YouSaid · the spoken record

Jason Fried

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2018-07-23

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2018-07-23

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1. “And you can tell that they're not listening anymore. They're just telling you what they want you to listen to instead of listening to what you have to say. That's very obvious in design reviews when that comes up. It's very clear. So it's that. But I just fundamentally, I'm looking for a deep degree of introspection in the work and understanding of how they ended up there. It's kind of like if you think about back in school where your teacher would ask you to show the work when you did a math problem, what they're basically looking for is they're looking to see if you understand how you came out with the answer versus like, did you somehow memorize this or guess? It's like, or was it lucky? Or did you actually understand how you arrived there? It's kind of the same thing. I want people to show their work basically. And that doesn't mean showing all the drafts of the design work necessarily. It's not like going through previous versions. It's again coming down to explaining.”

   2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

2. “But sometimes the red flags are very clear. People hunch down into a defensive posture and fight for their idea, which is fine. It's good to do that sometimes, but not when it's like help me understand why you went this direction. It's like, oh, I went this direction because I felt like it was the best possible thing. There's some sort of, when people get rushed about things. I actually like when someone takes a pause and goes, hmm, let me think about that. Well, here's what I went through to get to here. Like the reason I use the word save was because, you know, this reason or that reason or the reason I called it a draft and not a preview is because of this and that. I'm more interested in people retracing their steps than just sort of purely explaining the outcome. That's not really that's kind of a deeper thing, but you'll see people in design reviews who get very defensive very quickly.”

   2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

3. “I get it. Yeah, right. The 55 thing too. No, it's more, you know, I'm not sure that I see why you went down this road. Or doesn't this seem like a lot of steps or this word save? Maybe it should be preview. Why is it saved? It usually pushbacks with questions. I don't understand this or help me understand this. That's kind of the real one I like to use. I'm not sure I get this. Can you help me understand this?”

   2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

4. “Sure. I can't really, it's hard to describe that particular project because we'd all have to be looking at it to point out that.”

   2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

5. “Interested because everything we try to do at Basecamp is about real stuff. So, like, this is actually a real project that we would take on. It's not. And I loved that because that shows, first of all, a real sense of confidence in talking to an employer and going, I don't even know if I liked what I did here. Like that's most people are like, this is the best thing in the world. This isn't the best idea ever. Like, this is, but she's like, you know, I think I like it, but I'm not totally sure. And I like that when we dug into that and then we got into like why she didn't think it was great. And that was just a very real conversation. I felt like I could work with someone like this. Absolutely because they don't think that everything they do is going to be great and they're self-aware enough to recognize that and we can talk it through and figure it out. And that was a great thing. There could have been, for example, in this case there weren't, but there could have been five designers who were better than her visually anyway. I still would have gone with her because of her sort of her approach to the work and her honesty about it. That's what I'm looking for when I talk to somebody who I'm about to hire.”

   2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

6. “And the thought behind the ideas that are presented. That's what I'm most curious about. It's not necessarily whether or not the work is great because you're already a finalist, so I already know that you're capable of designing things well. What I want to make sure I understand is where the ideas are coming from, how they're filtering through your head, how they're filtering through your fingers into the design itself and why you did what you did. And can you defend it? One of the things is even when I should say, even when I agree with the solution, I'm always going to push back on it in these kind of situations because I want to see how people take criticism as well. That's a big part of this, which is like constructive criticism and critique. I want to see that. One of the things we don't do and we don't believe in it at all are like these riddles and this bullshit tests crap.”

