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Dedication
To M & A: I can’t wait to see what you build.

Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Foreword
It Begins with a Billboard
Part I: Why Developers Matter More Than Ever
Chapter 1: Build vs. Die
Chapter 2: The New Software Supply Chain
Part II: Understand and Motivate Your Developers
Chapter 3: Hi, I’m Jeff, and I’m a Developer
Chapter 4: Code Is Creative
Chapter 5: Experimentation Is The Prerequisite to
Innovation
Chapter 6: Recruiting and Hiring Developers
Part III: Making Your Developers Successful
Chapter 7: Creating an Open, Learning Environment
Chapter 8: Small Teams and Single-Threaded Leaders
Chapter 9: Wearing the Customers’ Shoes
Chapter 10: Demystifying Agile
Chapter 11: Invest in Infrastructure
Epilogue
Acknowledgments

About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher

Foreword
by Eric Ries
In the twenty-first century, every business is a digital business. Customers
have expectations of service and user experience based on the best digitally
enabled products out there. Eventually, they’ll have those expectations of
every company, no matter what the industry. What that means is that every
organization that hopes not just to survive but to succeed needs to
understand how to innovate by building software, and how to hire and
manage the people who build it.
I’ve spent the last decade helping all kinds of companies, from Silicon
Valley startups to Fortune 50 industrial behemoths, increase their chances of
building game-changing innovations by adopting the principles outlined in
my book The Lean Startup. As a result, I’ve often found myself trying to
explain the semiconductor revolution to leaders who don’t understand
software. Many still believe that this tsunami of disruption will somehow
bypass their business. I once worked with a group of senior leaders from
large hospital trade associations who were desperate to improve patient
experience, but throughout our time together they made excuses for why
that experience was so dismal. Nothing I said about using digital tools to
create the kind of transformation they were looking for got through to them.
Finally, I asked how many of them had used Uber or Lyft. When they all
said they had, I asked them to take their phones out of their pockets and
look at how those apps show there’s a car on the way and where it is. I

asked them to imagine what it would mean to the patient experience if a
patient knew the arrival time of the nurse or a doctor coming to their room
to help. Thanks to software, it’s just as easy to do that for medical staff as it
is for ride shares. Only the delusion that there’s no connection between
software and patient care prevents that from becoming the norm.
The digital revolution is fundamentally rewriting the rules of general
management. Software simultaneously lowers transaction costs, demolishes
barriers to entry, and accelerates the pace of change. Companies—and
institutions—that cannot cope with this pace and intensity will cease to be
relevant. There are few people in the world who are experienced both as
software developers and as business executives. That’s what makes Jeff so
unique: he has feet in both worlds. I’ve seen executives at great companies
unintentionally sabotage their own digital success by doing (and not doing)
things that disempower talent and kill innovation.
I once advised a company that made household products. They were
trying to figure out how to test a new product through a small pilot
program. I suggested creating a minimum viable product, an MVP in Lean
Startup terms, or a version of the product that’s good enough to allow a
company to collect useful feedback about its value from a small number of
consumers while still being fast and inexpensive to create. The idea was to
use the MVP to gather information as quickly as possible in order to
determine next steps in the development process. Normally, this company
would have to manufacture a huge quantity of the new product and test it
out in a few stores. However, in this case, there was already a lab up and
running that had made enough of it that team members were taking it home
every day because they liked it so much. This immediately presented itself
to me as an MVP opportunity. Instead of the team taking this stuff home,
they could give it to fifty customers to test and report back on.
To solve the issue of recruiting these customers and making sure they
were continuously supplied, I suggested they do the recruiting online, have
customers sign up for a subscription, and then provide them with the ability
to text the pilot team when they needed more product. I emphasized that
this was a perfect example of how software can enable speed accelerations
and cost reductions that give companies an advantage in the marketplace.
The idea that the team could set up this kind of system quickly and use it to
get crucial information about how to make their product more marketable

seemed like nothing less than a magic trick to them. But it’s not magic. It’s
what Twilio does every day for thousands of companies.
Here’s another tale. A major corporation I was working with had a CEO
excited about digital transformation and providing customers with online
browsing and ordering, something this industry had never done before.
They launched an in-house startup to build an experimental website, helmed
by a super-motivated junior team with no prestige or resources at their
disposal, but a ton of commitment to building this MVP. The catch was they
had no idea how to build a website or write software. They were in a
completely nontechnological field. First, they went to the company’s IT
department for help, which refused them because this crazy project wasn’t
part of its purview. Next, they explored hiring an outside agency to do the
site, but that was too expensive. Eventually, they recruited a designer, with
a budding desire to write code, to take on the project—but that created new
problems. Designers weren’t “allowed” to write code at this company.
This example showed me that even with CEO support and a hungry team,
it still takes a lot of work to set up those teams for success. It starts with
having the right players on the field and then empowering them to make
progress. Ask Your Developer can help companies translate CEO
enthusiasm and raw talent into what they’re actually looking for—a
superior customer experience achieved through digital transformation.
Those that embrace the full potential of their employees will reap outsized
rewards in the years and decades to come.
I’ve had the privilege of watching what Jeff Lawson and his
extraordinary team at Twilio have built unfold in real time as it has been
integrated into our world in countless ways that we never stop to consider.
Jeff’s long-term vision for the company and his skill at bringing together
incredibly talented people are the reasons that so much of the hidden
infrastructure our lives now run on works seamlessly and elegantly. Twilio
is what allows you to text your Uber driver or order a pizza online. It’s built
into Hulu and Twitter and Salesforce to help with communication and
information sharing. It plays roles in the real estate industry and health care,
as well as numerous nonprofits and relief organizations. It’s helping
businesses that never imagined themselves as digital companies make
extraordinary transformations and grow under intense pressure to evolve or
face their own demise.

