Creator of Ruby on Rails, CTO of 37signals, and creator of Omarchy.

• Our reading nowkorrents.com

  Ruby on Rails took off because its creator evangelized it by arguing its superiority against the competing alternatives.

  Ruby on Rails

  On changing their mind

  And for a long time, I thought that's what had worked. That this was why Ruby on Rails took off, became one of the most popular full-stack web frameworks of all time, inspired countless clones, and created hundreds of billions in enterprise value for companies built on it. But I was wrong. It wasn't the crusade that did it.

Dutch bootstrapper who builds and runs their internet startups alone — Nomads.com, Remote OK, Hoodmaps, Photo AI and Interior AI — and has written about it at levels.io since 2013. Posts as @levelsio.

• Usesrcmnd.app

  Widgy

  Their words

  You can import the 2nd pic into Widgy to install it to your Apple Watch

  levels.io

Creator of Ruby on Rails, CTO of 37signals, and creator of Omarchy.

• Our reading nowkorrents.com

  Cryptocurrency deserves to be dismissed: its problems outweigh its promise, and the trustless world it offers is not one worth wanting.

  crypto

  Their words, before

  One of the reasons I've never cared for crypto currencies is that the associated utopia of trustless society had zero appeal to me. I don't think the world is better off by erasing the need to trust in our transactional counterparts, so turning these transactions into pure computing always struck me as a regression.

  Their words now

  But wherever this leads us next, it's clear to me now that I was too hasty to completely dismiss crypto on the basis of all the things wrong with it at the moment. Instead of appreciating the fundamental freedom to transact that it's currently our best shot at protecting.

Creator of Ruby on Rails, CTO of 37signals, and creator of Omarchy.

• Our reading nowkorrents.com

  Open source projects should adopt the commercial software playbook to compete for attention, and that professionalization is unequivocally good for open source.

  open source

  On changing their mind

  I used to think that this was unequivocally a win for open source. That to fight for attention with the commercial alternatives, we had to adopt the commercial playbook. Now I think it’s at the very least a mixed blessing.

Creator of Ruby on Rails, CTO of 37signals, and creator of Omarchy.

• Our reading nowkorrents.com

  The complexity of a JavaScript bundling and transpiling toolchain is a bargain worth making, and the right default for building web applications.

  JavaScript

  On changing their mind

  Five years later, the facts on the ground have finally changed. I no longer believe that this bargain is worth it for most new applications.

Co-founder of Superlogical, started in 2026 to build server-side terminal infrastructure; creator of Ghostty. Co-founded HashiCorp and created Vagrant and Terraform before that.

• Usestheir ownrcmnd.app

  Vagrant

  Their words

  Vagrant, of course. I virtualize almost everything. Why do anything on your real computer when you can create a perfect sandboxed environment to do it instead?

  usesthis.com

• Lovedrcmnd.app

  iTerm2

  Their words

  I use iTerm2 as my terminal, I can’t live without the splits!

  usesthis.com

• Usesrcmnd.app

  Vim

  Their words

  While the software is running Vagrant, I edit text in vim.

  usesthis.com

Dutch bootstrapper who builds and runs their internet startups alone — Nomads.com, Remote OK, Hoodmaps, Photo AI and Interior AI — and has written about it at levels.io since 2013. Posts as @levelsio.

• Lovedrcmnd.app

  Black Mirror

  Their words

  Black Mirror is by far the best TV series I have seen in years. Production levels that are through the roof and features just absolutely insane writing and plot twists.

  levels.io