OMG! I just have unheard that any CEO can care that much about his people, at least in India in SMB segment. It is very rare example that Joel is setting himself .Being a great guy, he knows what best programmers want and how to keep them forever.
I wish many of Indian company CEO’s should read how he had built his office here and here. I am stunned about this man’s business model.Look what he says about his business model..
“That’s our business model. Nice offices, smart programmers, great products, profit.”
What a great business model, straight and simple!
One of the great things about Joel is he knows what people want … look at the way he describes the picture of a construction client and their architects…
“Like many architects who do a lot of commercial work, they were thrilled to finally have a client ask for something other than cheap. These poor architects get out of grad school, imagining all the creative, artistic spaces they will design, and they get their first clients, and they sit down for a meeting, and they start talking about negative space and permeability and modernism, and the clients cut them off and say, “Actually, we want cheap.”
And the architects say, “How about if I design something nice and cheap?”
And the clients say, “No. Not nice. Not nice and cheap. Just cheap.” “
Is it true in software industry too? I really love to find and work with the exceptional business people who have Joel’s attitude as a client. Off course, people will try to meet the ends of the earth for such a client and in true sense this is Win-Win relationship and there emerges the great product in many respects profit, people and market reputation.
There is one quote, I remember, in Craig Larman’s book [Applying UML & patterns] on UML patterns that says “Fast, Cheap, good choose any two.”