Ask Your Developer begins with why it’s so important to actually
understand what well-crafted software can make possible. It’s that initial
leap of imagination that allows leaders to understand the value of software
developers. From there, it explains why even if a company hires talented
coders, making good use of them is an impossibility without good
management to help them realize their full potential. Every company needs
to employ people who have the skills to help them build things in order to
grow and transform, but they also need to be willing to listen to them about
what has to happen in order to reap the full benefit of what they have to
offer.
As Jeff details, it’s destructive for leaders to sit atop an organization far
removed from the people who make its interfaces and user experience
work. Building a structure and methodology for ideas to flow not just down
but up the hierarchy, as well as across different areas of the organization, is
critical not only to survive but also to thrive. Having worked with a large
number of companies undergoing digital transformation, I’ve seen over and
over again that the ones that did this kind of management transformation
before rather than after they attempted digital transformation were more
successful at it. This book is essential reading to drive a mutual
understanding between managers and company leaders and the software
developers they employ so that together they can successfully navigate
extreme uncertainty.
Ask Your Developer makes a compelling case for the centrality of
software and its uses, and it also offers practical advice for people looking
to build the next generation of companies at every level. Jeff’s native
understanding of what software makes possible, along with his deep
knowledge of why organizations attempting digital transformation often run
into trouble, is a powerful combination. This book will be key for anyone
who knows that digital is critical to their future but doesn’t have all the
answers for how to get there. It should also be handed to anybody who
thinks they’re in the clear because they don’t run a digital business, in order
to help them confront why that simply isn’t true and begin to understand
what they need to in order to transform.
There couldn’t be a more critical time for Jeff’s wisdom, experience, and
perspective to reach a broad audience, from new startups to enterprise
companies on the verge of reinvention, from management to the developers
they need in order to thrive. Ask Your Developer is an essential resource for

understanding the connection between software, the people who build it,
and the value they offer in building and transforming the organizations we
need in the age of digital disruption.

Prologue
It Begins with a Billboard
In early 2015, Twilio rented a billboard in San Francisco beside Route 101.
Tech-company billboards have become part of the landscape in the Bay
Area, like movie billboards in Los Angeles. Partly it’s about building brand
awareness, and partly it’s a recruiting tactic, a way to be seen by thousands
of engineers on their way to work. There’s also a bit of super-geek one-
upmanship involved, since we all try to come up with something clever, like
an inside joke or a reference to something that only Silicon Valley will
understand.
So we reserved the billboard. The problem was we couldn’t figure out
what to say on that billboard. We were having these huge debates. Some
people said we should get customer testimonials. We could put up logos
from well-known companies that use our cloud communications platform.
That would at least address our biggest challenge, which was that we were a
successful business that nobody had heard of. At the time, we did about
$100 million in annual revenue, and were on the path toward our initial
public offering (IPO), yet we weren’t a household name. That’s because
Twilio does not sell products to consumers. We sell a service to software
developers that lets their apps communicate with voice, SMS, email, and
more. We have amazing customers—Uber, WhatsApp, Lyft, Zendesk,
OpenTable, Nordstrom, Nike. But our software hides under the covers,
inside websites and mobile apps. In fact, you’ve undoubtedly used Twilio,

without knowing it, if you’re a customer of any of those companies or
thousands more like them.
So having committed half a million dollars to reserve the billboard for a
year (yeah, even billboard real estate in the Bay Area is overpriced!), we
needed to come up with our message. And we had a deadline—the day they
needed to start climbing the ladder and gluing it up. We hired an advertising
agency. They put their best creative team on the project and came up with a
bunch of ideas. They interviewed dozens of customers—software
developers who’d used our platform to add communications to all those
apps. They interviewed lots of our employees—Twilions, we call them—to
ask what makes Twilio special. And at the end of several months of work
and deliberation, we had the big “reveal” meeting. You’ve seen this scene
on Mad Men—the firm pitches the client (us) all the brilliant ideas they’ve
come up with. There were art boards, crafty explanations by very creative
thinkers. Big pitch. Yet everything they pitched was kind of boring. We
didn’t really love any of them. The debate dragged on.
Finally, we were less than a week away from the date when the billboard
was supposed to go up—with the billboard firm saying they had to have the
artwork in hand—and we still couldn’t come up with a pithy, succinct way
to explain what Twilio does. By Friday afternoon we were still stuck. And
we couldn’t leave for the weekend without getting them the artwork. I was
with our chief marketing officer, our head of creative, and our chief
operating officer, trying to choose which mediocre message to go with—
when I blurted out a crazy idea. “Why don’t we just say, ‘Ask your
developer,’” I said. “You know, like those ads on TV where they say, ‘Ask
your doctor if this medication is right for you.’ We’re saying, ‘Ask your
developer if Twilio is right for you.’”
I was half joking. But the more we thought about the slogan, the more it
made sense. Developers were the ones spreading the word about us and our
product. We didn’t do a ton of marketing, and we employed only a handful
of sales reps. Most of our employees at the time were engineers. If someone
wanted to find out what Twilio did, the best way to do that really would be
to ask a developer.
So we put up our bright red billboard with three words spelled out in
giant white capital letters: ASK YOUR DEVELOPER. Below that we put
our logo and company name. That was it.

The billboard became a sensation—at least, relative to other billboards.
“How Twilio Bested Hemingway” was the title of a Medium essay by Andy
Raskin, a well-known tech industry marketing consultant. He was referring
to a legendary (though perhaps apocryphal) story in which Ernest
Hemingway bet someone ten dollars he could write a whole novel in just
six words and won the bet with this: “For sale: Baby shoes. Never worn.”
Raskin said we had done something similar with our three-word billboard,
producing “a brilliant illustration of how even stripped-down messaging can
convey a powerful, moving story.” I’m not sure that Papa Hemingway
would surrender the title, but hey, when your billboard garners comparisons
to one of the greatest novelists of all time, you accept the compliment and
don’t quibble.
The message worked because we didn’t try to explain what we do.
Instead, we provoked a conversation. We caught people’s attention. We
piqued their curiosity. Later, when they looked us up, they got the message.
What’s more, the message operated on two different levels.
On one level we were simply saying that while you might not know what
Twilio does, “your developer” certainly does. In our own weird, self-
deprecating way, we were admitting that we weren’t exactly a household
name. Not long after that, Twilio went public and was valued at $2 billion,
which soon doubled to $4 billion. Forbes magazine put us on their cover,

calling Twilio “the sexiest stock in the world” and declaring that “wonky
Twilio is the stealth power behind the biggest apps.”
As of summer 2020, we have 190,000 customers, and 8 million
developers have accounts on our platform. In 2019, we crossed a billion
dollars in revenue. We’re embedded into thousands of apps and websites.
When you text your Uber driver from inside the Uber app? That’s Twilio.
When Netflix sends you a text message with a six-digit code before it lets
you sign in? That’s us again. When you order dinner from DoorDash, the
notification that your food has arrived is sent via Twilio. You get the point.
You probably use Twilio every day but don’t realize it.
Our approach has been to win over the hearts and minds of developers
who work at every kind of company with powerful, easy-to-learn
communications building blocks they could quickly and confidently
incorporate into the apps they’re building. So the secret of our success has
been empowering a type of worker that few vendors actually treat as their
customer: software developers. That’s why so many developers know about
Twilio, while other parts of the company didn’t yet know what we did.
Thus, Ask Your Developer.
But our Ask Your Developer billboard operated on a second level, too. It
was a suggestion to business folks that developers can be great company-
building partners as well. At so many companies, developers are
disconnected from the business problems they’re solving and the customers
they’re serving. Perhaps by their own choosing, or perhaps because of the
engineering and management processes the company has constructed,
developers just write the code they’re asked to write. The cold,
dispassionate process of software development common in some companies
is a tragedy both for the business and the developers. I see it as a failure to
fully realize the potential of this amazing talent.
But at some high-performing technology companies, developers often
play an outsized role not just in the code they’re writing but also in the
product and business strategy. They treat their products more as a craft than
a job and, in doing so, delight customers with digital experiences—think
Apple, Google, Spotify, and Uber. Companies that operate this way attract
and retain top talent, continually wow customers with innovation, and
create outsized returns for shareholders. The Ask Your Developer mindset I
lay out in this book is a road map to unlocking technical talent as those tech
titans have done.

