Made Basecamp and HEY for the underdogs as co-owner and CTO of 37signals. Created Ruby on Rails. Wrote REWORK, It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work, and REMOTE.
I've been working on Basecamp for half my life, and nearly my entire professional career in software. The first code was written in the summer of 2003 when I was just 23. Now I'm 46, and we've just released the fifth major version.
It's an incredible update to a service that continues to help about a million users a day avoid dropping the ball when working with others. It's AI accessible, but not agent hysteric. It's still famously easy to use, still executes the basics beautifully, and still focuses on the small to medium-sized teams we've been serving in the Fortune 5,000,000 for decades.
Here are just three of my favorite new features in Basecamp 5:
Lexxy editor: Our new text editor finally brings tables, markdown, and live syntax highlighting for code to Basecamp. Oh, and voice notes. It's built on Meta's Lexical editor toolkit, and it's going to ship as the default for Action Text in the next major version of Rails.
Keyboard accessible: After moving to Linux, building Omarchy, and acquiring a taste for mechanical keyboards, I've come to love navigating the computer primarily through hotkeys. So with a lot of effort, Basecamp is now a delight to drive through the keys, and you don't have to be a brainiac to remember them all: just hold down SHIFT, and they're revealed in the interface. SHIFT + S opens the sidebar, ESC moves focus between it and the main page, SHIFT + C starts composing a comment/chat line/answer.
The permanent sidebar: If you live in Basecamp, like I do, it's to stay on top of all the new things that are constantly happening in a busy account, and that's just gotten so much faster with the new permanent sidebar. Before, we had a Hey! menu in the top bar. You'd get a little dot when something was new, then you'd open it, click, and the menu would close. If you had five things that were new, it'd be open-click-close, open-click-close, five times. Being able to zoom through these now with just the return key, tap, tap, tap, and I've read three new things. So good.
And there's so much more. Jason put together a great summary on the new marketing site, which in itself is brand new too. A back-to-basics design in many ways. As our entire industry is getting swept up in agent hysteria (and I love AI as much as anyone!), we thought it better to focus on the human communication that's the cornerstone of Basecamp. The new site just speaks plainly to that mission and shows you the software right at the top.
Another thing that's back is color, specifically in the logo. Basecamp's clever but flat paperclip logo has been replaced with a modern take of our original rolling mountains. In full three dimensions, with depth and a gradient. Love it.
Overall, I'm really proud of what we've built with Basecamp Five. We're inching in on a quarter of a century in service! We still have customers who signed up back in early 2004! This is the kind of legacy that makes me beam, and the new version is just ace.
Do you see the same truth? That's how C.S. Lewis defined the essence of friendship. And that's what we gathered 130 people in New York to honor for Omacon two weeks ago. Seeing the same truth: A love of computers. Bespoke computers. Malleable computers. Our computers.
It's the kind of magic you can only really summon in person. We do our best online, but you instantly realize what an impoverished medium it is for creating real connections once you're all together in the same room.
So that's what we did. We connected. We shared our work, our passion, and our opinions about all these new Linux vibes. It happened in an absolutely gorgeous venue, generously offered for the occasion by Tobi and his event team at Shopify. The space had an almost comedy-club intimacy, with chairs just a few inches from the podium. Thanks to the single-track format, we made the most of that warm atmosphere. I gave the keynote.
I also got to meet Prime, TJ, Bjarne, Spencer, and Vaxry for the first time in person. Which is always a bit odd when you've been working together for a while over the internet. It feels so familiar, but like an unfinished agreement. And then, boom, it's signed with a handshake and a smile.
Same with getting to meet and talk to a ton of other Omarchy users from all walks of life. Many were programmers, but plenty were not. Some came from other Linux distributions, but most from either Windows or Mac. Everyone shared a passion for computers, though. Not just as instruments of action, but as delightful environments for play, learning, and connection.
It all added up to a massive recharge. I built Omarchy for myself, but sharing it makes it mean so much more. Seeing others enthusiastically embrace it as a starting point for their own Linux adventure is a real boost to the motivation needed to keep making it better. Because there's always more to do: more systems to cover with perfect compatibility, more corners to polish.
So that's what we're going to do, together. Make this distro reach more kindred spirits. Entice those who would love a bespoke, kintsugi system, but don't know where to start. It's never going to be for everyone, but that's also why it works as a beacon for those who choose to share the quest.
Open source promised that users would be free to change whatever code they were running. The reality, however, is that hardly any of them ever did — it was simply too hard. Now, with AI, it suddenly isn't.
This is very exciting. Being able to add features to any local open-source application and then use that bespoke fork for your own benefit is an incredible step toward the original open source promise.
This isn't just about regular users, either. Even if you are a programmer, you might not be familiar with the language the application is written in. And even if you are, taking the time to get familiar with any substantial codebase is a tall order. AI is compressing that complexity and making it malleable at a ferocious rate.
