Built for what follows work.

Minnowsoft is a technology company. We apply artificial intelligence to the methods of productivity, and to the experiences that make a day worth having. Our instruments raise what one person can do, and go on raising it, so that the time they save is time given back. We build products for the transition to post-work, and for the life that follows.

Three colleagues standing in conversation at a long table in a room of tall windows. — The kind of room we like to work in.

Why we’re doing this

For as long as anyone alive can remember, paid work has been the thing that gave a day its shape. That is changing, and artificial intelligence will change it faster. We think of this as a transition rather than a crisis, and transitions go better for the people who have prepared for them. We have been preparing for some time.

So we do two kinds of work. We build instruments that let a few people accomplish a great deal, and we build products for the hours that this gives back, so that they are well spent. The gain is meant to compound. Each year a person should finish more in less of their day, and the time that comes back is the whole reason for the second kind of work.

We use the instruments on our own work before we offer them to anyone, and we try to say little about what is not yet built.

Hosh

hosh@minnowsoft.com

What we do

Our work falls into three parts: one that returns time, and two that put it to use. The first compounds: a person working with our instruments should be more productive this year than last, and keep more of the day for themselves. Each part is run for the long term, and each serves the same transition.

Two people at work over ruled paper, drawings and measuring instruments on a wooden desk.

Productivity instruments

Tools and methods that raise what one person can do, and go on raising it.

Productivity is a method before it is a tool. We study how work is actually done, and build the instruments and programs that let it be done by fewer people, more carefully, and with less waste. The unit we measure is the individual: one person, working with what we build, should carry more each quarter than the last without a longer day. We use the methods on our own work first, and offer them to others only once they have proven themselves. What they return is time, and time is the whole of the matter.

Measurement of work
Delegation to systems
Methods proven internally

An older man and a young woman preparing a meal together at a sunlit kitchen counter.

The shape of a day

Productivity tools for a life run on one’s own account rather than an employer’s.

The hours the first part gives back have to go somewhere. When paid work stops organizing the day, something else has to. We build the ordinary instruments of self-direction: for time and attention, for a household, for money and obligations, and for the small administration that falls to a person when no institution is doing it for them. The aim is a day that holds its shape without supervision, whether the time returned is an afternoon a week or the whole of it.

Time and attention
Household and obligations
Plans kept without an employer

Two people at a small table by a window, one speaking and one listening closely.

Experiences worth having

Learning, craft, company, and the ordinary business of being useful to others.

A day given shape still has to be worth living. We build for the experiences that keep their value when no salary is attached to them: learning with no examination at the end of it, a craft pursued for its own sake, company and counsel, and the ordinary business of being useful to others. These are not products for leisure. They are products for a life.

Learning without examination
Craft and mastery
Company and usefulness

The transition

The share of daily life organized by paid work has been falling for a century, and artificial intelligence will carry it much further. We don’t think the question is whether, but how, and how well. It is the central fact in our planning, and has been for some time.

We build for both halves of the change. For the transition itself, the instruments by which work is done with fewer hands and less waste, and by which one person’s productivity rises year after year. Every hour they return is a piece of the road laid in advance, so that post-work is arrived at gradually, and on the person’s own terms, rather than all at once and on someone else’s. For the life after, the products by which a day is given shape without an employer to give it one, and made worth having. Neither is finished. Both are in hand.

City rooftops at first light, with fog lying in the streets. — The city before the working day.

Principles

A few commitments that do not change with circumstance.

Long horizons.: We plan in decades, and accept that much of what we build will not be judged for years.
Continuity.: The company is arranged so that its work outlasts any one person, product or period.
Regard for the person.: Our products are made to serve the person who uses them, not only the party that paid for them.
Work before words.: We would rather build the thing and let it speak, and we say little about what is not yet built.
Restraint.: We do only what we can do well, and decline the rest without regret.

How we work

The way we work has settled, over time, into a few habits.

Small senior teams.: Our work is done by small groups of experienced people who are given the whole of a problem and the time to see it through.
Ownership from end to end.: We design, build and operate our own products, together with the foundations beneath them, which compound from one product to the next.
Decisions on evidence.: Every product is instrumented from its first day, and we decide on what we have measured rather than on what we hope.
Kept running.: Products enter service early and are then maintained, attended to, and kept running under load for as long as they are needed.

Write to us

If any of this is close to what you are working on, or you would simply like to know more, write to Hosh. Every message is read by a person, and answered.

hosh@minnowsoft.com