And it’s more important than ever.
As I talk to executives at a broad range of companies, I always hear the
same thing: every company is striving to build an environment that
produces these kinds of digital products and experiences. Building software
has become existential for companies across nearly every industry. Digital
transformation has gripped nearly every company as the threat of digital
disruption has completely challenged how companies operate. And learning
from many of the digital-native startups, company after company is
realizing they have to build, not buy, their digital future. Thus unlocking
technical talent is actually the key for businesses of every shape and size to
compete in the digital era—so the Ask Your Developer mindset isn’t just a
way of making developers feel appreciated, it’s a new way of operating to
succeed in the digital economy.
When Netscape founder Marc Andreessen wrote “Why Software Is
Eating the World” in 2011, he created the catchphrase for the current
migration of every business to software. But he didn’t articulate how
exactly that would work. In fact, you might believe that just buying
software was how this transformation would work. Or that the software
would just eat the world on its own in some kind of Terminator-like
hellscape. Nobody wrote the instruction manual for this transformation.
But in fact companies succeed at digital transformation not just by using
software but by building software. Startups like Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, and
Spotify have become household names because they’re really good at
building software. They know how to write software that changes how we
live our lives.
Now incumbents in every other industry are learning to do the same.
Nearly every industry is transforming because of software. Digital
transformation initiatives take top priority at all kinds of companies. But the
companies that become really good at building software are the ones that
will ultimately succeed at digital transformation and fend off the threats
from digital disruptors. Building software is incredibly hard, and building a
culture of digital innovation is even harder.
Because we work with customers of every shape and size, in pretty much
every industry, our customers also seek our advice on how to build and
operate a modern software development organization like the digital
disruptors have done so successfully. Many of these companies are locked
in a Darwinian struggle, fighting off disruptive new competitors. No matter

what business they’re in—retail, airlines, banking—learning to build great
software has become key to their survival. But doing so isn’t easy.
Why is that?
I think there’s often a false divide between businesspeople and software
developers. At many companies, there’s a disconnect between the way
businesspeople think, and what they want to accomplish, and what the
software developers in those companies think they’re supposed to do. But
it’s always struck me that business folks and software developers often want
the same things—to build awesome products that delight customers, are
massively adopted, and make a lot of money. However, businesspeople and
developers often speak different languages and have different working
styles—and these differences can inhibit the business and the developers
from effectively collaborating to achieve their goals.
Ask Your Developer isn’t just a skill set—it’s a mindset. Over the last
decade, I’ve met so many people who exhibit this mindset, in every
function—from finance to customer support, from marketing to operations,
from sales to product—who are building the future of their respective
companies as digital businesses. All of those people are builders. There’s a
misconception sometimes that digital disruption is all about developers. It’s
not. Yes, companies need developers to build software. But really it’s about
the successful collaboration between all the functions, and the software
developers who actually write the code. It takes a village.
I’m a software developer and have been writing code for nearly twenty-
five years, but now I’m also the CEO of a publicly traded company with
several thousand employees and, as of summer 2020, a $25 billion market
cap, more than $1 billion in revenue, and nearly 200,000 customers. I still
write code, but most of my time is spent doing public company CEO things.
It puts me in a unique position to help bridge these two points of view and
working styles, and help create a more harmonious relationship between
businesspeople and software developers. That’s the purpose of this book:
the Ask Your Developer mindset is designed to help businesspeople better
understand and collaborate with technical talent in order to achieve those
shared goals.
As a business leader, if it feels like you’re screaming from the
mountaintops about digital transformation, but change isn’t happening fast
enough—Ask Your Developer can help you recruit and mobilize the talent
you need to accelerate change.

If you’re frustrated at how slowly your software teams are delivering
products, the Ask Your Developer mindset can help you unshackle your
teams who, trust me, also want to be moving faster.
If it feels like your technical teams are working incredibly hard but
somehow overlooking the big things your customer needs, Ask Your
Developer can help you get to the root of organizational problems that
hinder customer understanding.
If competitors are moving faster at delivering digital delight, maybe
they’ve figured out how to unlock their developers. But don’t worry, you
can, too. The Ask Your Developer mindset can help.
If you know you need to embrace software and help lead your company
through a digital transformation, but you’re not sure where to start—Ask
Your Developer is a good starting point because people are at the heart of
every big transformation.
If you’re having trouble hiring great technical talent, or worse yet, you
hire them but they’re leaving before they add value—Ask Your Developer
can help you create the conditions to attract and retain great developers by
unlocking their intrinsic motivation to build.
If you simply don’t know what questions to ask in this rapidly changing
digital landscape—which is completely common—Ask Your Developer is a
great starting place to understand what’s happening at the heart of this
digital disruption.
If you’re a technical leader struggling to help your business counterparts
understand the complexities of building great software, then Ask Your
Developer can give you the tools to tighten the collaboration and help
bridge the gap with a common parlance.
Even if you’re far down the path of digital transformation, rocking and
rolling, Ask Your Developer can challenge your assumptions about what
your software teams are capable of.
You get the point—I believe that business leaders, technical leaders, and
technical talent at every stage of digital transformation can benefit from
tighter collaboration and a set of shared operating principles. Ask Your
Developer aims to provide that framework. Think of this book as a toolkit
of ideas to help business leaders, product managers, technical leaders,
software developers, and executives achieve their common goal—how to
win in the digital economy.

Company leaders who build industry-changing software products seem to
do three things well. First, they understand why software developers matter
more than ever. Second, they understand developers and know how to
motivate them. And third, they invest in their developers’ success. That’s
why I’ve structured the book into these three sections, starting with why
developers matter more than ever.
Ready? Onward!