What excites me even more, though, is when this power is applied to the operating system, and thus the entire computer. When you're able to change not just individual applications, but your system's menu bars, your window manager, your notification system, your everything.
But you can only do this on Linux. With Windows and macOS, the core elements of the operating system are owned by the companies that make them. While it's often possible to hack certain aspects, it's far from truly having the malleable computer that Linux allows.
I've already seen this a lot in the Omarchy world: users who aren't super technical making the system their own with the help of AI and being utterly delighted by the outcome.
And while this is still a pretty nerdy thing to do, I don't think it will remain contained to that niche for long. As models get even more powerful, the idea that your system is tied down as a fixed black box is likely to become an archaic notion pretty quickly.
As always, the future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed.
Intel really delivered with Panther Lake. A 2026 Dell XPS 14 using this chipset with an IPS screen can hit just 1.4 watts of idle power draw on Omarchy. That's good enough for over 47 hours!! And in real-world mixed use on another 74-Wh machine, I've seen around 16 hours of battery life. That's a huge jump over the ~6 hours I was getting over the past two years from AMD-powered Framework laptops.
Technically, Intel already had something close to Panther Lake on efficiency with the Lunar Lake chips from last year, but those were quite slow on any multi-core workloads (like a developer would need). With Panther Lake (358H), I'm getting 17,500 on Geekbench 6, which is about 10% faster than the already excellent AMD HX370, and a match for Apple's M5.
Apple remains ahead on single-core performance, but even there, Panther Lake is on par with an M3. And I don't remember anyone complaining that those were too slow. What everyone has been pining for was better battery life, and now we got it. On a machine with excellent integrated graphics that are good enough to play a ton of triple-A games no less!
But we're getting more than that. The PC makers are getting their act together on all fronts. Haptic touchpads on level with Apple's is now standard on both high-end Dell and Asus laptops. Many of the new machines also have tandem OLED screens that blow even the nice micro-LED options from Apple out of the water. And PCs are now somehow both sleeker and slimmer than the MacBooks.
Jonathan Ive knew this, he was just a bit ahead of the components, and he was willing to sacrifice reliability to get to what wasn't possible back then. But now it is, and the PC makers are taking full advantage.
Now I know that any comparison between Macs and PCs are moot for most people. There's not a lot of cross-shopping going on these days. If you're locked into the Apple walled garden, it's hard to untangle yourself, so most just continue to buy whatever their team offers.
But for the few who are either fed up with Apple in general, macOS Tahoe in particular, or just want to try a whole new way of computing with Omarchy, it's fantastic that battery life is no longer a blocker. It's been the #1 reason cited by folks who've been interested in trying Omarchy, but felt like they couldn't let go of Apple's efficiency advantage. Now that's largely gone.
I also just love a good turnaround story. Intel had been on the ropes for years. Now they have a fantastic integrated GPU that's compatible with all the tens of thousands of PC games on the market, a super-efficient CPU that's a match for an M5 on multi-core and an M3 on single-core performance, and a range of PC makers finally taking the fight directly to Apple on touchpads, build quality, and weight.
These new Panther Lake CPUs are made in Arizona too, btw. With the world as it is, I think any American should breathe a sigh of relief that if things get spicy with Taiwan, there's more to frontier computing than a TSMC plant within a short reach of China. There's still more work to be done on that front (as Intel CPU cores still come from TSMC!), but it's a huge step in the right direction.
Personally, I'm just thrilled that competition is lifting all boats. Apple gave the entire laptop industry a huge wake-up call in 2020 with the introduction of the M chips. Intel's former CEO, Pat Gelsinger, saw the threat clearly, kicked off the 18A plan, but sadly didn't last long enough in the top seat to see his bet pay off with Panther Lake. The rest of us now benefit from his boldness.
I'm also thrilled to see both Dell and Intel leaning into Linux. Omarchy 3.5 ships with every possible tweak to make these Panther Lake chips perform at their best, and that was only possible because Michael Dell assigned a team to work on it. So much love to Mr Dell for letting us borrow the brains and commits from senior engineers within both his company and Intel to ship this big new release.
If you've been waiting on the sidelines for a laptop that can run Omarchy and still get amazing battery life, now is your magic moment. Give the new Dell XPS series, or any of the other laptops shipping with Panther Lake, a try. I think you'll be as impressed as I've been.
In the past 18 months, we've experimented with a ton of AI-infused features at 37signals. Fizzy had all sorts of attempts. As did Basecamp. But as Microsoft and many others have realized, it's not that easy to make something that's actually good and would welcomed by users. So we didn't ship.
In the meantime, agents have emerged has the killer app for AI. Not only are LLMs much smarter when they can check their thinking using tools, but the file system also gives them the memory implant they needed to learn between prompts. And now they can actually do stuff!