   2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

7. “We don't really look that much at usage data to really determine what we're going to do. So a lot of this is about gut and feel and what would you do? What's wrong with the screen, in your opinion? I'm really interested in people's opinions. I want people to have a point of view when I hire them. I don't want people to say, well, I need this data and that data to make decisions. I go, yeah, yeah, I get all that. But what would you do? I want to know what you, I'm hiring you. What would you do? So anyway, so they do the work and then they present it and I say present it any way you want. So there are no guidelines. I just say present it any way you want. But I guess the one guideline is like I want to understand why you did what you did. So some people present this work as like an elaborate website with a bunch of different screens. Some people present it as a PDF, a static PDF. Some people write something up and sort of tell a linear story with screenshots interspersed. There's a variety of different ways people do it. But ultimately I'm looking at the explanation of the work and the and the”

   2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

8. “Have a lot of time, so I'm not expecting perfection. This is part of the reason why I look at the writing and the explanation of the work because I recognize that, you know, who knows, maybe you have a full-time job, maybe you have kids at home, maybe you don't, whatever it is, whatever it is, maybe you only have an hour a day to do this on the side and you're already tired. I get all of that. So I'm more interested in how you approach the project and how you describe what you did and why you did it. So anyway, they would do, for example, we take a screen from Basecamp and say, so to get really specific about this like here's the way you add people to a basecamp project. What would you do to make this better? Now you have no data. You're not talking to anybody about it. I just want to know what you would do. Like what would you do? Because a lot of the work at Basecamp is all based on what would you do? We don't do a lot of user testing. We don't do, we do use customer interviews and stuff, but we don't get into a testing lab. We don't watch people use our product. We don't do any of that.”

   2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

9. “And so you'll see a lot of that, or you'll see people share screenshots with you of things, and you're like, you know, I just don't know the process that went into that. So it's hard for me to judge it. It's not that I don't think the works good or bad. It's none of that. It's like I just don't know what I'm evaluating here. So the idea is that once we get down to the five finalists after looking at work and looking at writing and the whole thing, we figure these five people could be a great fit for this particular position. We give them all the same assignment. And the assignment Sometimes there's actually sometimes there is a choice like two or three different assignments, but for the most part, historically, it's been one. Lately, we've been doing a few, but it's been one where everybody who's applying for this job does the same project. Everyone gets a week to do it. They have to figure out how to fit that in with the rest of their, most people have jobs already, so they maybe have to work at night or whatever they do it. And we're, you know, I'm well aware of the fact that they don't.”

   2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

10. “Yeah, and first of all, the reason why we do that is because you basically can't trust anyone's design work in the past. And the reason why is because a lot of people work with other people. And you don't really know what they did. Like we'll get resumes like, I did Nike.com. It's like, no, you didn't.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

11. “Convince people and persuade people based on a missing bit of, it's not magic, but I'll call it that in the writing where you read something, this is great.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

12. “And their line of thinking and how they came up with the solutions. And that helps me when I read that, helps me understand what would be like to work with that person for real. Are they able to explain why they did what they did? Are they glossing over little details that actually matter? Like what is it? How do they see their work and how do they write about it? It's a very important part of the job here at Basecamp. So yeah, so writing's important in every position. It doesn't matter what position you're in. You still have to be a great writer. We typically start by looking at the cover letter, the actual work assignments to get hired here typically involve writing, no matter what the position. And I just think it's always proven in our case to be a really good indicator of someone's success here. Whenever we've been, we hire someone, we're like, I don't know, the writing wasn't quite right. It almost always pans out that it turns out that they're not the right fit for the company, even if their work was great, but they're just unable to really.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

13. “The rest of the company with their team, and most of it's done via the written word. And we also, for example, the first, by the way, the first If someone's going to explain themselves, if someone can advocate for themselves and advocate for their ideas and their position and who they are and why they should work here, if they're clear-minded, if they're friendly, all that stuff comes through in writing. I think if you pay enough attention to the words, you can see a lot of that. And also, for example, when I hired designers, I look at their design, but I look at their writing almost a little bit more. Whenever we hire a designer, When we get down to the last five candidates that we really think could be finalists, we hire them to do a project for us, $1,500 for a week, and they do a project for us so we can kind of see their actual work. But even more importantly is we ask them to write up why they did what they did. Because there's a lot of great designers out there, but people have to advocate for themselves. And so I want to see why they did what they did. I want to hear, well, not here, but read their point of view.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