Part I
Why Developers Matter More
Than Ever

Chapter 1
Build vs. Die
It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most
responsive to change.
—Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species
In September 2004 I joined Amazon as a product manager, and at the first
all-hands meeting I attended, our founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, said
something that has stuck with me ever since.
When we got to Q&A time, someone in the crowd of about five thousand
people got up and asked a question about retailing—I don’t even remember
exactly what it was. But Jeff came back with an answer most of us didn’t
expect.
“Amazon,” he said, “is not a retailer. We’re a software company.”
That seemed like a strange thing to say, especially given so many
Amazon employees at the time came from either Walmart, an actual retailer,
or from Microsoft, an actual software company. Both sets of employees
were equally surprised. But Jeff insisted it was true. Most software
companies at the time sold software pressed on CD-ROMs, packaged in
boxes, and even still bought on a shelf at CompUSA.
Jeff’s point was that Amazon was just as much a software company as
Microsoft or Oracle or Adobe. It just happened that instead of being the
product that we shipped to consumers, our software ran behind the scenes,

allowing us to ship brown boxes with books or music or just about anything
to someone’s doorstep.
“Our business is not what’s in the brown boxes,” he said. “It’s the
software that sends the brown boxes on their way.” We monetized our
software not by selling it directly, but by selling everything else—books,
DVDs, and CDs. What’s more, the quality of our software would determine
whether we succeeded: “Our ability to win,” Jeff said, “is based on our
ability to arrange magnetic particles on hard drives better than our
competition.”
I still think that’s an incredibly cool way to describe what we did. If you
have ever wondered how Amazon became such a global powerhouse over
the years that have followed that 2004 all-hands—it’s contained in that
statement. The key to Amazon’s success is that Jeff Bezos understood way
sooner than everyone else that he was actually in the software business.
In the early 2000s it seemed that retailers would be threatened by
disruption from e-commerce. But as the century progresses on, it’s apparent
that not just retailers are under siege. Why is it that every industry is rapidly
becoming a software industry? That’s because there’s a true Darwinian
evolution playing out—I call it “Build vs. Die.”
It’s likely that your industry and your company are changing rapidly due
to the threats, and opportunities, posed by what software can do. When
Amazon is mentioned in the context of your industry, does everybody in the
room tense up? That’s why digital transformation is a hot topic at so many
companies, but how to navigate this change is not well understood. If
you’re like many leaders responsible for driving this change, you’re
bombarded with software app vendors or consultants who promise to solve
it for you. You’re inundated with promises, but you’re skeptical that just
cutting a big check will solve all your problems. And you’re right. It’s not
as easy as just buying a digital disruption strategy from a software company
or a consultant. Great companies learn to build. Let’s see why.
From Cost Center to Strategic Centerpiece
For a long time, most companies considered IT something that supported
the business—software and servers that ran the back office, or the PC on
every desk. You had big software to manage the financials, and an even

bigger enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to keep tabs on inventory,
shipments, and other kinds of complex logistics. But essentially this was all
bookkeeping—of money and materials that mattered mostly to the bean
counters. IT also ensured employees had computers to do their job and
printers to, well, print things. In the 1980s and ’90s, these were all cost
centers, meaning they cost the company money and did not, in and of
themselves, make money. So it made sense for many companies to cut
corners as much as possible and outsource this function, often to offshore
firms where talent was less expensive.
When a chief information officer of a company was looking to
implement a new solution, they would often undertake the well-known
“Build vs. Buy” process to ask whether they should buy a piece of off-the-
shelf software or build their own. Sometimes companies decided to build,
but that was difficult and risky, so for the most part, companies chose to buy
a vendor solution. After all, the vendors had a good point. Why would any
company build their own financial software or ERP system when they could
just buy one off the shelf? The upside of building your own was limited. No
customer ever cared what ERP system your company used. And if you tried
to build your own and screwed up, the consequences were dire. You
couldn’t track your inventory, or you couldn’t report your financials to Wall
Street. There was a famous saying: Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.
So pretty much every company just bought software and went along their
way.
But along came the web, and then mobile, and suddenly the interface that
most companies had with their customers became digital. Software went
from the back of the business to the front. Instead of just automating back-
office chores, software became the face that a company presents to the
world. Instead of walking into your bank, you used an app. You didn’t walk
into a store, you shopped online instead.
This had two critical implications for the world of software:
First, customers suddenly did care about the software that companies
used because the customers directly interfaced with it. If you had a better
website or mobile app than your competition, it would be a good reason for
customers to pick you.
Second, it meant that new competition could enter the market more
easily. To become a bank or a retailer, you didn’t need to open up a branch

or store on every street corner. You just needed an app and a warehouse
somewhere.
These two trends became apparent in the early 2000s. Suddenly startups
that were great at building software, and had no legacy infrastructure or
storefronts to deal with, began springing up. These digital native companies
focused their early energy on creating great customer experiences, and they
used their software-building expertise to their advantage. The new playing
field was digital, and they brought an A-game.
Uber and Lyft, without owning a single taxi, in less than five years used
software to completely overhaul how people get around cities. Airbnb
challenged the global hotel industry without owning the real estate.
One of my favorite examples is Casper, the mattress company. Casper
makes mattresses and distributes them directly to consumers via their
website. I was always intrigued with how Casper could be considered a tech
company, raising substantial money from Silicon Valley venture capitalists
and fetching tech-like valuations in the process. Could there be an industry
that feels less like technology than the pile of springs and fabric you sleep
on?! But indeed Casper is a tech company. The technology isn’t about the
product itself, but about how they acquire customers, how they distribute
the product, and ultimately how they make the customers feel throughout
the whole process of buying and using the product. Because of technology,
they can do it at scale with minimal investment. They use digital
engagement strategies to grow incredibly fast. Just five years since their
founding, they’re doing nearly $500 million in revenue with fewer than one
hundred employees. By contrast, Tempur Sealy, the largest mattress
company in the world, employs seven thousand people to generate $2.7
billion in revenue. Think about the leverage that technology is giving
Casper—Tempur Sealy is doing five times as much revenue, but has seventy
times as many employees. Whether Tempur Sealy will ultimately beat
Casper at their own game is yet to be known, but the war is on.
This is repeating in every industry. Take razors: startup Harry’s has
started to challenge the incumbent Gillette. In investing, startup Robinhood
is challenging Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, and other century-old institutions for
your brokerage account. Opendoor is shaking up the real estate business by
changing the way houses are bought and sold. In industry after industry,
digital native companies are using technology to bring a new kind of

