I look back on this and be proud of the call. Well, I think it was the right call. And that's how I tend to make these. And if the answer is I'm very confident that's the case, then I'll make the call. Even if it's hard in the short term.
- [44:38]
Ilana Golan
I like that. I wrote that one down.
- [44:40]
Jason Fried
Take it. Yeah, it's something I came into recently. This is not something I've known for a long time. It's something I realized, actually.
- [44:47]
Ilana Golan
I like that. I like that actually came out of
- [44:50]
Jason Fried
this controversy, because I remember thinking, like, during this moment, this week or two of extreme stress, and even though we are, like, all in on the decision, there's still, like, all the doubt that comes up when you're under that much pressure. I go, you know what? A year from now, I'm just gonna, like, yeah, of course we're gonna be happy. Like, I can't imagine us going back to the way things were. So that's where I got that lesson from. And it wasn't like a lesson I was looking for, but it was a lesson I learned.
- [45:14]
Ilana Golan
But I love that and I'm totally stealing that one. And then in terms of like right now, if you're kind of looking at this pace of change the last few years, I mean, it's been pretty mind blowing, especially with AI and all the movement and all the. How do you see that for overall for you guys and all your different ventures and kind of how do you see the future for other leaders? How do you think they need to navigate this pretty interesting wave? You definitely can't ignore it. It's there.
- [45:45]
Jason Fried
Yes. I think one thing that's important is not to get carried away. AI is here to stay. Obviously this is not a fad, but it is moving so quickly that sometimes when something moves that fast, it's best to kind of just sit back for a minute and just see how it might settle out a bit. I remember when this first started really hitting maybe a year ago, everyone built in writing tools into their product to help people write better and stuff. And I'm like, I don't think everyone should be building their own thing because I have a sense that this is going to be built into the OS or built into the browser at some point where it doesn't matter what tool you're using. People have been asking about dictation and stuff and auto transcripts, and I think this is going to be something that Apple and Microsoft and whatever build into their OSes. So it just works everywhere, you know. So I'm glad we didn't invest in the early days of the AI stuff because a lot of that stuff has proven not to be that useful. And a lot of engineering went into something that's now been replaced that everyone gets for free, essentially. And I think there'll be more and more of that, frankly. But you also got to pay attention to it because it is very useful and very helpful. So I think the key is to play with it and get curious about it and to approach it with a degree of curiosity, but not to chase it. Especially if it's moving this fast because you just don't know what it's going to look like. There's a point where certain things settle in which become a little bit more obvious. And then like, it's pretty clear to me that like interfacing with these things via some sort of a chat interface is probably going to be around for a long. It just feels like a natural way to communicate. Now. There'll be other things that you can do, but asking questions via natural language seems like the real breakthrough here actually. And that's something to pay more attention to telling software what you want from it. Not just choosing a bunch of things because they exist, pulling down menus, pressing buttons, but just like, can you just give me this? Because that's how I want it. That's gonna stay. And so you start to think about how do we incorporate that into our product and how do we do that kind of stuff. So I think you've gotta meet it with curiosity. Don't get carried away. Don't dive in too early. Cause you're almost certainly going to be obsolete. The thing you're gonna build is gonna be obsolete very quickly. Let it settle in a bit and then I think dive in, which is what we're doing now.
- [47:48]
Ilana Golan
Incredible. So tell us, what are you doing now, Jason? I mean, you have Basecamp and. Hey. And I think there's new stuff coming in that I saw a little bit. So tell us a little bit.
