> Actually, my cleaning lady, for example, she’s great.
There's something a bit... I don't know quite how to put it. Let's just say that I bet she'd willingly trade places with him, cash out, and go enjoy herself instead of cleaning up after other people day in and day out. (Edit to change the wording just a bit)
> The other interesting thing about restaurants is you could have a dozen Italian restaurants in the city and they can all be successful. It’s not like in the tech world, where everyone wants to beat each other up, and there’s one winner.
That's because the economics of a highly local business are very different from one that can have customers all over the world.
Also: restaurants fail all the time - it's a stressful business to be in, and not generally the sort of relaxed, easy-going picture he makes it sound like. You can bet that most restaurants do not have the option of doing 4 days a week, unless they have big margins the other days, which means they probably have something very special about them.
I admire and respect those guys, but there's something too glib about some of their communications that turns my cynic sense on.
Edit: furthermore... live and let live, no? I'm more interested in a 37 signals style business myself, but let the people in Silicon Valley do their thing even if it doesn't float your boat. It'll all work out. As one example, I think the world is better off with PG running Y Combinator instead of having slogged on with Viaweb.
> There's something a bit... I don't know quite how to put it. Let's just say that I bet she'd willingly trade places with him, cash out, and go enjoy herself instead of cleaning up after other people day in and day out.
See, the typical problem with claims like Fried made is that they're idealizing lives they don't know much about. But Fried didn't walk into that trap.
He doesn't remark on her home life. He doesn't remark on her happiness. He doesn't remark on her hopes and dreams. He says she's "respectful, nice, and awesome". His point is that her business is sustainable, adds value, and does good. He doesn't say, "I wish I was a cleaning lady." All he says is that her business model is a good business model, and he's inspired by it.
"All he says is that her business model is a good business model, and he's inspired by it."
He says:
"She’s been doing it some twenty-odd years, and that’s just an incredible success story. To me that’s far more interesting"
I have absolutely no idea why he feels that someone who has cleaned homes for 20 years is an incredible success story. It's almost as patronizing as it is naive.
What would be at least somewhat interesting is if she figured out a way to get paid 2x the hourly rate and/or get houses cleaned in 1/2 the time. Her station in life is to be happy cleaning homes. So she's a happy person. Great. What I'm not hearing is that he's living in her neighborhood or having her over for dinner etc. I hate this "I'm just a simple person let me go visit an ashram and live in nature" crap.
> I have absolutely no idea why he feels that someone who has cleaned homes for 20 years is an incredible success story. It's almost as patronizing as it is naive.
Project much?
> What would be at least somewhat interesting is if she figured out a way to get paid 2x the hourly rate and/or get houses cleaned in 1/2 the time.
How do you know that she hasn't?
He says that she's happy. He doesn't know much about how it makes happy or how it has developed. You think that you do and you think that she's doing it wrong....
Well then that's a pox on his house for not bringing up that very important point in a discussion related to how much he admires her when discussing business.
"You think that you do and you think that she's doing it wrong...."
My issue isn't at all with the cleaning lady. It's with the specific example of using the cleaning lady to make this point:
"She’s been doing it some twenty-odd years, and that’s just an incredible success story. To me that’s far more interesting than a tech company"
I don't even think he really means that actually. I fail to see what makes that "far more interesting than a tech company".
I don't really think we can get anywhere with speculation: he might see her happy because people are pretty good at putting on a mask in professional situations. Or maybe she just really is happy.
However, in the aggregate, I'd be willing to bet on most cleaning people preferring the income, and freedom that 37 signals have. With that kind of money, you have a lot of options that someone making cleaning wages just doesn't have.
Not speaking about this person (who neither of us know) but strictly about people in general by using an example of cows in a field.
A cow in a field can stand there all day and just graze on grass. Our cat can sit there all day and just do nothing. Could you do that? All day, every day?
People with brains are more complex. In general if she is happy doing cleaning work we can presume she doesn't have the same brain or needs, of, say someone with higher intelligence. People are different in what their needs are.
"he might see her happy because people are pretty good at putting on a mask in professional situations."
> People with brains are more complex. In general if she is happy doing cleaning work we can presume she doesn't have the same brain or needs, of, say someone with higher intelligence. People are different in what their needs are.
