This morning I get into the office and there’s an envelope addressed to me sitting on my desk.
The return address says “Horowitz”, Physics Dept, Cambridge, MA. I don’t know a Horowitz, but it looks like a Harvard address, so I’m intrigued.
I open it up.
Inside I find an article from The Astrophysical Journal, published in 1993. The authors are Paul Horowitz and Carl Sagan.
At the top there’s a handwritten note, signed Paul Horowitz. And on the first page there’s a highlight behind “37 candidate events”.
People have often asked us what 37signals means. Our original web site explained the origin of the name.
And now, because of the generosity of Paul Horowitz himself, we have a signed copy of the actual article where the 37 signals were first mentioned. Here’s a PDF of the article if you’d like to browse the whole thing.
What an unexpected and wonderful surprise, and another great example of unrelated events coming together to produce something you never expected.
Jason Fried wrote this on Aug 27 2012 There are 18 comments.
Matt Henderson 27 Aug 12
Another dot in the string of connections.
Jeff 27 Aug 12
That… Is awesome.
Benjy 27 Aug 12
How cool!
Jerry 27 Aug 12
The most interesting thing I found in this post was how Horowitz stapled the article.
jared 27 Aug 12
That is really cool.
Jason 27 Aug 12
This is really cool :)
@Jerry: that is a standard stapling format from a large copier with auto-staple such as the ones in common use in a university, or at least we had many in grad school that stapled just like that
Levi Figueira 27 Aug 12
This makes me feel all warm and fuzzy! Awesome! :)
Sebastián 27 Aug 12
Qué grosso
Dale Cruse 28 Aug 12
That’s great!
There used to be a web shop here in MA called 3000K. I thought the name maybe had something to do with strikeouts but it turns out 3000K is the ambient temperature of the universe. Cool.
Katherine Dale 28 Aug 12
Horowitz is a real dude, nice.
Devan 28 Aug 12
Nice! Although I believe since then, more ‘candidate events’ have been discovered… Time to ‘upgrade’ the company name to keep up? :P
tabascoafro 28 Aug 12
Awesome post. Long life Paul Horowitz and 37 signals!
Nic 28 Aug 12
Oh, and for anyone in that field, Paul’s book (with Winfield Hill) titled “The Art of Electronics” is a classic.
Michael Schein 28 Aug 12
This post just gave me a warm little feeling inside.
eric long 30 Aug 12
I hope you send him a 37 signals t-shirt
John Kim 01 Sep 12
How awesome is this?! I’ve been following 37 signals, it’s the reason I am in the SaaS business, I remember reading the first keep it real book many times, yesterday I saw the NYT piece from the CEO himself and was so inspired.
Let us move on to create true innovation that benefits mankind and everyone live in an increased enriched life! Engineering solutions with heart, sustainable and socially responsive business!
Yeah!
Javier 01 Sep 12
37 comments so far in the “connecting the dots” article. lol.
ek 03 Sep 12
That is f#*king awesome! Did you show Carlos?
Sometimes, the world can be so incredibly cool … even cosmic, you might say. ;-)
- e
This discussion is closed.