- [47:57]
Jason Fried
Well, we just launched a new product called Fizzy. So it's at Fizzy do, which is like our fun take on Kanban, which is a. You know, Kanban is like organizing things with cards and columns. And it's been around actually since the 40s. But Trello, many people have heard of Trello, made it popular, I think, in 2010, 2011. And as tends to happen, it's been a long time. That's a long time ago. Most products just get harder and complicated and more clumsy and over time. Right. So what ends up happening is like, there are no simple, great Kanban options anymore. Everything's just like overweight and complicated. So we wanted to build something that was like, straightforward, simple, colorful, fast. And we put that out there on the market. So that's Fizzy, great for organizing any sort of thing. And that's out now. But the thing we're working on right now is Basecamp 5. So the fifth major version of Basecamp, we've done Basecamp, which we now call classic 2, 3, 4, which is a handful of years ago. And now we're doing five, which will be out this year. And been putting in a ton of effort into making five the best version of Basecamp we've ever built. I'm incredibly pumped about it. We've been using it internally for a while. Got a few more months to go. And to your point about the AI stuff, really starting to dig into how we can incorporate AI into Basecamp in a useful way and not just check the box we have AI way. But how is this actually going to be useful for people? So trying to incorporate some of that, also incorporating AI into our internal workflows to make us more efficient in certain areas. So it's a fun time. I like releasing new products, I like improving things. So I'm excited. This is going to be a great year to get Basecamp out, which is our. Basecamp's our grand slam product. We've had hits and base. Hits and triples and stuff. But Basecamp is the big thing that propels the whole company. So I'm excited to get the new version out and hopefully people like it.
- [49:43]
Ilana Golan
I'll take you back to Jason interest then, because you alluded to it in the beginning and I'm just curious, like, what do you do when you're not working around the clock and you have your family?
- [49:53]
Jason Fried
Well, I've got a family, got two kids, got a wife. My kids are like 11 and 7, so they're still relatively young. So there's a lot to do. Just like living a lot to do, driving around and activities and just hanging out and stuff. But I would say one of my other. Besides that, all the family life stuff, like one of my real passions actually has become architecture and restoring old houses. I just found myself loving to do this now. I'm not doing the work of the swinging the hammer and the nail stuff, but I'm deeply involved in the decisions and the design and the ideas behind it. So we're doing a project right now which I'm really excited about, like bringing an old house back to life. Something built in the 20s, actually, which is really fun. I'm learning drums. I've been learning drums for a while. I try to dive. Not as good as I should be. I need to find a good teacher, but I'm working on that. I'm also trying to learn how to draw. I draw interfaces. I draw like software, but I don't really know how to draw draw, and I want to learn how to do that. So I've been trying to figure out some time to find some time to do that. I've been reading a lot. I just, I don't know, I like, I'm finding myself as I, you know, I'm 51 now, been in the software industry.
- [51:03]
Ilana Golan
Just like me.
- [51:03]
Jason Fried
Hey, how about it? I've been in the software industry for a long time. I'm staring at a flat screen a lot of the day. And so I'm really valuing three dimensional objects and, and three dimensional people and like being outside in the world and interfacing with nature a lot. And I find a lot of joy in that. I still find a lot of joy in building software too, but I really want to end my day at 5 and do other things.
- [51:28]
Ilana Golan
Oh, that's incredible. So if you needed to meet yourself back in time, what would be one or two things that you really wish you knew earlier?
- [51:38]
Jason Fried
You know what? I don't wish I knew anything. I gotta be honest, I've always found that question. It's a fair question, by the way, but I've always found it to be. First of all, I wouldn't have listened to myself when I was 21, 18, am I going to listen to some 50 year old guy tell me what's important about the world? No, no way. But I listened to even myself, right?
- [51:56]
Ilana Golan
Also valid.
- [51:58]
Jason Fried
That's like absolutely, positively true. And the other thing is that what I know now, you have to discover things. There's some things that's probably good to know, like be polite and shake someone's hand and look them in the eye and some of the basic things. And be on time and be reliable. And if you say you're gonna do something, do it. That stuff. But a lot of the stuff you learn that's important beyond that is stuff you actually have to experience to learn. You have to do it to know it. You can't read about it, you can't hear about it, you can't just believe it to be true. You've got to do it. So I wouldn't have wanted to tell myself anything because I don't want to skip over the steps I had to take to learn the things I had to learn. Is the honest answer. That's it, that's the answer to that question. It's like I wouldn't have listened and I don't want to know because I wanted to learn, not know those things.
