David Heinemeier Hansson
Creator of Ruby on Rails, CTO of 37signals, and creator of Omarchy.
David Heinemeier Hansson did not write this page. We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it.
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29 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsOmarchy is not going to adopt a formal Code of Conduct because those turned out to be struggle-session processes in the last turning. But we are going to play nice. We're going to be courteous, professional, and composed in our direct interactions with users, competitors, and even haters. Because that's what's going to pave the path to the win.
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29 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsBut if you return fire with fire, the only thing that'll burn is our reputation. The troll who triggered you into flashing your teeth won't face any consequences, but every spectator who saw it will judge you.
- 2 days earlier
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27 Aug 2026
Our reading
Omarchy could reasonably switch its packaging system to Nix.
Their wordsMaybe Nix is like Rust: Amazing if you don't have to look at the code! I'm open to the idea that Omarchy Cinque could switch packaging system if I never have to look at nixlang, there are no ergonomic regressions, and we have full repo sovereignty.
- 1 day earlier
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsI love this quote. I think it's Lenin. There are decades where nothing happens and weeks where decades happen. And we have seen decades of progress happen in the last nine months.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsThen we get to November 24th, 2025. Opus 4.5, to me, was the dividing line, where suddenly... I didn't even try it on the 24th. I think I tried it on the 26th. I give it a couple of tasks, and I realize that the quality of the output is uncannily close to what I would've written.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsSo the irony here is that when you look at that field, it seems like we've reached levels of intelligence that virtually no human can match because many of these security holes are about stringing combo moves together. You find one little vulnerability here that by itself might not be the worst thing in the world, but then you combine it with four others, and suddenly you have RCE, remote command execution. Humans who are able to do that are very rare.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsAnd we ended up with a lot of PRs that individually perhaps could have been justified for a hot moment, taken all together, destroyed the architecture of the system. And we actually had to clean up manually, mop it up by hand, by human hand, to get back to an architecture that felt cohesive and coherent.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsThe revelation I've had working on Omarchy the last three months is that to get that magical 10X, 100X, in a few rare cases, 1000X productivity boost, you have to interact with the agents directly, and you cannot intermediate that bandwidth with another human because it's simply too slow.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsThe other thing I'd say is that most organizations don't know what they want. They don't know how to make it better. They're not bottlenecked on implementation. They're bottlenecked on ideas. They're bottlenecked on vision. They're bottlenecked on taste. And if you don't have those element in excess of your implementational capacity, it doesn't help. So you can make a lot of shitty ideas come true, then what?
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsAnd maybe you won't get to 100% coverage, but this is the old joke about Microsoft Office. "I only use 5%." Yeah, well, we all use a different 5%. Well, what if we all just build our own 5%? What if I just took the functionality that I need and just did that? That is a completely different challenge and one agents are incredibly capable of doing right now, today, and I've done it a lot of times over.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsBut it actually means that if you take the median programmer and their pull requests towards an average open source project, they're already getting outclassed by agents. I would rather get an agent-written pull request to one of my projects than I'd get one written by a human, and it's not just because the quality's better. It's also because I feel a lot less bad if I just reject it.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
This is the best time there has ever been to be an open source maintainer.
Their wordsSo, in my opinion, this is the absolute best time to ever have been an open source software maintainer. Not only do we get this wealth of glorious pull requests made by agents with all the boxes ticked, we also get to tap into a creativity of people who did not have access to contribute to a project before.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsI'm not reviewing every pull request anymore. I haven't been reviewing them for quite some time now.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsAnd vibe coding, if we define it here, is you tell an agent to build software for you. You do not look at the implementation. That, to me, is what separates vibe coding from programming or, let's say, agent-accelerated development.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsThe reason I say that is there's a lot of programmers who are not very good product managers. Software is product management. What should it do? Who should it do it for? How should it do it? How should it look? What are our priorities? What do we start with first? What does version one include? All of those skills are not easily or equally distributed across all programmers.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsit was actually being damaged by overly prescriptive humans. And any programmer who's had a pointy-haired boss knows exactly what that is like. When the boss walks into the room, doesn't know anything, starts telling you how to program, how to code. What do you do? You sulk. You write shittier code if you're mandated to do things that are against your better judgment. Why would an agent not be the same?
