Why It Ranks #89
The most prescient business book of the 2010s. Fried and DHH were right about remote work years before the pandemic proved it, and their practical framework for making it work is more relevant than ever.
The Review
Fried and DHH made the case for remote work seven years before COVID-19 forced the world to try it. Remote argues that the office is a fundamentally broken environment for knowledge work — full of interruptions, commutes, and enforced synchronous communication that destroys productivity. The book provides specific tactics for making remote work effective, from asynchronous communication to overlap hours to results-based management.
Key Takeaways
- 1The office is where work goes to die — interruptions and meetings destroy deep work
- 2Asynchronous communication respects everyone's time and produces better thinking than real-time chat
- 3Manage by results, not by presence — if you cannot tell someone is working without watching them, your management is broken
- 4Remote work is not about working from home — it is about working from anywhere
Fun Facts
- •Basecamp has been fully remote since its founding — Fried and DHH have practiced this for over 20 years
- •The book was published in 2013 but saw a massive sales spike in March 2020 when COVID hit
- •DHH lives in Spain while Fried lives in Chicago — they run the company across time zones
Book Details
Remote by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson
Pages
256
Goodreads Rating
3.85/5
Copies Sold
500K+
First Published
2013
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