Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Enjoy Baking


I love this quote from Ian MacKaye, as quoted by Salon.com, as quoted by the 37 signals guys in Getting Real:

The bakery
American business at this point is really about developing an idea, making it profitable, selling it while it’s profitable and then getting out or diversifying. It’s just about sucking everything up. My idea was: Enjoy baking, sell your bread, people like it, sell more. Keep the bakery going because you’re making good food and people are happy.
–Ian MacKaye, member of Fugazi and co-owner of Dischord Records
( from Salon.com People | Ian MacKaye)


I enjoy baking (software). I think if you are running a services company- you basically have to like it. Now that we've built up our little business to a fair number of people on staff, why would we sell it so that everyone could go back to working for a big company that didn't appreciate them? I'd rather buy up someone else's business.

4 comments:

Ryan.Arp said...

Ian MacKaye is now getting airtime on Salon.com? Wow..how far our straightedge, punkrock heroes have come!

Matt, I have to agree with your statement, growing a business that you enjoy is fun, GIS is fun, and making people happy with maps is very rewarding. Is it really wrong though to turn a profit from selling out (or buying in, haha). Mr. MacKaye has been preachy all his life, but I think in this case he's referring to growing Dischord Records which has always been modest in its growth but has a rather solid following (just like the people that follow Fugazi). Very cool post!

Matt McKnight said...

Yeah, I really admire how they did Dischord. I especially admired it when I was broke and their cassettes and CDs cost less than just about anyone else. Also, their policy of only doing all ages shows was very cool for a teenager.

A guy I know actually lived in the positive force house in Arlington with a bunch of those guys.

fun days.

said...

That is MIGHTY FINE lookin' bread you got there.

Stay on Groovin' Safari,
TOR

Ryan.Arp said...

Positive Force house, that's pretty old school! I was introduced accidentally to straightedge in the early 90's by a dutch exchange student who gave me a tape with four walls falling, uniform choice and bold on it.

My brother, who's done a lot of more new (haha, it's old now) hardcore screamo stuff with a band and a sort of music co-op is putting up a site with all his old flyers, recordings and video on it (he ran a club in Chandler called the Vault). I'll keep you posted.