What would you ask Jason Fried of 37signals?

What I think of ReWork?

Here are some comments taken from HN (following this review by Management Today):

1)

I'm currently reading the book, and he amusingly left out the stats supporting their conclusions or the rest of the sentence which tempers the strong advice. This is obviously intentional.

They say "Don't make plans" and end the sentence with "Before you start, you don't know anything then".

They say "learn from successes, not failures" and back it up with stats about how people who failed at a prior business endeavor are no more likely than first time starters (23% of succeeding), but people who've succeeded at prior business have a much greater chance (forgot that number).

Uneven smear job a stuckup business writer.

2)

I think approaching your work from the standpoint of "Learn from success, not failure" is a sure path to succumbing to confirmation bias and becoming a one-trick pony.

The 37s guys have done some wonderful work. But to me they are pretty much the embodiment of what I think of when I remember Paul Buchheit's great quote:

"Limited Life Experience + Overgeneralization = Advice"

3)

The authors' advice is so sweeping and deliberately confrontational that it misses all the subtleties that actually make businesses succeed.

Having read a couple of Signal vs Noise's articles, those comments don't really come as a surprise.

In short, I doubt ReWork will be as successful as Getting Real.

Not meaning to be too confrontational but I think I would stir it up a bit with:

• Is there any advice you gave in Getting Real that is no longer relevant in light of ReWork?

• Is there any of the advice in the book backed by scientific research?

In the section, "Let your customers outgrow you" you recommend declining complex requests and let customers outgrow your applications. Do you feel you were upfront about that philosophy early on or were some users under the impression you would grow with them/implement their new requirements?

No questions - just observations

Caveat: I don't mean to bash these guys - they are smart and are trying to help improve other developers' and founders' lives. I applaud that.

I read the link to the free pdf section for rework.

It was nothing new - nothing that smart people have been saying for a while.

RE: meetings - if you don't have competent people running or keeping the meetings on task then you are doing it wrong.

Also note - these people run a tiny company that does SIMPLE web apps. Apps that can basically be written in a weekend or a week. You can't run larger companies without meetings.

This is all nice advice - for people who actually can make policy. I think Joel already wrote a while ago about how to be effective if you are just a lowly peon. This part of the book is useless except as an idealistic concept of how to do things for most people.

"If you think a competitor sucks - say so"

That's a good way to look unprofessional and also a good way to be the target of mudslinging and lawsuits. What a crock of crap. Some of us aren't in this as a show business. We want to be professional. That is pretty bad advice unless you are donald trump or jason calacanis.

His examples though are much more subdued than the first line in that section would indicate the stance to be.

I would still caution against it, otherwise you could end up looking foolish and hypocritical like Apple does now - turning into the "big brother" it mocked and railed against in the famous 1984 commercial.

Interesting reading, but I don't think I can really agree with it all - especially since he seems to lead each section with a controversial first sentence or heading, then explains what he means (which is far, far tamer than the leading sentence), then at the end backpedals and lightens the claims. It is showmanship writing if you ask me, and nothing we haven't heard before..

EDIT:

Perhaps my discomfort with all the advice they give is summed up from "get real"

"If you are building a weapons system, a nuclear control plant, a banking system for millions of customers, or some other life/finance-critical system, you're going to balk at some of our laissez-faire attitude. Go ahead and take additional precautions."

Most of my work has been in real-time financial data delivery and also some navy/defense work. At least they acknowledge the limitations of their advice.

I don't mean to take anything away from them - by all accounts they are productive and successful. They've done a good job. I just don't think their story applies to my current ventures.