Well ok then what are you basing your thoughts on? I'm basing mine on a lifetime of meeting thousands of people from all walks of life and the story as presented by the OP.
I stand behind what I have said.
Would you be happy doing the simple tasks of cleaning houses everyday? Or do you prefer something more challenging like what you are doing (software development it appears). Or at least managing others doing the drudge work?
From the OP it doesn't appear that we are talking about someone making their way to something greater by cleaning houses but somebody who's station in life is cleaning houses.
Regardless of whether she was forced to clean houses because, for example, she was an immigrant or needed to feed a family she could have, with greater intelligence, risen to employ others to do the work for her at the very least. (My cleaning lady, from Brazil, has about 5 people working for her and I've seen examples of this with all sorts of people who start doing a task and rise to employ at least a few people to help out).
> From the OP it doesn't appear that we are talking about someone making their way to something greater by cleaning houses but somebody who's station in life is cleaning houses.
Why do you have this mindless obsession with ranking things in some arbitrary manner and then requiring that people climb your ladder?
If you set your sites low enough you can have a sustainable business. You can mow lawns or you can paint houses. That's being self employed with essentially what amounts to a job. That would be appropriate to talk about in a post about why it's better to do that rather than work for a large company.
Her business model is providing a service: exchanging her time for money.
37signals used to be in that business, but moved towards providing products, rather than services. Presumably because it scales better and makes more money, even though doing design/programming/sites certainly makes good money in a sustainable way.
Unless Google has legions of Oompa Loompas hiding in its server rooms running around retrieving data as queries come in, it's a product that provides a service: it does not scale linearly with the number of people working on it.
Put another way: each additional cleaning lady client consumes more of her time, and pays her more money in a fairly linear way. Google search users do not fit that pattern, and, more importantly, neither do Adwords customers.
It's pretty obvious that by "service" he means a business where you are paid per hour you work: all freelancers, consultants, and all other businesses where the owner is a critical daily employee.
Yes, that's not a typical word for the distinction, but you know what he means.
Do you understand what I am trying to communicate, or not?
It does not seem like a difficult concept, so cut out the "Comic Book Guy" routine. Go ahead and actually correct my terminology if you care to - furthering everyone's knowledge is always a plus - but otherwise you are not adding anything.
As far as I can tell, you were trying to use made-up words to say that Jason Fried was lying when he said he was inspired by his cleaning lady's business model because there was some particular difference between those two business models that you found significant but could not express except to vapidly define "services" as "that which cleaning ladies do" and "products" as "that which 37s is moving towards".
So I don't think they're made up at all, seeing as how they're in common use. It's probably true that there is not a black or white line between the two, and both can be good businesses, but I did think it fair to point out that cleaning is very much a "service" whereas 37 signals started out doing services (sites and so on) and moved towards products, which tend to scale up more.
> There's something a bit... I don't know quite how to put it. Let's just say that I bet she'd willingly trade places with him, cash out, and go enjoy herself instead of cleaning up other people's crap day in and day out.
My mother isn't a cleaner (she's a nurse) but I talked with her before about whether or not if she had the chance she would quit her job and sit on the beach all day doing whatever she wanted and she said that no, she would never be able to stop working because it has been a part of her entire life and if she was going to quit her job and do anything she would open a book shop (I think it was a book shop).
I think for a lot of people work is a part of who they are and it's not as simple as just taking money and spending life on a beach, I'm sure the cleaner would love financial freedom but I would suspect she would keep working. For a lot of people they don't have things they enjoy that have some sort of output (for most of HN that's programming, or design) so working is all they have to feel like they have value in the world.
Maybe his cleaner has financial freedom already (saving, inheritance etc) and chooses to work.
I can't stand going to the beach myself, and if I were wealthy, would see myself continuing to work on things. I'd probably have more 'projects' though, things where there might not be any way of making money off it. And I sure as hell would be spending a lot more time riding my bicycle instead of getting fat sitting at a desk.
To each his own, but would someone really want to keep cleaning professionally even if they were wealthy? I could easily seeing less-than-profitable but creative hobbies being way more interesting for hypothetical cleaners who were wealthy and wanted to stay busy.
The reality though, is that unless the cleaning lady is good at hiring and managing other cleaners, she's never going to get the chance to cash out, or sell the company or any of the other avenues the 37 signals guys have.