14. “Yeah, it's definitely the case. It's sort of been the case forever for us. It's the case because, first of all, most communication is written these days. And first of all, let me step back. Like we're remote companies, so especially most communication is written. If you're going to have, if you're in a local company and you're having meetings all the time, sometimes verbal is enough. But in most cases, people are writing more and more and more than they ever have before. One of the most costly and inefficient things is having to repeat yourself or answer questions about something that should have been clear in the first place. Really quickly, if you can't communicate clearly, you're communicating probably three or four times more frequently than you need to. And that can be really inefficient and really frustrating, extremely frustrating. So we've always looked at writing as clear writing as a prerequisite for every position we have at the company because everybody's supposed to communicate with themselves.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

15. “People, and I've written about this, people, oh, he's Warren Buffett. The thing is that, yeah, he is Warren Buffett, but you are you and your time is yours, just like his is his, and his attention is his and yours is yours. And who cares how wealthy he is? What does that have to do with any of this? Who cares what position he's in? I understand that like, yeah, he is in a position where he can maybe say no more frequently than others, but so can a lot of people. I don't think people give themselves enough credit and give no enough credit and defend their own attention and time as much as they should. People will protect money. They'll protect all sorts of things, but they won't protect their attention and their time. And I think more people should get better at that. So I've been practicing getting better at that. And it was sort of inspired in part by hearing about if it's true or not. I don't know, but hearing about how Buffett does that.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

16. “If not, no big deal. Maybe another time. Maybe there's some other thing we have coming up that's sooner. I said, yeah, of course, let me know if something's sooner. That'd be great. So kind of do it that way. And by the way, I was sort of inspired by, and I don't know if this is true. I read somewhere that Warren Buffett kind of does this with meetings. I don't know if, again, I don't know if this is true. I read it, which is that if you want to meet with him, you basically have to write his assistant or whatever the day before. So if you write, I'm sure there's exceptions to this rule, but in most cases, if you want to meet with him, you can't say, hey, I'd like to meet with, you know, I'm going to be in Omaha in March, March 22nd. Can I meet up with Mr. Buffett or something? And the answer would be when you get in on the 21st, email me then. And if he has any openings the next day, then he'd be happy to meet with you. And now, of course, he's Warren.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

17. “And so I'm always appreciate it. I always make sure to lead with that. But then I just, I'm honest about it, which is I can't put anything on my counter advance. I can't book things that far in advance. Also, another thing, like, for example, I've been asked a lot recently to speak internationally. And I'll just tell people, which is true, I just don't like to travel internationally for business. If I want to go somewhere, I'd like to go somewhere because for personal reasons, but I don't like to travel internationally for business. So I'll just say like, I'm just not traveling internationally for business right now. It's not something I'm really doing. So I appreciate the invitation again. If you ever have an event in the United States, let me know that kind of stuff. Because I think if you just make up stories, it's just why. Why not just be honest and clear about it? And people are very understanding, actually. They go, I totally get that. Hey, if we have an opening, I'll let you know.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

18. “Well, I mean, sometimes I will say yes, but most of the time I'll say thanks for writing. I appreciate the invitation. I can't book anything that far in advance right now. I have a hard time filling my calendar six months ahead of time or something like that. I'll pick, let me think about the language. Basically, I would say I can't book anything that far in advance. Sometimes it's because I'll be specific. Like my wife is pregnant and I, you know, like that's too close. So I can't do that. But there's other times where I'm just like, I just can't book that far in advance. If there's an opening closer and you need someone, like let me know then, I'd be happy to do it or perhaps another time, but six months from now is just too far out for me to book things is kind of what I'll say. And, you know, I always try to, first of all, it's an honor to be invited to anything. The fact that anyone wants to hear me talk is still surprises me.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