product to market, faster, cheaper, and with a better customer experience
than the incumbents.
Another way to think of this: Software has moved from being a cost
center to the profit center.
That’s how the ferocious and relentless Darwinian competition kicks in.
Suddenly, software isn’t a liability to be outsourced. It is the source of
competitive advantage. Digital natives—the startups that know how to build
software—start to win market share. In response, one of the incumbents,
intent on fending off the upstart, reverses the IT-outsourcing trend and starts
assembling their in-house software teams to compete. One by one, every
player in the industry (the ones that intend to survive, at least) becomes a
builder. It’s unavoidable. It’s mandatory. That’s why I call this a Darwinian
evolution of every industry. It’s no longer a question of Build vs. Buy.
Rather, it’s the existential question of Build vs. Die. It’s natural selection
driven by customers, who pick the companies that serve them better in this
digital era.
Take mattresses again. In response to Casper, Tempur Sealy launched
“Cocoon by Sealy,” which offers an end-to-end online experience similar to
Casper. Take that! The Empire Strikes Back! Think about your bank. It
probably offers the same things that every other bank offers. Checking
account, savings account—it’s a fiercely competitive business. So what
differentiates one bank from another? It used to be about the experience
inside the bank branch. What did it look like? Was it recently remodeled?
Were the employees well dressed and friendly? Did they give you cookies?
Did they give your kid a lollipop? But now, you don’t walk into a branch,
you open an app. So banks need different skills—software skills. And they
can’t just buy all this software from a vendor. To be sure, there’s no
shortage of companies that will claim to sell the software that banks need to
perform a digital transformation. But if all the banks just bought the same
bank software, they’d all be undifferentiated again. So ultimately, they have
to listen to customers’ needs and answer those needs with software by
learning and iterating quickly.
Companies that adapt to the new digital landscape will serve customers
better, and will survive. Those that don’t will die. It may not be overnight,
but it’s inevitable. It’s as simple as that. It doesn’t matter what business
you’re in. Banks. Airlines. Automakers. Insurance companies. Real estate.
Retailers. Health care. Sure, you also have to deliver a great product or

service at a competitive price. But in every market, the company with the
best software will eventually win. As Jeff Immelt, the former CEO of GE
and a member of our Twilio board of directors, once told his executive team
at GE: “If we don’t become the best technology company in the world,
we’re doomed. We’re dead. There’s no Plan B.”
“It’s a quest for survival,” says Werner Vogels, the legendary chief
technology officer at Amazon and one of the chief architects of Amazon
Web Services, the world’s biggest cloud computing platform, with dozens
of data centers girdling the globe. Vogels is a huge guy, six foot six and
built like an NFL linebacker. He has a doctorate in computer science and
spent more than a decade in academia before joining Amazon.
These days a big part of his job involves traveling the world and helping
traditional companies adapt and survive. He also stars in a video series
called Now Go Build, which Amazon launched to celebrate companies that
are building software. Helping customers also helps Amazon. “Our whole
cloud would be useless if people don’t know how to use it. We have to help
them get good at organizational change, as well as the cultural change, and
then show them how to adopt the technology,” Vogels says. Most
companies have embraced cloud computing, but they struggle with how to
become software-centric organizations. “It’s the most asked question,”
Vogels says. “Customers will ask us, ‘How do we do this?’ They’re really
trying to learn from companies like Amazon.”
One big hurdle is staffing up. Giant multinationals that spent the 2000s
outsourcing most of their tech operations are now unwinding those deals
and bringing software development back in-house. “The larger enterprises
know that digital is becoming their lifeblood, so they need to take control
over it instead of turning to outsourcers. But it’s also their biggest
challenge,” Vogels says.
Another challenge is speed. Digital natives can turn a great idea into
production code in a matter of weeks—or even days. They roll out new
iterations every day. For traditional companies, keeping up means speeding
up. “You can no longer afford to spend six months or twelve months in
development before you launch,” Vogels says.
Don’t believe me? Ask Blockbuster. Ask Borders. Ask Nokia. Ask
Yellow Taxi. They’re victims of the digital revolution, because they didn’t
adapt quickly enough—the dodo birds of digital Darwinism.

How Software People Think
To truly thrive in the digital era—either as a disruptor or those fending off
the disruptors—you need to think like a Software Person. Now, a Software
Person is not necessarily a developer—it’s anybody who, when faced with a
problem, asks the question: “How can software solve this problem?” That’s
because being a Software Person is a mindset, not a skill set.
Software People are the ones who see the world through the lens of
software. They are endlessly optimistic, because they believe that any
business problem can be solved once it’s brought into the domain of
software. Bringing more and more of the world’s problems into the domain
of software is exactly what technologists have been doing for the last
seventy years.
If you think about what a computer is—it’s a machine that performs
mathematical calculations, with a set of sensors (inputs) and actuators
(outputs) attached. Those sensors and actuators are the only way we know
what’s happening inside the machine, and you can look at the history of
computers really as the continual progression of more and more
sophisticated sensors and actuators that allow us to “compute” on more and
more of the world. The first two decades of computing—the 1950s and ’60s
—were about mathematical calculations, and we used punch cards to get
numbers into and out of computers—so we could apply software to them.
We used computers to calculate missile trajectories and the national debt,
but not much else. In 1960, only a few thousand computers existed in the
world. But then we advanced our sensors and actuators, enabling them to
get text into and out of computers—so we could apply software to textual
problems—and the next two decades were about computing on text, not just
numbers. With keyboards and printers, the 1970s and ’80s were about word
processing, desktop publishing, and spreadsheets, and every desk got a PC.
Then we advanced those sensors and actuators again, enabling them to
digitize audio and video. Computers got sophisticated graphics and sound
cards, and the 1990s and 2000s were about multimedia—bringing us MP3s,
PC gaming, and Jurassic Park. Now, however, with always-connected
smartphones in our pockets, we’re carrying an array of sensors and
actuators, constantly connected to the Internet—bringing the rest of the
world into the domain of software. Thus the 2010s and 2020s are about
computing on just about everything else. That’s what’s made the last decade

