The REWORK podcast

Babies at Work

We talk to two very different small businesses about their Babies at Work programs, where new parents can have their infants with them at the office. With COVID sending so many office workers home—and pushing women out of the workforce altogether—acknowledging employees’ whole selves is more important than ever. The companies in today’s episode talk about how they’ve adapted their programs for a work-from-home-during-a-pandemic reality.
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Privacy Scavenger Hunt

Imagine a corporate privacy policy on a website that was actually comprehensible and written by and for human beings. We talk to companies who have done just this, and what it means to build a business that has respect for privacy baked in from the outset. We also talk to a researcher who’s witnessed the difficulty of navigating online privacy settings.
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Return to Mojito Island

We do a quick check-in with Basecamp CEO Jason Fried about what he’s been up to since launching HEY in June. He talks about running the company as the pandemic stretches on, the importance of not making promises, and learning to swim.
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Greetings from Mojito Island

Basecamp co-founder and CTO David Heinemeier Hansson has been on a not-totally-intended sabbatical from both work and Twitter, and on an entirely intended break from living in the U.S. He checks in from Europe to talk about how he’s managing his time off as the boss, and what developments back at Basecamp briefly pulled him back into work.
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Selling Burnout with Anne Helen Petersen

Culture writer Anne Helen Petersen, author of the new book Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation, comes on the show to talk about how the real estate agents of the reality show Selling Sunset embody toxic ideas around work, passion, and career success. Along the way, Anne and Wailin discuss Christine’s outfits, how they can’t tell Brett and Jason apart, that $40 million listing, and more!
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Something's Broken

Basecamp recently suffered three outages in a week. Programming lead Jeremy Daer and director of operations Troy Toman come on the show to discuss their approach to customer communication around these kinds of incidents. They talk about public accountability, mental health, and why the human side of incident response is just as critical as the technical details. (Read Jeremy’s post and Troy’s post on Signal v. Noise.)
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Farewell, West Loop

Basecamp has closed its physical office after a 10-year run in Chicago’s West Loop area. In this episode, we say good-bye to the neighborhood and two of its businesses. J.P. Graziano and un-cooked are small, family-owned restaurants on either side of the longevity spectrum: Jim Graziano is the fourth-generation owner of an Italian food importer-turned-sandwich shop, and Jeremy Jones opened his vegan grab-and-go place with his mother and wife in July. Jim and Jeremy talk about weathering the pandemic as independent restaurant owners.
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Exit to Community

A group of startup founders, investors, and thinkers are reimagining corporate ownership to take into account all of the people who help build the business—not just executives and investors, but customers, users, and suppliers. Their vision for Exit to Community is outlined in this zine, and two of its authors come on Rework to talk about their vision for a more equitable and inclusive end game for tech startups.
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Apps Without Code

We’re back from our August hiatus! To kick things off, we have a conversation with Tara Reed, the CEO of Apps Without Code. She started an online art advising business without knowing how to code, and that early success led to an entire company and educational program that teaches others how to do the same. Tara talks about her career, the tools she uses, and why she hates the term “non-technical founder.”
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The Email That Changed My Life

Basecamp probably wouldn’t exist today if not for an email that David Heinemeier Hansson sent Jason Fried in 2001. That correspondence was the beginning of a partnership that produced Basecamp, several books, and most recently HEY, the company’s new email service. This episode is our love letter to email. Hear from David and Jason, as well as other artists, writers, and founders about the emails that changed their lives.
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