David Heinemeier HanssonModify

The web will be far worse off if Google is forced to sell Chrome, even if it's to atone for legitimate ad-market monopoly abuses. Which mean we'll all be worse off as the web would lose ground to actual monopoly platforms, like the iOS App Store and Google's own Play Store.

First, Chrome won the browser war fair and square by building a better surfboard for the internet. This wasn't some opportune acquisition. This was the result of grand investments, great technical prowess, and markets doing what they're supposed to do: rewarding the best. Besides, we have a million alternatives. Firefox still exists, so does Safari,  so does the billion Chromium-based browsers like Brave and Edge. And we finally even have new engines on the way with the Ladybird browser. 

Look, Google's trillion-dollar business depends on a thriving web that can be searched by Google.com, that can be plastered in AdSense, and that now can feed the wisdom of AI. Thus, Google's incredible work to further the web isn't an act of charity, it's of economic self-interest, and that's why it works. Capitalism doesn't run on benevolence, but incentives.

We want an 800-pound gorilla in the web's corner! Because Apple would love nothing better (despite the admirable work to keep up with Chrome by Team Safari) to see the web's capacity as an application platform diminished. As would every other owner of a proprietary application platform. Microsoft fought the web tooth and nail back in the 90s because they knew that a free, open application platform would undermine lock-in — and it did!

But the vitality of that free and open application platform depends on constant development. If the web stagnates, other platforms will gain. But with Team Chrome pushing the web forward in a million ways — be it import maps, nested CSS, web push, etc. — is therefore essential.

This is a classic wealth vs. riches mistake. Lawyers see Chrome as valuable in a moment's snapshot, but the value is all in the wealth that continued investment brings. A Chrome left to languish with half the investment will evaporate as quickly as a lottery winner's riches. Wealth requires maintenance to endure.

Google should not get away with rigging the online ad market, but forcing it to sell Chrome will do great damage to the web.

We received over 2,200 applications for our just-closed junior programmer opening, and now we're going through all of them by hand and by human. No AI screening here. It's a lot of work, but we have a great team who take the work seriously, so in a few weeks, we'll be able to invite a group of finalists to the next phase.

This highlights the folly of thinking that what it'll take to land a job like this is some specific list of criteria, though. Yes, you have to present a baseline of relevant markers to even get into consideration, like a great cover letter that doesn't smell like AI slop, promising projects or work experience or educational background, etc. But to actually get the job, you have to be the best of the ones who've applied!

It sounds self-evident, maybe, but I see questions time and again about it, so it must not be. Almost every job opening is grading applicants on the curve of everyone who has applied. And the best candidate of the lot gets the job. You can't quantify what that looks like in advance.

I'm excited to see who makes it to the final stage. I already hear early whispers that we got some exceptional applicants in this round. It would be great to help counter the narrative that this industry no longer needs juniors. That's simply retarded.

However good AI gets, we're always going to need people who know the ins and outs of what the machine comes up with. Maybe not as many, maybe not in the same roles, but it's truly utopian thinking that mankind won't need people capable of vetting the work done by AI in five minutes.

The new AMD HX370 option in the Framework 13 is a good step forward in performance for developers. It runs our HEY test suite in 2m7s, compared to 2m43s for the 7840U (and 2m49s for a M4 Pro!). It's also about 20% faster in most single-core tasks than the 7840U.

But is that enough to warrant the jump in price? AMD's latest, best chips have suddenly gotten pretty expensive. The F13 w/ HX370 now costs $1,992 with 32GB RAM / 1TB. Almost the same an M4 Pro MBP14 w/ 24GB / 1TB ($2,199). I'd pick the Framework any day for its better keyboard, 3:2 matte screen, repairability, and superb Linux compatibility, but it won't be because the top option is "cheaper" any more. 

Of course you could also just go with the budget 6-core Ryzen AI 5 340 in same spec for $1,362. I'm sure that's a great machine too. But maybe the sweet spot is actually the Ryzen AI 7 350. It "only" has 8 cores (vs 12 on the 370), but four of those are performance cores -- the same as the 370. And it's $300 cheaper. So ~$1,600 gets you out the door. I haven't actually tried the 350, though, so that's just speculation. I've been running the 370 for the last few months.