(and will make the next decade!) so exciting. The category of problems to
which we can apply the software mindset is exploding.
It’s not just software itself—it’s the fundamental agility of software that
drives Software People. It starts by listening to customers, rapidly building
initial solutions to their problems, getting feedback, and then constantly
iterating and improving. With this progression of computation, Software
People can apply this software process to more and more of the world’s
problems. I particularly enjoy seeing it arise in traditionally hardware-
centric fields because when you see a Software Person running the
playbook in the field of hardware, you can see the evolution play out
physically in plastic, metal, and glass.
Consider what Apple did to the TV remote control. Before Apple
released Apple TV, set-top boxes came with a remote control with a
hundred buttons. Some even advertised the number of buttons as a selling
point! Next to each button was a label: Volume Up/Down, Channel
Up/Down, Favorites, PiP, Source, Menu, and so forth. The first Apple TV
remote had only seven buttons. Why? Because all the smarts of the Apple
TV resides in the software running on the device. That means Apple can
learn from customers and update the software constantly with new features
and functionality. Developers can’t iterate on things that are fixed in plastic
and metal—once the gizmo leaves the factory, its functionality is set for
life. So the decision to remove the buttons isn’t just aesthetic, it’s incredibly
strategic. When I first saw the minimalist Apple TV remote, I thought: Oh,
this is a software game now.
This is the same thought process Steve Jobs brought to the iPhone in
2007. He mocked all the phones with physical keyboards because, he
correctly noted, the keyboard was always there whether you needed it or
not. You could never update it, you couldn’t change languages, and you
couldn’t get rid of it when you didn’t want it. The real estate on the device
was always and forever a bunch of keys in the arrangement and language
that the device shipped with. The iPhone keyboard is software. It disappears
when you don’t need it, which is most of the time. It can change to an emoji
keyboard when needed, or another language if you’re multilingual, which
means Apple can ship one SKU worldwide. The language you need is just
software, not something that has to be fixed at the factory.
Another example: the Square credit card reader. Traditional credit card
machines are big hunks of plastic, with screens that look like they’re taken

from a 1990s-era scientific calculator, and a handful of buttons. When a
new method of payment comes around, or screens with more than a
hundred pixels become available, you have to throw the whole thing away.
Everything that credit card reader could do was fixed at the factory in
plastic and silicon. By contrast, the Square reader is just the minimal
interface needed to bridge the physical world (a magnetic stripe reader) and
the software world. Everything else can be done in software—which Square
can update every week. The software grows smarter with every revision,
getting new features and fixing bugs. Square can iterate and learn at the
speed of software, because its developers pushed absolutely everything into
software, leaving only the minimal bits of plastic needed to get the job
done. With contactless payments, more physical bits are starting to
disappear. The less hardware you have to work around, the more software
people can do their software thing.
Another example is the Tesla. The average car has dozens of buttons on
the dashboard. Most Tesla cars, by contrast, have just four buttons and two
scroll wheels in the steering wheel. Everything else is software running on
that giant screen. The buttons in a Tesla don’t even have labels. That’s so
everything can be treated as software and updated constantly as Tesla gets
customer feedback. That can mean fun things like the infotainment system,
where they’ve added things over time like Caraoke (yes, an in-dash karaoke
system) and YouTube, but also critical safety advances.
In October 2013, a Tesla owner ran over a bit of debris on the freeway,
which punctured the car’s battery and started a fire. The Model S alerted the
driver to the issue, and he safely pulled over and got out minutes before the
car was engulfed in flames. But it was a PR disaster for Tesla. To make the
car safer, Tesla decided to make it ride an inch higher at highway speeds. At
most companies, this would have required a recall—costing the automaker
tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, and creating a huge inconvenience
to owners. But Tesla just issued an over-the-air update, modifying the
suspension to increase the ride height at highway speeds by one inch—
problem solved. That’s the software mindset at work.
I love how obvious the software mindset is on display in these kinds of
hardware companies—you literally see how they remove every bit of glass
and plastic imaginable, so that only the absolutely required physical
interface to the world is left. But even if your business isn’t hardware, the
lessons are the same. How much of your industry is digital versus analog.

What would happen if you could iterate on your key experiences and
workflows on a weekly basis? That’s the software mindset at work,
beginning by digitizing your physical reality, and then applying the
software mindset to problem-solving.
Every kind of company can become a software company—all you have
to do is internalize the value of rapid iteration. You don’t need to be Elon
Musk or Jack Dorsey; you just need to believe in the power of iteration, and
Darwin will be on your side. But of course, to iterate, you first need to
build. You can’t iterate on something you’ve bought off the shelf.
That’s why it’s Build vs. Die.
Why Buying Software No Longer Makes Sense
The problem is that, by definition, a one-size-fits-all piece of software
doesn’t suit anyone very well. And if every company buys the same
software, no company can differentiate itself. They are all just the same as
their competitors, at least as seen through the digital lens—which is
increasingly the only lens that matters.
One of our customers said it incredibly well: with off-the-shelf software
apps, you have to change your business to match the software—which is
crazy! Really, you should change the software to build the business your
customers need.
You might be able to customize off-the-shelf applications, but it will
never be a perfect fit. Worse, you will have to wait for the software maker
to deliver upgrades. And even when a new version ships, it will take what
feels like forever to roll it out across your organization. As for special
features—customization that isn’t on the menu—well, you can submit
requests to the product team, then wait and hope.
The problem gets magnified when an organization is managing a bunch
of programs from different software makers. You can try to stitch programs
together, but they will never work seamlessly with one another. And if you
change one, it might throw off the others. When something goes wrong, the
software makers start pointing fingers at each other.
The worst thing is that everything takes too long. The purchase process
itself takes forever, beginning with a “request for proposal,” or RFP. You
will spend months reviewing proposals and listening to sales pitches from

software vendors who hope to win your business. You’ll run “bake-offs” to
compare the products. Meetings are held. Opinions are solicited.
Presentations are given. Sweeteners are added: Buy our HR software, and
we’ll throw in our CRM package at a discounted rate. Then you spend
months negotiating the contracts, and finally the winning software company
sends in a squad of consultants who spend months, sometimes even years,
installing the software. By the time it’s up and running, you have a piece of
software that meets your needs . . . from two years ago! Awesome!
You could almost get away with this when all of your competitors bought
software this way. But now your competitors are shipping updates on a
weekly basis, maybe even daily. There’s no way that some clunky, crumbly,
duct-taped, off-the-shelf app can do what theirs does. It’s like a drag race
between a tractor and a Tesla.
You don’t have to be in Silicon Valley to see the Build vs. Die battle play
out. In fact, you just need to look to the Netherlands.
Build vs. Buy in Banking
One of my favorite stories about a Darwinian struggle for survival involves
two banks in the Netherlands. One is ING, a traditional organization that is
radically overhauling every aspect of its business with a software mindset.
The other is Bunq, a mobile bank headquartered in Amsterdam that has no
physical branches—it’s basically a bank made entirely out of software,
stored on the cloud and viewed on mobile phones.
Bunq’s founder and CEO, Ali Niknam, has been writing software since
he was a kid. He doesn’t even think of Bunq as a bank, but rather as a
software company. Because Bunq writes its own software, instead of
buying off-the-shelf banking apps, they create incredibly tight feedback
loops between developers and customers. The developers constantly solicit
feedback from customers about what features they want or which things
they don’t like. The developers fire back new features almost overnight.
Users are dazzled—and loyal.
Ali was born in Canada. His parents are Iranian. They moved to the
Netherlands when he was seven. At nine, he began coding. At twelve, he
started investing in stocks, and at sixteen he started a company. In 2003, at
age twenty-one, he started TransIP, which grew to become the third largest