19. “Moment when I get there that I might be more interested in doing. So this comes back to the goal setting perhaps. Maybe it's all the same thing, which is that I don't know how I'm going to feel six months from now on Friday night at four o'clock, speaking, you know, where I'm scheduled to speak in an event. Maybe I'd rather not be doing that six months from now. The only way I'm going to know that is to basically wait until that moment and decide whether or not I want to do that. But of course, I can't cancel on people if I booked events. I've just found in my life that the things I put on my calendar, because it's so easy to put something far in advance on your calendar because it costs nothing in a sense. It doesn't take any of your time now. It doesn't take any of your time next week. It's like, you know, four months from now, sure, I'll do that. And then it comes up on that. I'm like, I wish I wouldn't have said yes to that. Not because of the thing itself, but because of the feeling of being now obligated to do something they may not.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

20. “Can to avoid hassles. I don't like hassles, and to me, a hassle is like something I don't want to do in the future. It's almost never something I have to do now. It's something I have to do in the future. And so something I've been getting better and better at is basically just being honest with people who ask me to do things far, far in advance and say, I can't make commitments that far in advance. I know that you need a commitment that far in advance. So you're planning an event or I totally understand that. I find that I tend to, this is a strong word and it's not fair to what other people are doing so it's going to come off strange, but I don't think of it in terms of that what they're about to do isn't worth it. But I tend to regret things that I say yes to far in advance because not because of the thing itself, but because it actually prevents me from having opportunities to explore other things in the”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

21. “So, something I think I mentioned, I wrote this up in your book actually as a response is sort of, first of all, getting better at saying no is a critical thing to begin with and being honest about the things you really want to do and things you really don't want to do and not sort of just doing things because you feel obligated because it'll make someone else feel good. Like who knows how someone else is actually going to feel? It's sort of presumptuous to suggest that I should do something because it'll make someone else happy. It's actually kind of hard to know what makes people happy. And so I try not to go down that road because I think you can find yourself in a difficult spot and it's really hard to do. So I've just tried to get better at saying no and really recognizing the things I like to do and I don't like to do. I've kind of described my life as a weird description of my life with partial description of my life is like I just try to do everything.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

22. “Sense. But one reaction I have had is motivation. That's the thing that I've always had when someone says I can't do something or I'm not this enough or I'm not that enough. It's motivation to prove that wrong. And I don't know if the dark and dirty side of it is like, is it actually revenge or is it motivation? And I'm not sure that I necessarily know what that is. Maybe I think it's motivation, but maybe it's more revenge, which is a pretty crappy emotion or whatever that would be called. But I never do it trying to hurt somebody. So maybe it is motivation, not revenge, but I'm not totally sure to be honest. But I don't know where it came from. But I just never remember ever being angry about something that someone said about me or how they've judged me or whatever. I just never really cared.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

23. “I don't know where it came from. I don't know where that came from, but I've just never remembered ever feeling offended by anyone's sort of slight at me for whatever reason. And like, look, I'm 5'7", so I'm relatively short guy. Like there's been those kinds of things that you have. Like there's all sorts of stuff that you get, you know, and I know a lot of people have it way fucking worse than I do. So I totally get all of that. I'm just using like, look, all the only examples I have are my own, right? And so, but I've been in those situations where I could see someone flipping over it and be like, what the fuck? That's a horrible thing to say. And how could you ever say it to somebody? And I've just never felt that way. I thought like, okay, that's where you come from. Fine. That's fine. I don't really even have the energy or the care to try and set you right or whatever. It's not my job. I don't really want to do it. It is what it is. It kind of just bounces off me in a”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

24. “Obviously, I come from a position of privilege to say this whole thing, but I don't let people offend me. And I have been in situations where, like, for example, I mentioned earlier, I'm Jewish. I remember in college, some people called me a kike, which is a fucking horrible slur. And I've had people like, I've walked by a penny and they're like, oh, you should pick that up. I've had some of that shit, right? And it's like, it doesn't matter. I don't care. To me, that kind of stuff just has never upset me because it's like, that's just a reflection on the other person's ignorance or point of view. I've never let that kind of stuff get to me. And I think that.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