- [52:47]
Ilana Golan
Okay, what about you?
- [52:49]
Jason Fried
I mean, what about you? Do you have anything?
- [52:51]
Ilana Golan
I do, I do. So I think for me, two things. One, I think that, I thought that if, if I spend so many years learning electric engineering and doing coding or whatever, then this is the only thing I'm allowed to do for the rest of my life. And if I'm getting out of that, then I'm a failure, right? Like I failed at it. And I think I held myself back for no reason because I probably would have done some taking some action earlier. And I think the other thing that I think I learned the hard way is that I wish I got more help for more people and I was better at asking for help. Like, I think I kind of had this, like, I don't know, maybe it's like an Air Force mentality or maybe it's an Israeli mentality. I know it all. I don't need to ask anybody. Like, I will figure this out. And the truth is, I think it took me longer. Yes, you're right. Some of these scraping of the knees I needed to do on my own. But I think if I could have leaned on more mentors or more help and more coaching and more whatever, like, why wouldn't I? Like. But I didn't even realize, realize that's an option because I was taken down. Like, I wasn't. Like, I. I didn't really understand you're self reliant.
- [54:04]
Jason Fried
There's like, there's a self reliance. So are you Israeli?
- [54:07]
Ilana Golan
I am, yeah.
- [54:08]
Jason Fried
So, like, I know.
- [54:09]
Ilana Golan
So I. I know so many Israelis or a character. Yeah, yeah.
- [54:14]
Jason Fried
Well, no, I know so many Israelis, including some of my own family. And they all have something very similar, I would say. Like, I'm gonna just. I'm just stubborn. I'm gonna figure this out myself. And like, you know, so I get it. I totally get it. I mean, I have that in me as well. So I get that. That is a good one. I just wonder, would you have listened to yourself? This is always what it comes back to for me now. You know that. You should have known that when you were younger. But would you have listened to yourself if someone random told you that maybe?
- [54:42]
Ilana Golan
Random, no. But if somebody that I really valued, I think I would have listened. And I don't think that I was even open to asking. So anyway, that's cool, Jason. Like, I took tons of notes. I learned a lot about Muddy Waters and all of it. And thank you for inspiring and sharing the story and for what you do as Basecamp. I love it. And just continue changing the world and, you know, having fun along the way, because it's all about that too.
- [55:12]
Jason Fried
Thank you. I appreciate it. This is a really fun conversation. And yeah, I think I want to leave people with that, which is like. But I think in general, people take business too seriously. And there's something about business being the serious thing because there's money involved and people's careers and stuff. But I think at the core of it, it still has to be a fun thing to do. And I think you'll do better work if it's fun work to do. And it doesn't mean not treating it seriously and taking it seriously, the craft of it, but being so uptight about it, I don't think is very good for you. So I think it is a good idea. Just to make sure that you're. You're enjoying as much as possible what you're doing. And I think you'll build a better business that way. The other thing I would say is a lot of entrepreneurs, especially when they're starting, and I remember this when I did it, when I was starting, too. So here we go with advice for people. But, like, I remember trying to, like, you know, I'm new, I'm one person. Like, how am I going to get these gigs? You know, I'm competing against other people. And you had to kind of like, make up this story. Like, I used to use the word we. It was just me. I was a web designer. I'm like, we. We design things this way, you know, like. And you're like, maybe I just had to do that for myself. I don't know. But there was a sense of, like, trying to act bigger versus just being who I was. And I eventually realized, like, the we didn't. Wasn't necessary, but I felt like it was in the beginning because I had to be like a company in the whole thing. So it takes. It takes time to learn those lessons. Yeah,
- [56:31]
Ilana Golan
well, and cheers to having fun. Jason. I'm all for it. Thank you.
- [56:36]
Jason Fried
All right, thanks for having me on. Appreciate it.
