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Comment by Acne_Researcher | Hacker News Reader

This guy could have built the next Salesforce / google. but he eschewed hiring a sales team. He didn't want that, but still. Failing to achieve your true potential is not something to be bragging about all over the web.

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I suppose he doesn't really have to prove anything to anyone. Not everyone wants to run a 10,000 or 50,000 employee company. Not everyone would be happy with the stress or bureaucracy involved.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but your attitude is exactly the kind of thing he's talking about in the linked interview. Mega growth and mega profits are one measure of success. A life with low stress and plenty of time for your family (and by the way, making all that possible for your employees, too) is another one.

I agree with what you. His style of running a business as likely maximized his personal happiness, and possibly his employees.

But I would have liked to see him say "we could have been far more profitable, but we didn't care about that, so we limited hours and didn't hire salespeople." Instead what I hear him saying is "we are the best business we could be, because we limit hours."

>> His style of running a business as likely maximized his personal happiness, and possibly his employees.

Rather than the main focus being happiness, I think the main focus is:

Are you building something great?

And he believes maximizing happiness and job satisfaction is a core component of achieving something great.

You have it reversed. Building something great is a component of happiness.

Is someone's "true potential" only reached when they chew up employees during 80 hour weeks? When they have a sales team that will do whatever it takes to land the sale including stretching the truth?

Is 'true potential' only evaluated based on attainment of maximum dollars per day of business? I don't see how he has failed anything but living up to your idea of achievement which, frankly, seems a lot more shallow then his.

Well it's pretty clear what he means, if you ask me: someone's true potential is only reached when a guy named Acne_Researcher says it is.

I felt that with their ideas, talent, and overall ability, they could have been a company useful to society as Google. Instead, they have focused on their niche and done very well. It was their choice to stay small and avoid greatness, and I don't criticize them for it, but I think that bragging about it all over the place is a little tasteless.

Maybe he's trying to paint a picture where everyone doesn't need to aspire to be the next Google. Different strokes.

You have feelings. That's great! Welcome to humanity.

Do you have logic? Data? A Delphic oracle? Perspectives into a parallel universe where they hired a sales team? Something more substantial than feelings?

Be nice, Michael.

37signals once built software I loved. Salesforce builds software I loath. 37signals could have been great -- a Salesforce with wonderful software -- but the CEO is happier to pat himself on the back and brag about laziness. That's my logic. Do you feel that I am incorrect?

> Do you feel that I am incorrect?

Yup. That's exactly how I feel. I don't know why you're bragging about your incorrectness all over the internet, though.

I can't tell for sure, but it seems like you all know each other outside of HN, and perhaps have a relationship that is unknown to the rest of us. I think it is better for you to keep these things to yourselves, and not involve this community.

No, this was not the case. My name is in my profile. He is, however, the first person who made the mistake of thinking it would help his cause to use it.

The company brings in several millions dollars a year [1]. They have one of the nicest offices in Chicago [2]. One of the partners had a super car commissioned a few years ago which on a technical level is more sophisticated than the machinery available to your average military [3]. So how aren't they "living up to their true potential"?

[1] From the article.

[2] http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2593-official-pictures-of-our...

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagani_Zonda#HH

Their true potential was to be a 50 billion dollar public company, in my opinion. I could be wrong. There are more important things in life than money, of course. But I felt they chose to leave too many chips on the table.

What are you exactly using to determine that in the city of Chicago "they have one of the nicest offices"? Impossible to say that from the pictures.

As far as the car goes, very little info on that and additionally you are drawing a conclusion as far as DHH's money which could have come from other sources as well as 37signals.

He built up his hill of customers and you're slagging him because he didn't strip-mine the local quarry to build it into a skyscraper/mountain?

I'd say it's equally likely that 37Signals could have failed utterly in rapid expansion as they could have succeeded if they made their moon-shot.

Good point. But I don't think hiring a sales team could have lead to a failed moon-shot attempt.

You could have built the next Salesforce, but unfortunately you wasted your time complaining on the internet about how extraordinarily succesful people have not 'lived up to their full potential'.

Everyone has infinite potential.

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