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsNo one was happy. Because no one knows what they want until they receive it. You don't know what a program should do until you play with it. So in the agentic age, you should resist the temptation to be overly specific upfront. Be as vague as you can to manifest something, then interact with the something. The way you arrive at good software is you write a little bit of software, and then you try to use it. It is in the process of using software that you discover what you really want.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsThat was premised on humans doing the modifications. I think it is an open question to which degree this still matters. Now, it does matter, and the reason I say that, at least for the moment, is that tokens are still scarce. At this moment in time, we are all token limited.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsI think you're gonna have a hard time coping with the new reality if the only thing you loved about programming was the mechanical bits of putting the right logical constructs together to produce something other people told you to produce. Because that mechanical process is under threat. If you are, as you just mentioned, excited about building things, I don't think you're under threat at all.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsThis is very important because in the abstract, I think everyone says, "Yay, productivity. That's good." What did you think, this was all just vibes? No. Productivity means fewer people to do the same number or the same job. Now, the amount of job you want done may increase, and therefore you get more people, but it also may not.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsAnd I think what we're seeing right now with some of the layoffs is a testament to that, not AI. It's just that during the pandemic, a bunch of overhiring went on, and now AI is a convenient excuse to slim down. But I do also think AI is going to expose some roles as just not being productive ways for humans to spend their time, and therefore we must come up with new ways of spending their time.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsDon't try to anticipate anything. You will literally go crazy. Because even the smartest brains in the business cannot anticipate what two model hops from here is going to look like. It's an absolute waste of time, and you will develop an AI psychosis trying to deduce what two years from now is gonna look like. Focus on right now, and right now is the most incredible time to be into computers.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsThere's not any accumulation, which is in some ways a great relief.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsIt is an infuriatingly locked-down computer. Now, to Apple's credit, it's a pretty good computer for being locked down, but I don't want a locked-down computer. I wanna own my computer. Better yet, I wanna mutate my computer, and this is where the agentic age needs a new operating system. When you can vibe code whatever app comes to your mind, you should be able to vibe code your operating system.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsLinux conquered everything else. All the AI infrastructure that everyone runs off, it's all running on Linux. All the systems, all the servers, everything is Linux. So it was kind of a curiosity that the desktop and the personal computers we were using really hadn't been captured, but clearly it was just waiting for this moment. Linux spent the time from '91 to now waiting for agents to fully flourish as an end user operating system.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
In most domains agents are now better than humans at finding bugs.
Their wordsAnd this was with models we had six months ago. At this point, 100% in the majority of domains we work in today, agents are better at finding bugs.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsWhy are we surprised? Even if you're a good programmer, if you finish a job and you ask your also very good peer to review it, you're gonna end up with better code. Of course you're gonna end up with better code. So build that into your process.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsThere's both the charge that it's not deterministic and therefore bad, and also that it is not creative. It's one or the other, bro.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsSo we should also have the humility. As amazing as the LLMs are now, it could be that they eventually plateau. We haven't seen any evidence of it yet, and I think this is also why we're seeing this absolute gobsmacking levels of investment, because so far the scaling laws are true, and the more billions are poured in, the more intelligence comes out.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
The programming language is now English, and it is a more beautiful one than Ruby.
Their wordsThe language now is English. It's a cliche, but it's also true. Like I've been programming in English for the last three months. I've been reading a lot of code, but I'm programming in English. I'm telling the computer what to do, and I'm using natural language, and it is shockingly even more delightful. If there is one programming language more beautiful than Ruby, it is the English language.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
A sense of achievement in software survives writing almost none of the code yourself.
Their wordsSo it's strange because it's also perhaps the major software release that I've worked on the least in terms of lines of code. I have the least number of personally hand-chiseled lines of code in Quattro than I've had in any major release I've ever done. And yet, I am insanely proud of what we've accomplished.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsI think this is one of the great tragedies of the moment, is the falling birth rates are making it more difficult for people to be excited about a more prosperous future that is difficult to get to. Because if we're planting trees of which our children will not sit in the shades, I don't know, maybe we should just make some lumber and burn it all down, right? I think there's a nihilism that can sneak into society much more easily when we are not DNA invested in the future
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Creating life with another human you love is the peak experience of being on the planet.
Their wordsI'm excited about a lot of things. I love building things, and I love hobbies, and I love all sorts of stuff. But creating life with another human that you love is literally the peak experience of being on the planet.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
A human lifespan of about 90 to 100 years is right, and living forever is not something to want.