domain and hosting provider in the world. (Think of it as the Dutch version
of GoDaddy.) Four years later Ali founded the Datacenter Group, the
largest data center operator in the Netherlands. Then in 2012, at age thirty,
he had a revelation: “I figured out that I love to create products that people
love to use and that I wanted to do something for the greater good,
something with a social impact.”
He looked at various ideas and realized that when it came to technology
and innovation, “banking was stuck in the Dark Ages.” He figured the
entire industry was due for an overhaul. Most banks were still running
ancient mainframe computers from the 1970s. Their websites and mobile
apps were terrible. They all offered the same things at the same price.
Nobody was innovating. Customers were stuck. “There was no real
freedom of choice in the financial sector. There was more choice in buying
ketchup than there was with something as important as your money.
Something needed changing,” he says.
Instead of trying to make a slightly better version of what banks were
doing, Ali says, “I went back and figured, if you could start fresh today and
build a way to purchase things, and save money, and transfer money to a
friend, what would that look like?”
Bunq’s user interface looks and feels like a modern social networking
app—simple, clean, and personalized, with bright vertical stripes in
rainbow colors with the word bunq in lowercase letters and the company’s
simple slogan: BANK OF THE FREE. The app looks at home next to Uber,
Waze, Spotify, and the other apps on your iPhone or Android device. That
doesn’t seem like such a huge accomplishment, but comparing Bunq’s user
interface to most banks’ apps, you’ll see the difference.
Setting up a new Bunq account takes just a few minutes. Just like with a
social app, you create a profile with your photo, name, and nickname. It’s
easy to set up shared accounts and sub-accounts. A couple can have a
shared account for household expenses but personal accounts for their
individual hobbies. Customers can create many sub-accounts—one for
groceries, one for the soccer team, another for the school fund-raiser. To
switch accounts, you just enter a different PIN code.
Bunq offers cool travel features. If you’re going on a trip with a group of
friends, you can set up a “Slice Group” to keep track of who paid for what.
When you get back and want to settle up the expenses, you tap a button and
it’s done. Most Bunq customers get a debit card, but Bunq also offers a

Travel Card, backed by MasterCard, that charges no monthly fee and no
extra fees for currency exchange. The card acts like a debit card and draws
on your account but can also serve as a credit card. Because some
customers don’t want to take on debt, Bunq sends “realtime balance
checks” so people can keep track of how much money they have and stop
spending (or replenish the account) instead of running up credit card
charges.
Bunq’s customer demographic (so far) skews toward younger people who
care about social causes. Bunq offers a service that lets customers choose
what Bunq does with the money they deposit. If you don’t want your money
invested in companies that oppose climate change legislation, Bunq will
follow your instructions. In a similar vein, Bunq offers a “Green Card,” and
for every hundred euros you spend, the company will plant a tree.
Ali has bankrolled the whole project himself, investing €45 million to
date. His biggest hurdle wasn’t technology; it was regulators. In 2012, no
company had gained a permit for a new bank in the Netherlands for thirty-
five years. “It had been so long that nobody knew how to hand out a permit
anymore,” he says. It didn’t help that Bunq was “a new player with twenty
people operating from a vacant building in the middle of nowhere.” On the
other hand, regulators realized the banking sector needed an infusion of
new ideas. After three years, Bunq received a permit in late 2015. “It was
magical that we actually pulled it off,” Ali says.
It took a year to write the first version of the software, with Ali writing
20 percent of the code himself. In 2016 Bunq opened for business, and by
the end of 2019 it was operating in thirty European countries. The entire
customer experience was a mobile app—they didn’t even have a web
version until 2019. Bunq operates entirely in the cloud, using Twilio,
Amazon Web Services, and others. They also run incredibly lean, with
fewer than two hundred employees. Yes, you read that right. This is the
thing that should terrify incumbent banks—the scale and efficiency of
software is unprecedented. The culture is so engineering-driven that Ali
doesn’t even describe Bunq as a bank but rather “a tech company that
happens to have a bank attached to it.” Now that Bunq is gaining
momentum, it’s the model of a digital disruptor, and the incumbents are
taking note.
* * *

One of those rivals is located just across town—ING, whose roots reach
back to the 1700s and which manages more than $1 trillion in assets. It’s
about as far from a startup as you can get, and it competes in an industry
that is notoriously stodgy, risk-averse, and highly regulated. Yet ING has
become one of the most innovative software development organizations in
the world. Over the past few years I’ve had the pleasure of working with
ING and becoming a part of its transformation. One reason that ING has
succeeded is that the change began at the very top of the organization, with
Ralph Hamers, a tech-savvy executive who was promoted to CEO in 2013.
A few years ago, ING radically overhauled its culture. Part of that change
involved allowing developers to operate with tremendous creative freedom.
Starting at the top with Hamers, they’ve adopted agile processes. But it
wasn’t just the software engineering organization—the entire company,
down to the brick-and-mortar branches, started operating with agile
practices. There’s even a video titled “The agile way of working at ING” on
their corporate website, describing the company-wide transformation. Every
unit organizes into small teams, operates on two-week sprints, and holds
stand-ups. That’s how they’re fighting the onslaught of new digital
disruptors, like Bunq. It’s Build vs. Die playing out live in the banking
industry. I’ve been privy to seeing the results of this transformation
firsthand, as Twilio worked with a small team of ING developers who
pulled off a project so ambitious that it absolutely blew our minds.
In 2015, an ING engineering manager named Theo Frieswijk reached out
to us looking for help building a new contact center system. Theo manages
forty engineers who support contact center systems used by more than ten
thousand support agents at ING locations all around the globe. Over the
years ING has grown by acquiring banks. They all used different contact
center systems. All told, ING was running seventeen different systems
developed by seventeen different commercial software companies, running
in all sorts of on-premises data centers. Maintaining this hodgepodge was a
nightmare. “Nine months out of the year we would have to work on
upgrade projects simply because the vendor would no longer support the
previous version, and upgrading one component meant that you also had to
upgrade another component and yet another and yet another, so this would
very quickly turn into very big projects,” Theo says.
Not only was this concoction of legacy systems a pain for the software
engineers to maintain, but it also meant the bank’s 38 million customers

