Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/nNx1D54wVEM
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Email: will@decodedgenius.com
CONNECT WITH DAVID
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WHAT WE DECODED
→ Why David flipped from writing nearly all his code by hand to starting every new piece of code with a prompt, inside a single month
→ How 37signals cut a $3.2 million annual cloud bill to roughly $800,000, and why a dollar saved beats five dollars earned
→ Why Jeff Bezos took a minority stake with no control, no timeline and no guaranteed exit, and what he saw that the VCs didn't
→ The 40-hour weekly moving average he's held for 25 years, and why the first ten hours beat hours 80 through 90
→ Why "lifestyle business" was thrown at him as an insult, and why he took it as a compliment
→ How refusing Apple's 30% cut became the best launch campaign 37signals ever ran
→ Why he banned politics at work in 2021, and why that fight and the Apple fight are his two proudest moments
→ The stoic practice he credits for cutting decades of wasted worry
CHAPTERS
00:00:45 The AI Supercycle, Agents & Six Months of Whiplash
00:10:08 Bootstrapping, the Dot-Com Bust & the Case for Small Teams
00:19:24 Constraints, Distribution & Starting a Software Business Today
00:24:06 Jeff Bezos, Secondaries & Giving Up Zero Control
00:33:28 SaaS Valuations, Raising in 2026 & the Rough Ride Ahead
00:40:38 Productivity, ATMs, Tractors & Who Gets Left Behind
00:49:59 Guardrails, Doomsday Stories & the Nuclear Mistake
00:59:20 Hustle Culture, the 40-Hour Average & Finding Your Enough
01:22:34 Leaving the Cloud, ONCE & the Case for Commodity Software
01:37:22 The Apple War, Banning Politics & Two Proud Fights
01:46:39 Cars, Le Mans & Why Mechanical Things Still Need Us
01:59:52 Stoicism, Negative Visualization & the Final Advice
#DecodedGenius #DHH #Bootstrapping #AIAgents #SoftwareBusiness
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