Co-founder thinks other companies should consider a “swim against the stream.”
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37Signals is not a company that makes its policy or management decisions quietly.
The productivity software company was an avowedly Mac-centric shop until Apple’s move to kill home screen web apps (or Progressive Web Apps, or PWAs) led the firm and its very-public-facing co-founder, David Heinemeier Hansson, to declare a “Return to Windows,” followed by a stew of Windows/Mac/Linux. The company waged a public battle with Apple over its App Store subscription policies, and the resulting outcry helped nudge Apple a bit. 37Signals maintained an active blog for years, its co-founders and employees have written numerous business advice books, and its blog and social media posts regularly hit the front pages of Hacker News.
So when 37Signals decided to pull its seven cloud-based apps off Amazon Web Services in the fall of 2022, it didn’t do so quietly, or without details. Back then, Hansson described his firm as paying “an at times almost absurd premium” for defense against “wild swings or towering peaks in usage.” In early 2023, Hansson wrote that 37Signals expected to save $7 million over five years by buying more than $600,000 worth of Dell server gear and hosting its own apps.
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