Whichever chip you choose, the rest of the Framework 13 package is as good as it ever was. This remains my favorite laptop of at least the last decade. I've been running one for over a year now, and combined with Omakub + Neovim, it's the first machine in forever where I've actually enjoyed programming on a 13" screen. The 3:2 aspect ratio combined with Linux's superb multiple desktops that switch with 0ms lag and no animations means I barely miss the trusted 6K Apple XDR screen when working away from the desk.

The HX370 gives me about 6 hours of battery life in mixed use. About the same as the old 7840U. Though if all I'm doing is writing, I can squeeze that to 8-10 hours. That's good enough for me, but not as good as a Qualcomm machine or an Apple M-chip machine. For some people, those extra hours really make the difference.

What does make a difference, of course, is Linux. I've written repeatedly about how much of a joy it's been to rediscover Linux on the desktop, and it's a joy that keeps on giving. For web work, it's so good. And for any work that requires even a minimum of Docker, it's so fast (as the HEY suite run time attests).

Apple still has a strong hardware game, but their software story is falling apart. I haven't heard many people sing the praises of new iOS or macOS releases in a long while. It seems like without an asshole in charge, both have move towards more bloat, more ads, more gimmicks, more control. Linux is an incredible antidote to this nonsense these days.

It's also just fun! Seeing AMD catch up in outright performance if not efficiency has been a delight. Watching Framework perfect their 13" laptop while remaining 100% backwards compatible in terms of upgrades with the first versions is heartwarming. And getting to test the new Framework Desktop in advance of its Q3 release has only affirmed my commitment to both.

But on the new HX370, it's in my opinion the best Linux laptop you can buy today, which by extension makes it the best web developer laptop too. The top spec might have gotten a bit pricey, but there are options all along the budget spectrum, which retains all the key ingredients any way. Hard to go wrong.

Forza Framework!

Nearly a quarter of seventeen-year-old boys in America have an ADHD diagnosis. That's crazy. But worse than the diagnosis is that the majority of them end up on amphetamines, like Adderall or Ritalin. These drugs allow especially teenage boys (diagnosed at 2-3x the rate of girls) to do what their mind would otherwise resist: Study subjects they find boring for long stretches of time. Hurray?

Except, it doesn't even work. Because taking Adderall or Ritalin doesn't actually help you learn more, it merely makes trying tolerable. The kids might feel like the drugs are helping, but the test scores say they're not. It's Dunning-Kruger — the phenomenon where low-competence individuals overestimate their abilities — in a pill.

Furthermore, even this perceived improvement is short-term. The sudden "miraculous" ability to sit still and focus on boring school work wanes in less than a year on the drugs. In three years, pill poppers are doing no better than those who didn't take amphetamines at all.

These are all facts presented in a blockbuster story in New York Time Magazine entitled Have We Been Thinking About A.D.H.D. All Wrong?, which unpacks all the latest research on ADHD. It's depressing reading.

Not least because the definition of ADHD is so subjective and  situational. The NYTM piece is full of anecdotes from kids with an ADHD diagnosis whose symptoms disappeared when they stopped pursuing a school path out of step with their temperament. And just look at these ADHD markers from the DSM-5:

The majority of these so-called symptoms are what I'd classify as "normal boyhood". I certainly could have checked off a bunch of them, and you only need six over six months for an official ADHD diagnosis. No wonder a quarter of those seventeen year-old boys in America qualify!

Borrowing from Erich Fromm’s The Sane Society, I think we're looking at a pathology of normalcy, where healthy boys are defined as those who can sit still, focus on studies, and suppress kinetic energy. Boys with low intensity and low energy. What a screwy ideal to chase for all.

This is all downstream from an obsession with getting as many kids through as much safety-obsessed schooling as possible. While the world still needs electricians, carpenters, welders, soldiers, and a million other occupations that exist outside the narrow educational ideal of today.

