<story><title>37signals Earns Millions Each Year. Its CEO’s Model? His Cleaning Lady</title><url>http://www.fastcompany.com/3000852/37signals-earns-millions-each-year-its-ceo%E2%80%99s-model-his-cleaning-lady</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>pg</author><text>The reason the press writes about funding rather than revenues is not some kind of conspiracy to focus on the wrong things, but simply because reporters know about funding rounds and not about revenues.&lt;p&gt;It&apos;s clear that the press would write about revenues if they could, because they write a lot about the revenues of public companies.  They&apos;re able to do that because public companies have to disclose their revenues.&lt;p&gt;Private companies never publish their revenues.  Including 37signals.  So if Jason really believes this is a terrible problem and wants to set things on the right course, he should set an example and start publishing 37signals&apos; revenue numbers.</text></item><item><author>whalesalad</author><text>&quot;I won’t name names. I used to name names. But I think all you have to do is read TechCrunch. Look at what the top stories are, and they’re all about raising money, how many employees they have, and these are metrics that don’t matter. What matters is: Are you profitable? Are you building something great? Are you taking care of your people? Are you treating your customers well? In the coverage of our industry as a whole, you’ll rarely see stories about treating customers well, about people building a sustainable business. TechCrunch to me is the great place to look to see the sickness in our industry right now.&quot;&lt;p&gt;I love this quote. It reflects my sentiments to a T.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dlss</author><text>This is unusually straw-mannish of you pg.&lt;p&gt;From the article: &quot;What matters is: Are you profitable? Are you building something great? Are you taking care of your people? Are you treating your customers well?&quot;&lt;p&gt;All of those questions can be answered without needing access to a companies ledger. Jason answers those questions himself in the article.&lt;p&gt;I think his point was that stories about those questions don&apos;t get as much readership per unit of reporter effort, hence they aren&apos;t being written.&lt;p&gt;Posting 37signals&apos; revenue numbers would have zero impact on that.</text></comment>
<story><title>37signals Earns Millions Each Year. Its CEO’s Model? His Cleaning Lady</title><url>http://www.fastcompany.com/3000852/37signals-earns-millions-each-year-its-ceo%E2%80%99s-model-his-cleaning-lady</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>pg</author><text>The reason the press writes about funding rather than revenues is not some kind of conspiracy to focus on the wrong things, but simply because reporters know about funding rounds and not about revenues.&lt;p&gt;It&apos;s clear that the press would write about revenues if they could, because they write a lot about the revenues of public companies.  They&apos;re able to do that because public companies have to disclose their revenues.&lt;p&gt;Private companies never publish their revenues.  Including 37signals.  So if Jason really believes this is a terrible problem and wants to set things on the right course, he should set an example and start publishing 37signals&apos; revenue numbers.</text></item><item><author>whalesalad</author><text>&quot;I won’t name names. I used to name names. But I think all you have to do is read TechCrunch. Look at what the top stories are, and they’re all about raising money, how many employees they have, and these are metrics that don’t matter. What matters is: Are you profitable? Are you building something great? Are you taking care of your people? Are you treating your customers well? In the coverage of our industry as a whole, you’ll rarely see stories about treating customers well, about people building a sustainable business. TechCrunch to me is the great place to look to see the sickness in our industry right now.&quot;&lt;p&gt;I love this quote. It reflects my sentiments to a T.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>zhoutong</author><text>The press loves to talk about changes, because news only comes out when something changes. The timeless pieces only exist in opinions section.&lt;p&gt;In startup&apos;s context, fund raising is definitely a change, and revenue numbers &lt;i&gt;may&lt;/i&gt; be a change (when they are surprising or previously undisclosed). But building a sustainable business, treating customers well or even being profitable should be long-lasting and timeless. It&apos;s interesting to keep reading about these issues in Hacker News, but these are not exactly news.&lt;p&gt;It&apos;s like business fundamentals (&quot;common sense&quot;). The press never talks about them but it doesn&apos;t mean the industry doesn&apos;t care or doesn&apos;t treat them as important.</text></comment>