25. “That it just made me laugh and be like, I'm just going to prove you wrong. It was that kind of energy. That was the fire. Like I've always, in those cases, I've always responded to those sorts of moments as motivation to prove somebody wrong or to like prove myself right maybe. And maybe that's sort of a bit of the flaw. I still have to work out or one of those two. But I just wanted to say, okay, well, fuck you. I'm going to show you that I can do this. And I don't even know, I shouldn't even care, right? Like now I realize this is my reaction to someone. Like who cares about this guy? Who cares what he thinks about my work? It's also tied to the fact that I just. I know, you know, look.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

26. “In your face, like you suck. Basically, don't do this, that it, because it was so, it was almost a caricature of a rejection. Like to actually be like, you suck, don't do this. Like no one would ever say that, but he did.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

27. “I need this weekend. Like, I still don't have it. And then I would get all my stuff back. And so, you know, that's kind of what I've been doing ever since is building stuff that works for me.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

28. “Matters is, and I make something that I like, can we put it out there to support our costs and make more money than we spend? And if that means we have 1% market share or 0.1% market share, fine with me. I don't care. If it means we have 50% market share fine with me, I don't care. None of that matters. What matters is can I build something I like and can it be sustainable and can it fund our continued development and endeavors? And that's all start with the music thing because I made it for myself. I was loaning out my CDs and tapes to friends and never getting them back. And I forgot who I loaned them to. And so I'm like, well, maybe if I organize this, I could like have an inventory of all the stuff I have, you know, bootlegs and CDs and the whole thing. And whenever I loan out to someone, I'll just like note the date and who it was. And then I'll build a system that will send me a reminder about that 30 days later. And I can go, hey, hey, Bill, remember that CD that I let you have? I said.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

29. “You kind of make it once and put it out there versus, although, of course, you're making it every day, you're changing it and tweaking it, but it's still the same spirit. So that was the big change for me, I think. And then I realized that the deeper realization though, again, is that I can make this for myself. I can satisfy myself and that then the next step is to find other people like you versus trying to dominate an industry. And I think this is a fundamental thing that we have today at Basecamp, which is I have no interest. DH and I talk about this. We have no interest in dominating anyone or anything. We don't land. I'm not out for land grab. I don't know what our market share is. I could care less. It doesn't matter to me. None of this stuff. I'm not looking to put any competitors out of business. I'm not looking to be number one. None of that stuff matters.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

30. “I could put a lot of effort into it and put it out there and let it speak for itself. And if people liked it, they'd be happy to pay for it and that people are happy to pay for things and that like I don't have to go out and sell each one. I could put it up and people could buy it from all over the world when they find it on their own. That was, I think, the distinctly different thing for me at that moment versus everything else I'd done in the past was sort of one-off sales, including like, you know, eventually I was doing some like logo design and website design, which came a little bit later after actually, I'm not sure what the timeline was, but even that, you have to find a client every time and you got to find someone new every time and the whole thing. And software was different. And that's probably, and that's what I do today is I make software, we put it out there and technically, you know, you're making money while you're sleeping because it's running and people pay you on a monthly basis.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

31. “Well, first of all, I never thought about making a living, really, but I thought about what was different about the software getting 20 bucks in the mail for software that I made was that it was the first time I realized, actually, let me step back. I've been selling stuff before, right? We talked about that, like throwing stars to that shit. But I had to do work for that. Like I had to work, I had to make a sale each time. I had to get inventory each time. I would sell inventory. I have to get more inventory. I have to go out and convince my friends to buy more shit, right? What was different about the software thing was that I could make this thing once. I could put it out there into the world. And a lot of people could pay me for it. And I could, in a sense, make money while I was sleeping. I didn't think about it necessarily that way. I do like I can look back on it now and say that's what I felt. I didn't feel it that way, but what I did realize was that I could make something that I wanted.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

32. “Like big deal. Was that the first time That Like, holy shit. Could do this, or I Or I'm successful. Do you remember of these many entrepreneurial And ventures that you've been With there a particular incident that stands out like, wow, holy shit, this is something that I could actually make a living doing. I could do this.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

33. “So, you mentioned organizing your music collection. That we could dig into that. I remember reading a story about it People could send you in $20 To get audio file, right? You upload to AOL. So I read the story of getting this, you were getting this envelope from Germany or some other country, the airmail envelope that I'm sure some people have seen with the red and blue around the edges. Lo and behold, right, order”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