> To each his own, but would someone really want to keep cleaning professionally even if they were wealthy? I could easily seeing less-than-profitable but creative hobbies being way more interesting for hypothetical cleaners who were wealthy and wanted to stay busy.
I felt the same way until I actually met a wealthy cleaner. All I can say is never underestimate the power of habit and the difficulty of breaking routines.
I used to intern at a small investment manager years ago where one of the clients was a cleaning lady. Every couple weeks she would come into the office to deposit a portion of her modest housecleaning income into her investment account. I didn't think much of it until I found out she was actually a multi-millionaire. This cleaner had been investing with the investment manager for years and (at ~20% annual returns) her small contributions compounded into millions of dollars. It was pretty mind blowing. Why didn't she just retire!? She just loved her job and the routine...
Anyway, the best part is she refers her high net worth customers all the time to the fund and they all sheepishly try to explain how they heard about the fund from their cleaning lady. Little did they know that their house cleaner was actually richer than them.
I'd put money on most cleaners not having hobbies =) (Sorry couldn't help myself...I come from a family of very blue collar folks and it's a running joke that your hobby is sleep)
My main point is it's hard to break years of routine/habit. If someone has done the same thing for 20 years, I don't expect them to suddenly change. Even when change would bring greater happiness over the long-term, I'm not betting against the comfort of status quo.
You are probably on to something with the lack of "retirement" (US, business and academia). Also, the change may lead to less happiness, from breaking such a long-term "routine" (I would say "life").
It seems like with enough time we become institutionalized to a certain way of life and will reshape our happiness to fit perfectly to that world.
Oddly, first time I saw the world this way was after watching Shawshank Redemption as a kid and seeing Brooks killing himself after he was freed. From that point on, a lot of the seemingly irrational decisions people make made a lot more sense to me.
"There's something a bit... I don't know quite how to put it."
Let me help you. But first I have to get my shovel. Because that's the typical shit that is heaved by the "haves" on the "have not's" try and make them seem humble and not anything special. Take Oprah. She just loves to talk about how this and that are so expensive as if she's just an ordinary person like the rest of us. He laid it on a little to thick with the cleaning lady spiel.
Particularly this part about the cleaning lady:
"she’s just respectful and nice and awesome. Why can’t more people be like that? "
Well for one thing he could start and figure out why in particular DHH is such a, well, asshole:
From wikipedia:
"Hansson is an outspoken character known for the crude and brutal way he expresses his opinions, both online and in real life. Hansson and his company have been accused of arrogance,[7][8][9], which he does not deny"
And of course I can't believe the example of why restaurants last 30 years (the ones that do that is) and tech companies don't last or whatever the point he was making.
Why not just compare cars which change every year vs. a burberry coat which is essentially the same?
Calling people names is not really ok with the spirit or guidelines of Hacker News: if that's not something you'd say to DHH (who often pops in to comment here) in person, you shouldn't be writing it.
Ok, I agree with that because I haven't had any personal interactions with DHH and only know from what I have read about him or in his comments. So it was inappropriate. But I still feel the point I am making is valid as far as Jason's thoughts juxtaposed against DHH's apparent behavior. The truth is DHH appears to be a prima donna.
It is interesting how DHH thought seems to get a pass on his behavior on HN in a "boys will be boys" kind of way because what he has accomplished.
There's something a bit... I don't know quite how to put it. Let's just say that I bet she'd willingly trade places with him, cash out, and go enjoy herself instead of cleaning up after other people day in and day out. (Edit to change the wording just a bit)
> The other interesting thing about restaurants is you could have a dozen Italian restaurants in the city and they can all be successful. It’s not like in the tech world, where everyone wants to beat each other up, and there’s one winner.
That's because the economics of a highly local business are very different from one that can have customers all over the world.
Also: restaurants fail all the time - it's a stressful business to be in, and not generally the sort of relaxed, easy-going picture he makes it sound like. You can bet that most restaurants do not have the option of doing 4 days a week, unless they have big margins the other days, which means they probably have something very special about them.
I admire and respect those guys, but there's something too glib about some of their communications that turns my cynic sense on.
Edit: furthermore... live and let live, no? I'm more interested in a 37 signals style business myself, but let the people in Silicon Valley do their thing even if it doesn't float your boat. It'll all work out. As one example, I think the world is better off with PG running Y Combinator instead of having slogged on with Viaweb.