What Jason Fried Learned from 26 Years of Building Great Products
AI and I5 Marras 2025

What Jason Fried Learned from 26 Years of Building Great Products

37signals makes tens of millions in profit every year but Jason Fried isn’t all that interested in running a business.

Instead, he cares most about making great products—like Basecamp, HEY, and Ruby on Rails—products that are centered around a single, coherent idea. These products are complete wholes, where each piece matters—like a Frank Lloyd Wright house or a vintage car.

But how do you create products like that?

In this conversation, we talk to Jason about what two decades of building 37signals has been like—and how to build products that have soul.

If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share!

Want even more?

Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.

To hear more from Dan Shipper:

Listen to Working Smarter wherever you get your podcasts, or visit workingsmarter.ai

Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Start

00:00:32 - Introduction

00:02:06 - What architecture, watches, and cars teach us about software

00:10:54 - How Jason thinks AI plays into product-building

00:20:58 - How developers at 37signals use AI

00:25:47 - Jason’s biggest realization after 26 years of running 37signals

00:29:58 - Where Jason thinks luck shaped his career

00:32:41 - What Jason would do if he were graduated into the AI boom

00:37:22 - Dan asks for advice on running a non-traditional company like Every

00:46:39 - Why staying true to yourself is the only way to build something lasting

00:49:38 - Wholeness as the north star for building products—and companies


Links to resources mentioned in the episode:

Jaksot(103)

Is NotebookLM—Google's Research Assistant—the Ultimate Tool For Thought? - Ep.22 with Steven Johnson

Is NotebookLM—Google's Research Assistant—the Ultimate Tool For Thought? - Ep.22 with Steven Johnson

We use it to find bestselling author Steven Berlin Johnson’s next project. I sat down with bestselling author Steven Johnson to see if we could come up with a concept for his next project—using AI. Th...

6 Kesä 202456min

Trailer: What is AI & I?

Trailer: What is AI & I?

Learn how the smartest people in the world are using AI to think, create, and relate. Each week I interview founders, filmmakers, writers, investors, and others about how they use AI tools like ChatGP...

29 Touko 20241min

Kevin Roose Has 18 New Best Friends—And They're All AIs - Ep. 21

Kevin Roose Has 18 New Best Friends—And They're All AIs - Ep. 21

The NYT’s Kevin Roose has 18 new friends—none of whom are human. His new friends are AI personas that he made with Noma, Kindroid, and other AI companion apps. There’s fitness guru Jared, therapist Pe...

15 Touko 202449min

Is Prompting the Future of Coding? - Ep. 20 with Nick Dobos

Is Prompting the Future of Coding? - Ep. 20 with Nick Dobos

Nick Dobos, maker of the #1 programming GPT, on prompt-gramming with AI Nick Dobos showed me how to ship a website with two words and a single click.  He’s the creator of Grimoire, the #1 custom GPT f...

1 Touko 202457min

He Built an AI Model That Can Decode Your Emotions - Ep. 19 with Alan Cowen

He Built an AI Model That Can Decode Your Emotions - Ep. 19 with Alan Cowen

This AI can read emotions better than you can. It was created by Alan Cowen, the cofounder and CEO of Hume, an AI research lab developing models that can read your face and your voice with uncanny acc...

24 Huhti 202456min

Reid Hoffman on How AI is Answering Our Biggest Questions—Ep. 18 with Reid Hoffman

Reid Hoffman on How AI is Answering Our Biggest Questions—Ep. 18 with Reid Hoffman

Learn how to use philosophy to run your business more effectively. Reid Hoffman thinks a masters in philosophy will help you run your business better than an MBA. Reid is a founder, investor, podcaste...

17 Huhti 20241h

This Best-selling Author Wrote a Book in 30 Days—With ChatGPT - Ep. 17 with Seth Stephens-Davidowitz

This Best-selling Author Wrote a Book in 30 Days—With ChatGPT - Ep. 17 with Seth Stephens-Davidowitz

Seth-Stephens Davidowitz wrote a book in 30 days—and he did it with ChatGPT. Seth is a data scientist, economist, and author who challenged himself to write a book—Who Makes the NBA?—in less than 1 mo...

10 Huhti 20241h 14min

Take Your Business From Zero to One With AI - Ep. 16 with Nicholas Thorne

Take Your Business From Zero to One With AI - Ep. 16 with Nicholas Thorne

Nicholas Thorne is building Squarespace for the AI age. It’s called Audos, and it’s an AI chatbot to help any entrepreneur go from idea to: - Pitch deck - Working website - Custom GPT - User interview...

27 Maalis 20241h