- [56:40]
Ilana Golan
What a conversation. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Like, this was. I got chills. I wonder if you had too. So if you did, let me know. Like, I can't wait to hear from you. Write us@podcastleapacademy.com like, I can't wait to hear from you. And what I want to do is I gonna do the weekly review reading. So we are going to read a review. We're gonna go to Apple podcast. And again, remember, if you loved it, please let us know. Like, I can't tell you how much it means the world to me and I would love to pick your review and read it here out loud. So I am going to read from DS Brown, Connected and inspired. Love, Ilana's energy and the heartfelt connection and the amazing guests. We need more of these conversations and voices to empower and reinforce the mindset that we either have or striving to have. Thank you. Thank you. This means the world. So thank you for the kind words. Thank you for the review. And again, if you love the show, please review it. It actually really, really helps us bring amazing guests and do share it with others. So now we are going to go into YouTube and look for your comments. Remember, every single week, I look at your comments. I choose A question that we had in the comments. And I want to bring it here so that we can all become the best version that we can be. And this is my way to give this to you, because my mission is to empower and help 10 million people reinvent and leap their career and live not just a paycheck, but the life that they want with a paycheck. So let's go. And one of the questions that came from, I think it's Mia, she's asking about how do I know where I want to go next, right? So we heard this conversation and it's not easy to decide where you want to go next and to go there with conviction. And one of the biggest things that I learned, and I called it the square focus. And basically life is in phases, in different phases, different things will be important for you. And what's really, really important is for you to really know yourself. Not what other people want, but what you truly want from your career, from your life. And this is about your must haves. And sometimes what we really need is pay. Whether it's because we need the money, it gives us confidence. I just wanted more than my husband. Like, it actually doesn't matter why you need us, but sometimes all we need is the pay and this is the big focus. Sometimes it's growth. We just need to feel like we're growing, we're learning, we're getting more responsibility, a bigger title, sometimes even fame. And all of it is okay because you can have it all, just not at the same time. But you need to know that growth is your focus right now. Sometimes it's impact. So the impact means that I need to feel like I matter, like I make a difference. Whether it's in a company, whether it's society, is the world, it doesn't matter. But I need to make sure that I matter. I leave a legacy, whatever it is, right? And sometimes it's balance. And balance means that, you know, maybe you're taking a leave for parents or for kids or for hobbies or for whatever it is, but you want to focus on having a lot more balance in your life. Now. No job or career will give you all four. Okay? If you think you have all four, don't ever leave, then you're good. But each one, each career choice will give you two of these. The beautiful thing is that's going to change every year too. So you don't need to think what you want to do for the rest of your life. All you need to think is right now, at the moment, of now, what are the two must haves that I have to have? And basically what are the two that I'm okay with compromising on? Because once you have those must haves, you can start making much more elaborated and intentional and strategic decisions about where your career is going and make sure that it's very aligned with what you truly want, not what society expects from you, not what other people want from you. So I hope this helps. Remember, it's the four elements of focus, the magic square of focus. It's either pay or growth or impact or balance. Choose two of these, make sure that the other two you can compromise and let's go change some lives and create an incredible life of fun and freedom and legacy. See you in the next week. Again. Remember, share it with anybody that you can and if you do want, go to our website. There's free training to really help you grow your own career. Whether it's you want to reinvent yourself, whether you want to fast track to leadership, you want to land a new job, you want to start a business, or you want to create portfolio career. We have some great training for you, so go check it out and I'll see you soon. Remember, this episode is not just for you and me. You never know whose life you are meant to change by sharing this episode with them. And if you love today's episode, please click the subscribe or Download button for the show and give it a five star review. This really means the world. Join me in helping tens of millions of individuals reinvent their career and leap into their full potential. Look, getting intentional and strategic with your career is now more important than ever. The skills for success have changed. Aq, adaptability, reinventing and leaping are today the most important skills for the future of work. Building portfolio careers multiple streams of income and ventures are no longer a nice to have, it's a must have. But no one is teaching this except for us in Leap Academy. So if you want more from your career in Life, go to leapacademy.com check out our completely free training about ways to fast track your career. You'll even be able to book a completely free career strategy call with my team. So go to leapacademy.com training.