David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH)

And you're an idiot because you're looking at this problem the wrong way.

And let me tell you the right way to do it.

That's exactly what I like to think of it as.

It doesn't always come across as that.

And I can see why spectators in particular sometimes would see something that looks like I'm going after the man rather than the ball.

And I do think I've tried to get better at that.

But in my relationship with Jason, I think it's worked so well because we have our own distinct areas of competence where we fully trust each other.

Jason trusts me to make the correct technical decisions.

I trust him to make the correct design and product direction decisions.

And then we can overlap and share on the business, on marketing, on writing, on other aspects of it.

So that's one thing, is that if you're starting a business with someone where you do exactly the same as they do, and you're constantly contesting who's the more competent person, I think that's far more difficult and far more volatile.

So if you're starting a business and you're both programmers and you both work on the same kind of programming,

Ah, good luck.

I think that's hard.

I tried to pick an easier path working with a designer where I knew that at least half of the time I could just delegate to his experience and competence and say, like, you know what?

I may have an opinion.

I have an opinion all the time on design, but I don't have to win the argument because I trust you.

Now, occasionally we would have overlaps on business or direction where we'd both feel like we had a strong stake in the game and we both had a claim to competence in that area.

But then for whatever reason, we also both had a long-term vision where I would go, do you know what?

I think we're wrong here.