Not only can you have your agent look through everything in Basecamp, summarize whatever you need, but it can also set up to-do lists, post message updates, chat with humans and clankers alike, upload reference files, and arrange a project schedule. Anything you can do in Basecamp, agents can now do too.
This becomes extra powerful when you combine Basecamp with all the other tools you might be using that are also agent accessible. For software development, you can use the MCP from Sentry to trawl through major sources of bugs, then have the agent summarize that in a message for Basecamp. Or you have it download, analyze, and highlight key customer complaints by giving it access to your help desk system.
All this was possible in the past with APIs, hand-written integrations, and human data scientists. But it was cumbersome, slow, and expensive, so most people just didn't. A vanishingly small portion of Basecamp customers have ever directly interacted with our API. But agents? I think adoption is going to be swift.
Not because everyone is going to run OpenCode, Claude Code, or Gemini CLI. But because agents are going to be incorporated into ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, and all the other mainstream interfaces who were collectively embarrassed by OpenClaw's meteoric ascent and popularity very quickly. There's a huge demand out there for a personal agent that can act as your private executive assistant.
This is where the puck is going, and we're skating to meet it with agent accessibility across the board. Basecamp is first, Fizzy is next, and we'll hit HEY before long too. Revamped APIs, comprehensive CLIs, and the skills to use them whatever your harness or claws look like.
The Danish election is tomorrow. One of the central themes in the incumbent campaign has been a proposed wealth tax. The fig leaf for this proposal was "smaller classrooms in the early grades", but that quickly fell off, and the debate centered on "inequality". And it's true that inequality is a problem in Denmark: There's not nearly enough!
I know that sounds sacrilegious. Even most of the business-friendly press and parties in Denmark dance around this topic. Which makes political sense because the word "inequality" leads most people to think of poverty and destitution. But that's not the reality in the little kingdom that could.
Denmark has an enormous state apparatus (half of GDP and a third of all workers!) that offers equal access to everything from health care to education and a million programs in between. It could surely be slimmed and trimmed, but on the whole, it works remarkably well. The average Dane is incredibly well cared for by any international standard (high-trust society, hurray!).
By those same standards, it's the 8th most equal country in the world on income, as measured by the Gini coefficient (0.28). But this is where the numbers start spellbinding the debate. Because the Danish Gini coefficient perversely "degrades" if new businesses succeed, as any time successful founders and high-paid employees earning incomes above the median "worsen" inequality.
This is obviously nonsense. When the pie gets bigger, it gets better for all, as long as nobody is robbed of their existing slice. Denmark should clearly want new successful businesses! It should love to see founders reap big rewards when the risks pay off. It should celebrate early employees making fortunes on stock grants. But all too often, it just doesn't.
Just to put it on a pin: Danes hate flashy cars with a passion that stretches back much further than the current green excuses. But buying a $300,000 Ferrari in Denmark is one of the most patriotic things you can possibly do! You'll end up paying almost three times the price for the privilege, and sending 2/3s of that to the treasury in taxes. Truly a contribution to the common cause worthy of admiration, not scorn!
But because the debate around inequality is anchored in a fixed-pie paradigm, scorn is all you're likely to get. Anyone who does well in Denmark is immediately suspected of having succeeded at the expense of others. Probably through some form of nefarious exploitation, even if we can't prove what?! There is a core national politics of grievance and envy.
But, however human that may be, the future progress and prosperity of the country depends on rejecting this zero-sum delusional dogma. The Danish economy is currently doing well compared to the rest of the EU, but it's dangerously dependent on a handful of vintage corporations pulling the bulk of the load.
This simply has to change if the Danes wish to retain their high standards of living going forward. No corporation lasts forever. Novo Nordisk was Europe's most valuable company at the start of last year, now it's worth half that, and is out of the top ten. And who knows what the closing of the Hormuz Strait will do to Maersk. These two companies alone represent roughly a quarter of all Denmark's exports!
Meanwhile, new business formation just hit an all-time low. And only a tiny portion of the big employers in Denmark were created in the last thirty years. And thus, almost all the wealth that funds the highly-prized welfare state is coming from really old companies. Many of them over a hundred years old.
This is wonderful in many ways. The Danes should be rightfully proud to host Maersk (1904), Novo (1923), Vestas (1945), Lego (1932), and other international heavy-weights. But it can't rely on this aging corporate vintage to forever bear fruit for tomorrow.
Tomorrow needs to be tended to by planting new seeds. New companies. New growth. New capital. And that's just not going to happen if the Danish state declares itself at war with capital formation or accumulation. It should be so lucky to have more rich people, with more capital, and the talent to deploy it toward a better, shared future (or spend it on heavily-taxed Ferraris!).
The ballot boxes open tomorrow morning. It's predicted to be a close one. Fingers crossed for a prosperous choice.