34. “Yeah So, anyway, all those things, like at some point, my parents kind of said boarding school or, you know, stop or this, and I stopped. And back then, as high school kids do, you drink a bit and this, like, I got that all out of my system also. Like, all that stuff I kind of got out of my system. And that's kind of one of the reasons I didn't really like college, because in college, everyone was experimenting with stuff for the first time, in a sense. I feel like I'd already been through all that. And so the social experience in college was actually really boring for me and almost felt childish actually because I felt like I'd been through it when I was a child. And now I see everyone else doing that. And so I didn't really enjoy college at all for that reason. And I just sort of kind of muddled through and got it done.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

35. “Yeah, basically, and they just had enough of me, and they knew I had enough of them and the whole thing. And they let me like go through and do. Get my bar mitzvah, and they like let me do that, but they're like, just don't come to school anymore, okay? So that was kind of fun.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

36. “I always found this There is no record. That's the thing. But I didn't know it at the time until my dad's like, so my dad's like, you know, this isn't going to go on your record. And that actually made me do more bad shit. And eventually I got kicked out of Hebrew school for doing some other stuff, which I really don't go into. Gross.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

37. “And so my dad's like, you know, you shouldn't do this, but I just want you to know, like, none of this goes on your record. You know the record? I don't know if you ever threatened.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

38. “And because, like, I was just pushing them because I knew you couldn't prove it. And I was just being, and so that was just like a being difficult. Anyway.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

39. “Religious, my parents weren't really either, but they sort of something that everyone in the neighborhood did, and I kind of did. And I was out of respect for my grandparents who were more religious. Anyway, so I went to this thing like two days a week after school. And I remember my dad telling me once that like, because I was kind of bad there too. I was extra bad there. I would always like question the teachers like, well, wait, prove it. Can you prove that God exists? Like stuff like that. I was just being an asshole, you know?”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

40. “And that was the moment when I basically went back to my old friends who were awesome. I never really left them, but I kind of sort of did. And they were very cool about it. And they kind of welcomed me back basically. And I just stopped doing all that shit. I just stopped it. And it sounds like how could I have just stopped it? But it's probably because I wasn't really, it was sort of this stunt that I was pulling and not really what I wanted to do. It was just kind of a fun thing. And I realized that there were consequences. And once I realized there were true consequences, I changed it. And I think that was kind of the thing for me is that, especially when I was younger, I would sort of do things. I remember I went to Hebrew school, like after school, and I hated it. Absolutely hated it because it was like two hours, Tuesdays, and Thursdays after school. I wasn't.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

41. “Enough. If you get in trouble again, we're sending you off to boarding school, which means you're away from all your friends and you're away from us and the whole thing. And it was that statement alone that changed everything for me. I don't know why either I didn't even know what boarding school was. It probably sounded kind of cool. I get to go away and sleep away. Like there's something kind of almost cool about it in a sense, like when you don't really know what it would be. But they said it in such a stern way that it was so clear that this was not where I wanted to go and what I wanted to where I wanted to be.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

42. “So he has to get a stomach pumped because he thought he told the teachers and the police got involved that he'd been poisoned and I had to go down to the police station. My parents had to take him to the police station and all this shit. And it was like it was a mint, you know, but it was, we set this up in a way where he didn't think it was. And so anyway, that was some of the shit I got into. And eventually I got into that and a couple of the things eventually my parents said, hey, look.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

43. “Yeah, it was shitty, but I'm just being honest. So we did that. We obviously didn't poison anybody, but like we told them we did, okay? And it's funny because it wasn't a bullying thing. It was actually a friend of ours. So it wasn't like we were picking on anybody. He was like a friend of ours and we did this. Anyway, in math class later that day, he passes out because he was probably anxious and thought we'd poison him.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

