David Heinemeier Hansson - The 'Post-SaaS' Era: Is Software Distribution About to Change?

**David Heinemeier Hansson** (0:01)
It's not 2004 anymore. There are new ways of distributing software. There are new ways of selling software. And perhaps some of those ways of selling software will not include subscriptions.
And I think that is a really fascinating area. I think it's something where a lot of SaaS companies are actually terribly vulnerable if a competitor enters the space that is not built on a recurring business model like SaaS is. And I think that's gonna be one of the frontiers in the next decade.

**Haydn Brain** (0:36)
Welcome, David. It's great to have you on the show. How are things?

**David Heinemeier Hansson** (0:38)
Good, good. Thanks for having me on.

**Haydn Brain** (0:41)
Yeah, no worries at all. Looking forward to speaking to you. So anyone that's listened to Opto Sessions before will know that we kick off with an intro question that won't necessarily flow chronologically, but it will give a little teaser as to the content that we hope to cover further down the interview. And that question this time around is, if you had to narrow it down to one thing, give us one of the most important traits or characteristics that you look for in a business.

**David Heinemeier Hansson** (1:05)
Oh, that's a good one. Well, I think I like to look at businesses in terms of who runs them. And if you're looking at who runs them, you got to look at what drives them. And at least as I found, the kind of people who run businesses that I personally invested in, my own model, our circles, there has to be some intrinsic connection to what you're working on.
There are brilliant mercenaries out there who can make things happen and they don't care one hoot, which way or another, what domain it is, but I found that the kind of founders that are willing to go the long distance, not just the three years or the five years, but the ten or the twenty, have to have some intrinsic connection to the domain, some intrinsic motivation for that domain that's going to drive why they're so good at it, why they're better than the mercenaries that inevitably will show up if they have any type of success.

**Haydn Brain** (1:59)
Yeah, great. And I want to get on to a few of those points further down the line. But before we do, I think let's circle back and cover some of your background, just to introduce you to the listeners, anyone that hasn't heard of you and isn't familiar with your work.
I started, like I guess, where most people start with your Wikipedia page, which describes you as a Danish programmer and racing driver, two things that aren't typically found together. I think it's safe to say. So perhaps I can start by asking you to reflect, I suppose, on the synergies between those two pursuits. Like, how do those two things come together and what do you think that says about you as a person?

**David Heinemeier Hansson** (2:32)
Yes, it's interesting. I got into race car driving quite late in life. I didn't get my driver's license until I was 25 and I did not sit in a racing car until I was 27 But after I had sat in that racing car at 27, I just became absolutely obsessed with figuring the system out.
And in that regard, it is quite equal to programming in that it's more or less a closed system. You have a racetrack that might go two minutes and you get a verdict every two minutes as to whether you improve the system or not. Whether the inputs that you delivered as a driver or the tire choice that you made or the engineering or the preparation, that all that was correct. And I think programming has a lot of the similar characteristics if you look at complicated systems and you're trying to figure out why a bug is happening, you're trying to make the system go faster, you're trying to make it more appealing.
It is a bit of a closed loop and it's certainly systems thinking. And it's an optimization effort to get the best out of the materials that you have or figure out which of those materials that you have that simply aren't good enough that you need to replace them. And I think this is why when I look at programming, I don't just look at like, let's make some code. I also look at what team is making that code, what company is making that code, what are the other structures around that we could improve if we're not making good enough code. But race car driving, of course, also just has this phenomenal ability to transcend you into the magic place of flow.