Now I'm sure there is a small number of really difficult cases where even the short-term break from severe symptoms that amphetamines can provide is welcome. The NYTM piece quotes the doctor that did one of the most consequential studies on ADHD as thinking that's around 3% — a world apart from the quarter of seventeen-year-olds discussed above.

But as ever, there is no free lunch in medicine. Long-term use of amphetamines acts as a growth inhibitor, resulting in kids up to an inch shorter than they otherwise would have been. On top of the awful downs that often follow amphetamine highs. And the loss of interest, humor, and spirit that frequently comes with the treatment too.

This is all eerily similar to what happened in America when a bad study from the 1990s convinced a generation of doctors that opioids actually weren't addictive. By the time they realized the damage, they'd set in motion an overdose and addiction cascade that's presently killing over a 100,000 Americans a year. The book Empire of Pain chronicles that tragedy well. 

Or how about the surge in puberty-blocker prescriptions, which has now been arrested in the UK, following the Cass Review, as well as Finland, Norway, Sweden, France, and elsewhere.

Doctors are supposed to first do no harm, but they're as liable to be swept up in bad paradigms, social contagions, and ideological echo chambers as the rest of us. And this insane over-diagnosis of ADHD fits that liability to a T.

To be a successful founder, you have to believe that what you're working on is going to work — despite knowing it probably won't! That sounds like an oxymoron, but it's really not. Believing that what you're building is going to work is an essential component of coming to work with the energy, fortitude, and determination it's going to require to even have a shot. Knowing it probably won't is accepting the odds of that shot.

It's simply the reality that most things in business don't work out. At least not in the long run. Most businesses fail. If not right away, then eventually. Yet the world economy is full of entrepreneurs who try anyway. Not because they don't know the odds, but because they've chosen to believe they're special.

The best way to balance these opposing points — the conviction that you'll make it work, the knowledge that it probably won't — is to do all your work in a manner that'll make you proud either way. If it doesn't work, you still made something you wouldn't be ashamed to put your name on. And if it does work, you'll beam with pride from making it on the basis of something solid.

The deep regret from trying and failing only truly hits when you look in the mirror and see Dostoevsky staring back at you with this punch to the gut: "Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing." Oof.

Believe it's going to work. 

Build it in a way that makes you proud to sign it.

Base your worth as a human on something greater than a business outcome.

We just opened a search for a new junior programmer at 37signals. It's been years since we last hired a junior, but the real reason the listing is turning heads is because we're open about the yearly salary: $145,849*. That's high enough that programmers with lots of experience are asking whether they could apply, even if they aren't technically "junior". The answer is no.

The reason we're willing to pay a junior more than most is because we're looking for a junior who's better than most. Not better in "what do they already know", but in "how far could they go". We're hiring for peak promise — and such promise only remains until it's revealed.

Maybe it sounds a little harsh, but a programmer who's been working professionally for five years has likely already revealed their potential. What you're going to get is roughly what you see. That doesn't mean that people can't get better after that, but it means that the trajectory by which they improve has already been plotted.

Whereas a programmer who's either straight out of school or fresh off their first internship or short-stint job is essentially all potential. So you draw their line on the basis of just a few early dots, but the line can be steep.

It's not that different from something like the NFL scouting combine. Teams fight to find the promise of The Next All-Star. These rookies won't have the experience that someone who's already played in the league for years would have, but they have the potential to be the best. Someone who's already played for several seasons will have shown what they have and be weighed accordingly.

This is not easy to do! Plenty of rookies, in sports and programming, may show some early potential, then fail to elevate their game to where the buyer is betting it could be. But that's the chance you take to land someone extraordinary.

So if you know a junior programmer with less than three years of industry experience who is sparkling with potential, do let them know of our listing. And if you know someone awesome who's already a senior programmer, we also have an opening for them.

*It's a funnily precise number because it's pulled directly from the Radford salary database, which we query for the top 10% of San Francisco salaries for junior programmers.