44. “Was and there were. So, first of all, I had this friend, I won't mention his name, but he was a bad influence on me. My parents spotted him immediately. Said, this kid's no good. We don't want you to be with this kid. But anyway, I still was because he was cool and I wanted to be cool. Anyway, one day during lunch, we put a tic-tac, like a mint. It wasn't a tic-tac, but it was some sort of mint in this other kid's milk at school. And after he drank his milk, we told him this, again, I'm so ashamed of this whole thing. But anyway, we told him that we poisoned him, right? Right. I mean, it's bad.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

45. “And anyway, so I got in trouble. I don't remember when I got in trouble probably before that, too, but my parents let me get away with a lot as an only child, so I think they'd let me get away with extra and extra amount of stuff. But those early days, I think, paved the way for me to really learn how to sell things, how to market things, how to promote things, how to package things, how to mark things up, and how to also charge for things, which is in a strange way the thing that's so deficient about our industry today, the tech industry, which is like a lot of people, a lot of companies don't charge for anything. They give stuff away for free and then they have to live with all these other, the negatives of that, which we're even seeing play out in the news now. So anyway, I learned a lot of lessons from doing the wrong thing, let's say.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

46. “Up other people's catalogs and making my own. And then I got a reseller's license somehow and got into electronics and started being able to buy things at like dealer cost. It was funny because the way I think about business today, even the business I'm in today, Basecamp, I just see it as a continuation of when I was 13 selling knives, honestly. It's all one business where I'm buying or making the thing that I want and then finding other people who want the same thing. It's the same business as it ever was when I was 13 and is today. I'm not selling illegal stuff now, but other than that, same spirit.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

47. “Sometimes, so anyway, I get cash, I'd order stuff COD. I'd fake that I was sick that day. I'd stay home from school. I knew when it was going to be delivered. The UPS driver would come. I would give him the cash and I'd get these things and I'd distribute them to my friends and I would make profit. And then I did that with like cigarettes and chewing tobacco and all sorts of stuff. And so I kind of like then I had a bit of a reputation as a pyro because I love fireworks and fire and stuff. Anyway, I got into a lot of trouble eventually, as you can imagine selling contraband to 15-year-old boys in the suburbs of Chicago. And then like, you know, I kind of got in with the wrong crowd and then all sorts of weird things happened at some point. But anyway, I eventually got that out of my system. But that's how I started getting into being an entrepreneur is that. And I love the idea of car.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

48. “Would buy these knives and stuff for me, I would then, so I take these orders and I'd make an order form and everything, and I would take these things. And this was back in like 85. I got my first Mac in 85. And so I was like using my Mac to like print stuff out, my image writer or whatever I had at the time. And I'd make these catalogs and these order forms and print the stuff out and distribute it to some friends. And they would like make orders. I'd get the cash from them. Everyone had like part-time jobs. So they'd give me some cash. I'd get the cash. I would place an order through these catalogs for this stuff. I'd order it COD because, which I don't know if they have that anymore called cash on delivery. I don't think they have that anymore, but I didn't have a credit card. For those of you who are much younger and don't remember or don't know what this was, UPS could actually come to your house, bring a package, and you would pay the UPS driver. The UPS driver then take that money and put an envelope and then send it back to the company. That's how you'd actually buy things.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

49. “So, I mean, a 13 year old boy for me, it was just the coolest thing in the world, right? I don't know why, but I was so into it. I started to take these catalogs and make Xerox copies of these pages and then cut them out and then reassemble my own catalog. And I would like to kind of scratch out the prices and put new prices on them and then make catalogs, which I would then distribute to my friends. My friends then.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

50. “At the stage, yeah. Please continue. Somehow, I don't remember how this happened. Somehow, maybe it was my dad who got on this mailing list or I got on this, like, and we were starting to get these catalogs at home. And one of them was that one. Another one was called Sportsman's Guide. There's a few other ones where it's kind of like army surplusy stuff. And I don't really remember exactly how it all happened, but I started looking through the pages and there were these cool knives and throwing stars and like some ballistic knives, like knives you could actually shoot with a spring. Like crazy shit. Crazy stuff. And I just got into it and like tear gas and this kind of weird shit.”

    2018-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT