What Business Can Learn from Open Source

Paul Graham’s essay What Business Can Learn from Open Source identifies three major lessons from the open source movement.

1. People Work Harder on Things They Enjoy

Motivation matters more than companies acknowledge. Unlike traditional business models rooted in the word “travail” (torture), successful projects emerge when individuals pursue work they find meaningful.

“People working for love often surpass those working for money”—Firefox’s superiority over Internet Explorer despite Microsoft’s greater resources.

2. Standard Office Environments Reduce Productivity

The traditional office setup paradoxically decreases output. “Facetime” requirements force unproductive meetings and fragment attention.

Startups working from apartments often outperform companies with expensive offices. Informality and flexibility enhance actual work quality.

3. Bottom-Up Organization Outperforms Top-Down Control

Allowing ideas and quality control to emerge organically produces superior results. Open source benefits from distributed improvement. Blogs demonstrate that decentralized creation generates better content than editorial gatekeeping.

Broader Implications

These principles indicate a fundamental shift toward investment-based arrangements where individuals pursue their own projects.

What has open source taught you about work? I’d love to hear at persdre@gmail.com.