William Morris
If you want a golden rule that will t
everything, this is it: Have nothing in
your houses that you do not know to be
useful or believe to be beautiful.
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I’m Kyle Neath
On the interwebs @kneath
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I’m ≅ Designer
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I work at GitHub
A better way to make software
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urbancase.com
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I <3 engineering
beautiful software
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Software is a force for
change in our world
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Affect a change?
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Affect a Change.
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How do you build
great software?
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Conway’s Law
Organizations which design systems ...
are constrained to produce designs
which are copies of the communication
structures of these organizations
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What if you could build the
best software company
in the world?
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What if you could build the
best software company
in the world?
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Let’s try.
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Traits of a great software company
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Bootstrapped to profitability
Predictable revenue stream
No funding until 100 employees
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Our customers were our friends
We became extremely customer focused
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We used GitHub to build GitHub
We became extremely product focused
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We hired slowly and carefully
We became extremely company focused
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We are driven by autonomy,
mastery, and purpose
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An open source company
optimized for happiness
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No managers
No deadlines
No top-down roadmap
No core hours
No mandatory meetings
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“That’s cool and all when you’re a
small company, but eventually
you’re going to need
management and structure”
Everybody Ever
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2009 201
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2010 201
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2011 201
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NOW October 10, 2012
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123 hubbernauts
I guess we’re a big company after all
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Build the best software possible
and allow people to pay for it
GitHub’s driving principle
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Favor leadership
over management
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Favor goals
over deadlines
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Favor a shared vision
over roadmaps
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Favor sustainable pace
over hourly commitments
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Favor tangible work
over meetings
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Favor building new tools
over using existing shitty ones
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William Morris
If you want a golden rule that will t
everything, this is it: Have nothing in
your houses that you do not know to be
useful or believe to be beautiful.
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Knyle’s Law
Organizations will design software that
is a copy of the software they surround
themselves with.
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Your surroundings
=
your company + your software
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Traits of a great organization
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Remote by default
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Do real work
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Open by default
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Encourage serendipitous
interaction
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Always be classy
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Create a better future
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No matter what,
love your work
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We can create a better future
by creating better companies