David Heinemeier Hansson

On January 20, 2025, DHH published a blog post praising Trump's return to the presidency, writing that 'the majority of Americans are optimistic about the prospect' and describing the moment as 'exhilarating.' He contrasted American confidence favorably with European pessimism. This followed earlier anti-DEI blog posts in 2023 that led Duke University Libraries to drop Basecamp.

In April 2021, Basecamp/37signals co-founders announced a ban on societal political discussions in company tools and dissolved the DEI advisory council. The changes followed the discovery of a list of 'funny customer names' maintained by employees. Approximately one-third of the company (20+ of 58 employees) accepted buyout packages and left, including the heads of design, marketing, and customer support.

David Heinemeier Hansson testified before the House Antitrust Subcommittee and Senate about Apple and Google's monopoly power over app distribution. He stated the internet had been 'colonized by a handful of big tech companies that wield their monopoly power without restraint.' He also submitted documentation to EU member states and spoke with EU regulators about App Store competition.

In November 2019, DHH posted a viral thread exposing that the Apple Card algorithm gave him a credit limit 20x higher than his wife's despite her having a longer credit history and higher credit score. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak confirmed similar disparity. The New York State Department of Financial Services launched an investigation into Goldman Sachs and the Apple Card program as a result.

David Heinemeier Hansson created Ruby on Rails in 2004 and released it as open source software. Rails became one of the most influential web frameworks, popularizing conventions like MVC architecture and 'convention over configuration.' It spawned an enormous open source ecosystem and was used to build early versions of Twitter, GitHub, Shopify, and Airbnb.