David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH)

We talked briefly about sometimes I get fired up.

I mean, a lot of times, maybe even most of the times I get fired up about topics.

But I don't get fired up in the same way now as I used to when I was 24.

I'm still extremely passionate about ideas and trying to find the right things.

But having a family, meeting my wife, building a life around that has just mellowed everything out in a completely cliche way.

But I think it's actually key.

I think if we could get more people

even younger people not to wait until they were in their late goddamn 30s or early 40s to hitch up with someone, we'd be better off and we'd have more stable business relationships as well because folks would get that nurturing human relation somewhere else.

Now, when I say all of that, I also accept that there are plenty of great businesses that's been built over the years that have not been built remote, that have been built by people

a gang of hooligans sitting in an office for immense hours of time.

I mean, both John Carmack and Tim Sweeney talked about that in the 90s with their careers, that that was just basically work, sleep, hang out with the guys at the office, right?

Totally fair.

That never appealed to me.

Both Jason and I saw eye to eye on the idea that 40 hours a week dedicated to work was enough.

That if we were going to go to distance for not just the five to seven years it takes to build a VC case up to an exit, but for potentially 10 years, 20 years or further, we needed to become whole humans.

Because only that whole humanness was going to go to distance, which included building up friendships outside of work, having hobbies.

Finding a mate and having a family.

And that entire existence, those legs of the stool, that work is not the only thing in life, is completely related to the fact that we've been around for 25 years.

There's way too much, especially in America, of false trade-offs.

Oh, you want to build a successful business?