Not to mention that this is the exact same math used to determine the market capitalizations of all companies.
Linkbait gets you links, it also destroys your credibility. Which, by the way, is the reason I read hacker news and not any of the other numerous alternatives.
HN (front page) is still very susceptible to linkbait, though - Techcrunch are particularly good at "gaming" HN.
I wonder if people on this site have always been so weary of 37signals, or if the company's reputation has just slowly eroded with all the meagre diatribes.
The 37signals folks are interesting: as product designers and product managers, I have the utmost respect for them. As observers of the VC scene, their opinions and observations are often useless. That said, if you don't want to go the VC route and instead want to have a go at building a successful business without outside financing, I think Getting Real and Rework are must-reads.
Genius is rarely universal. William Shockley invented the transistor — yes, a gross oversimplification — but was an advocate of eugenics. Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh? Nazi sympathizers. No, I don't think Jason Fried, DHH, and co. are monsters, but these high-profile examples show that skill, talent, or insight in one area do not necessarily transfer to others. Not everyone is a Leonardo da Vinci.
I'm not attacking 37signals; I'm offering a nuanced opinion. Notice that I highly recommend much of their work. As for the examples I chose, I suppose it would have been better to choose blander ones, but no bland examples popped into my head as I wrote — nor have any occurred to me in the hour since I originally wrote my comment. There must be some example of a baseball player who had great hitting ability yet insisted on trying to steal bases despite being universally acknowledged as a horrible base stealer. But I don't know who he is.
Shockley, Ford, and Lindbergh possess precisely the sorts of nerd, capitalist, and ballsy qualities that we as HN readers often admire. They serve as disquieting reminders that people like us can be guilty of terrible lapses in judgement, perhaps because of the success they experienced doing the things we (reservedly) admire them for.
P.S. You completely changed the content of your comment over a half hour after originally posting it. Is that considered a faux pas or is it a completely legit thing to do?
Linkbait gets you links, it also destroys your credibility. Which, by the way, is the reason I read hacker news and not any of the other numerous alternatives.