David Heinemeier Hansson in Jason Calacanis’ This Week in Startups (March 22, 2010)

A video of the most recent This Week in Startups episode with David Heinemeier Hansson started some heated discussion on the web lately. Even if you have not been a part of the debate, I strongly encourage you to watch this video (the interview starts after some 47 minutes of discussion; the video below skips them.)

The reader might be familiar with the David’s philosophy of doing business: it emphasizes profits (they are more important than market share, investments or anything else) and simplicity (minimalistic approach to products is the way the company could stay focused on delivering it and being frugal.) He sees the way chosen for 37signals as universal. When he evangelizing it, he is fastidious in his choice of words.

While it’s easy to fall for his “bad boy in the startups world” charisma, the interview gives a stark contrast between David’s tendency for overgeneralization and genuine experience of Jason. David is thirty and his interview host, Jason Calacanis, is ten years older. When placed together, they reveal the most attractive traits of each other’s personalities.

What I have enjoyed most in this video:

• How masterly Jason leads the discussion of some sorts of business models to its culmination, and how he ends this with a strong counter example like “Oracle might disagree”
• A discussion of work ethics. David: I always take Friday off. I prefer to work smarter, not harder. Jason: do you know what kind of schedule Steve Jobs enforced in Apple in the early days of PCs?
• How Jason constantly repeats “interesting” on almost all David’s remarks, and after somebody tweets about that in the middle of the show, and Jason reads the tweet aloud, he never repeats this word again. This is what I call a brilliant speaker.

This line is a signal to scroll up and click Play. Enjoy.