korrents
David Heinemeier Hansson

What David Heinemeier Hansson thinks about team size

@dhh · 154 positions · 10 changes of mind

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

Everything they publish, on ppll ↗

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. Or tell us what is wrong here.

5 dated positions, 2025 to 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what David Heinemeier Hansson has said — not written or endorsed by them.

  1. Our readingThe competitive threat to a small software company is a team of two or four working under the same constraints, never the behemoth.

    Their wordsI'm worried, and still am, about a team of two, about a team of four, because they will produce software that's competitive with ours because it comes out of the same constraints. And therefore, our threat doesn't come from the behemoth.

    ↗DHH: How to Build a Profitable Company Without Losing Controlyoutube.com 1st of 15 in this recording

    Interesting
  2. 12 months earlier

  3. Our readingMicroservices for a team of twenty on half a million lines of code is idiotic: the first rule of distributed programming is do not distribute your programming.

    Their wordsWhen you're at Netflix scale, when you apply that pattern to a team of 20 programmers working on a code base of half a million lines of code, you're an idiot. You just don't need to turn method invocations into network calls. It is the first rule of distributed programming. Do not distribute your programming.

    ↗DHH: Future of Programming, AI, Ruby on Rails, Productivity & Parenting | Lex Fridman Podcast #474youtube.com 15th of 36 in this recording

    Interesting

  5. Our readingA thousand programmers build the kind of software a thousand people build; Basecamp could never come out of that, and the breakthroughs come from individuals and tiny teams.

    Their wordsYou cannot produce the kind of software that Basecamp is with a team of a thousand people. You will build the kind of software that a thousand people builds. And that's not the same thing at all.

    ↗DHH: Future of Programming, AI, Ruby on Rails, Productivity & Parenting | Lex Fridman Podcast #474youtube.com 20th of 36 in this recording

    Interesting

  7. Our readingThe default team is two people, one programmer and one designer, on one feature; at that size you can just do instead of plan.

    Their wordsour default team size is two. One programmer, one designer, one feature. When you're operating at that level of scale, you don't need sophistication. You don't need advanced methodologies.

    ↗DHH: Future of Programming, AI, Ruby on Rails, Productivity & Parenting | Lex Fridman Podcast #474youtube.com 21st of 36 in this recording

    design

    Interesting

  9. Our readingThe way to stay small is never to take other people's money: the moment you do, they want the largest return, and the enterprise playbook follows.

    Their wordsBecause the problem isn't just venture capital, it's other people's money. Once you take other people's money, completely understandably, they want a return and they would prefer to have the largest return possible.

    ↗DHH: Future of Programming, AI, Ruby on Rails, Productivity & Parenting | Lex Fridman Podcast #474youtube.com 22nd of 36 in this recording

    startupsventure capital

    Interesting