Their wordsI actually I do wanna die. I don't wanna do this forever. Like, I think the human li- lifespan of about 90 to 100 sounds about right. I'm embracing the finitude of life.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsAnd this is the myopia of modernity, that we reduce things down to like, well, one glass on this long run study meant that you had a 0.1% greater risk of some heart defect. Yes, but if you didn't live at all, what's the point?
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsCountries and peoples have a right to set an immigration policy, and this notion that we shouldn't have any borders or, or even worse than that, it's all just a blank slate, that all peoples are just the same, and we can take people from one place of the earth and we can place them in another place on the earth and everything's just gonna work out hunky-dory. Empirically not true.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsImmigration depends greatly on who immigrates. And a country benefits when the people who immigrate are net contributors to the society, and in most cases, that they assimilate with the local culture.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsSo I actually think liberals and conservatives should work together. I think the country would be much worse off if there's a complete separation between the tribes, and then there can't be any overlap or interaction. And I think that mingling is so much easier to do if you just don't focus on your differences all the time. Focus on what you like together.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsThe world would be so fucking boring if we constantly sought 100% compatibility in our opinions and in our politics. And when it comes to my code generator, which is what Claude is, I don't need it to share all my politics.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Their wordsAnd I will say I've actually changed my mind on that a little bit. I spent quite a lot of time speaking the other book that there are a lot of people who don't actually need those ambitions. And I also-- That's also true. We don't want 8 billion Elons running around the world. Would be rather crazy, I think. But I've come to realize that for entrepreneurs, it's healthy to have suitable chunky goals.
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26 Aug 2026
Our reading
Fable is the best AI model in general right now, and Opus 5 is the second best.
Their wordsBut to answer your question, the best model in general right now is Fable. The second-best model, in my opinion, is Opus 5.
- 3 months earlier
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1 Jun 2026
Our reading
Their wordsAgents aren't perfect, slop is a problem, but giving more people the power to enjoy malleable computers is undoubtedly a huge win for the founding vision of open source.
- 10 months earlier
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31 Jul 2025
Our reading
An executive's empty calendar is a feature, not laziness: availability is what the job requires.
Their wordsWide open calendars should not be seen as lazy, but as intentional availability.
- 3 months earlier
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28 Apr 2025
Our reading
Their wordsGoogle should not get away with rigging the online ad market, but forcing it to sell Chrome will do great damage to the web.
- 4 days earlier
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24 Apr 2025
Our reading
Their wordsHowever good AI gets, we're always going to need people who know the ins and outs of what the machine comes up with.
- 2 weeks earlier
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7 Apr 2025
Our reading
Universal basic income is at most a small part of the answer to AI-driven job loss.
Their wordsThe purpose of work is not just about earning your keep, but also about earning a purpose and a place in the world.
- 6 months earlier
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17 Oct 2024
Our reading
Their wordsFor 2024, we've brought the cloud bill down from the original $3.2 million/year run rate to $1.3 million. That's a saving of almost two million dollars per year for our setup!
↗Our cloud-exit savings will now top ten million over five yearsworld.hey.com
- 5 months earlier
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16 May 2024
Our reading
Their wordsUsing open source software does not entitle you to a vote on the direction of the project. The gift you've received is the software itself and the freedom of use granted by the license.
↗Open source is neither a community nor a democracyworld.hey.com
- 8 months earlier
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6 Sept 2023
Our reading
Their wordsTypeScript just gets in the way of that for me. Not just because it requires an explicit compile step, but because it pollutes the code with type gymnastics that add ever so little joy to my development experience, and quite frequently considerable grief.
- 3 months earlier
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8 Jun 2023
Our reading
Their wordsI say, do or do not. Hybrid is a cop-out.
↗Hybrid combines the worst of office and remote workworld.hey.com
- 4 weeks earlier
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8 May 2023
Our reading
Their wordsLet's be real here. The modern world we live in was designed and executed from an office. It's a perfectly legitimate way of working.
- 7 months earlier
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19 Oct 2022
Our reading
Their wordsIt's finally time to conclude: Renting computers is (mostly) a bad deal for medium-sized companies like ours with stable growth.
- 10 months earlier
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13 Dec 2021
Our reading
Their wordsNow, I’m not saying that there’s something categorically wrong with developing open source on market-based terms. What I’m saying is that it isn’t a necessary condition of sustainability.