were not getting the best possible service. Over the years, when the existing
solution didn’t have some needed functionality, they’d bring in another
solution. That’s why their contact centers had bloated unsustainably.
Management wanted Theo’s team to choose one of those contact center
solution vendors and make it the standard for all of the company. Theo
pitched management a different idea. Instead of buying yet another
monolithic system and hoping for a better outcome this time, why not let
his team build their own contact center system from scratch, which would
allow them to build as needed to solve each incremental problem or try each
new idea. It would be an investment but ultimately let them become more
agile, which was one of the company’s top priorities. Leaders were curious,
if not skeptical at the onset.
Theo and his team argued that no matter which off-the-shelf commercial
package the bank chose, it would still be a lowest-common-denominator
solution. The software would be generic, meant to appeal to the largest
number of potential clients and not a perfect fit for any single company.
Building in-house meant ING could create a bespoke system that did
exactly what ING needed.
At first glance this seemed not just audacious—but insane. Contact center
systems aren’t very sexy, but they are incredibly complex. Most are sold by
companies like Avaya and Genesys, which have roots in the telecom
industry. These companies have been building contact centers for decades,
yet here were these developers in the IT department of a bank claiming they
could create something better than what these giant specialized software
makers produce.
Not only that, but Theo vowed his team could create an entire contact
system from the ground up in less time than it would take the bank to select
a commercial software vendor and roll out its software, and for less money.
Most important, ING would own the code, so developers could improve
their system as often as they wanted, rolling out new code every day if need
be, instead of waiting for a commercial vendor to ship an upgrade maybe
once or twice a year.
Theo wasn’t making this bold proposal based on instinct. He had been
doing research. In 2014 he started tracking new software companies, like
Twilio, that don’t sell finished software applications but instead sell the
building blocks that developers can combine to build their own
applications. (I describe this shift in Chapter 2.)

In 2015, Theo and his colleagues traveled to San Francisco to attend our
SIGNAL conference. They asked us if they could use Twilio to build a
contact center. A few months later a team of Twilio engineers flew to
Amsterdam and ran a three-day hackathon with ING engineers. “We just
worked on a number of scenarios that in an ideal world we would be able to
do but were difficult in the old world,” Theo says. “In three days we created
a lot more than we actually had expected we would be able to do. That got
us really enthusiastic. After that hackathon we were convinced that we
could build a contact center and move toward architecture that uses APIs
and microservices.”
This experience gave Theo the courage to pitch his idea to management.
Maybe it was not as insane as it seemed at first glance. But it was still a
huge gamble. In fact, it’s the kind of bet upon which IT careers in the old
world are ruined. That’s another reason why big corporations are so
reluctant to change and why they continue to lag behind startups—because
the top brass has a “shame and blame” culture, and the people who run the
tech group don’t want to take risks. The safest bet has always been to go
with some big commercial vendor. Sure, the software might not be great.
But when things go wrong, the vendor takes the blame, not you. Tech
department decision makers might be fully aware that buying more off-the-
shelf software is a terrible move. They know the company should be
making radical changes. But who cares? It’s easier and safer to just kick the
problem down the road. Let the next person deal with it.
That mindset arises from the way many cultures respond to failure. The
norm is that if you launch a big initiative and it fails (in any department, not
just tech), it would certainly limit your career. In more agile cultures, failure
isn’t punished. Instead, it’s a learning opportunity. The mindset of
embracing risk and tolerating failure is a huge part of the software ethos.
It’s also one of the biggest things that old companies avoid—even those
with leaders who claim, as many do, that they want to become more like a
startup.
This brings me to an important point:
If you want to become a software builder, you need to start by changing
the mindset of the entire organization.
It’s not enough to just hire a bunch of new developers, or to change the
way developers do their jobs. None of that will work unless you also
change the culture around them. Otherwise, you’re just planting a new tree

in barren soil. One reason Theo got the green light is that ING itself was in
the midst of its radical company-wide overhaul. This kind of innovation
might not have been possible prior to CEO Hamers’s intense focus on
agility.
As for the risk, Theo says he thrives on that. “I want to make a
difference. I want to achieve something. For me this was a big opportunity.
And you’re not going to be happy if you don’t take any risks.”
In the spring of 2016 the engineers started working on the project,
dubbed “Contact Center 2.0.” Many companies had added Twilio to their
contact centers, but nobody had built a complete brand-new contact center
quite like this. “There was nothing we could point to. The combination of
all this functionality is something that nobody had done before, and for me
that’s actually something that I liked.” The engineers were enthusiastic and
believed they could succeed, but “quite a lot of people were skeptical that
we could pull this off,” Theo says.
In summer 2017 the engineers began pilot-testing Contact Center 2.0 in a
few locations, and quickly expanded to all the contact centers in the
Netherlands. By the end of 2019, Contact Center 2.0 was being used by
eleven thousand agents in seven countries; the global rollout is expected to
be finished by the end of 2021.
The bet began paying off immediately. Engineers make constant tweaks
and upgrades, pushing code every week and constantly getting feedback
from “customers,” meaning ING’s support agents as well as the bank’s end
users. “Things are fast. Things are real-time. We don’t need downtime for
maintenance. We can deploy new changes as often as we want,” Theo says.
Also, the code is more reliable, and agents can resolve calls faster, which
has reduced wait times. The system is so good that other companies now
visit ING to find out how they can build something similar. Even our
engineers at Twilio are constantly learning new things about our own
product by watching what ING does with it.
ING’s next big push is to get its developers from all over the globe
contributing to the platform. In 2019, developers in Amsterdam launched a
pilot program with developers at an ING subsidiary in the Philippines. That
subsidiary has no brick-and-mortar branch locations and runs only on
mobile phones. Developers there are experts at creating cool features for
mobile phones. They also have tweaked the contact center software to suit

their very different needs. They share their new features with the core team
in Amsterdam, which integrates them into the core platform.
That means instead of having a small team in Amsterdam doing all the
work, ING can harness the creativity of dozens more developers around the
globe—which accelerates the development process.
“In the next couple of years we’re going to see an exponential increase in
our speed of innovation. That’s what we’re aiming for with this platform.
The first rollout is focused on replacing the existing telephony systems. But
the big advantage is yet to come.”
The success of the Contact Center 2.0 project is a testament to the skills
of the engineers at ING and proof that “regular IT people” can transform
into ace developers who build world-class software. These world-class
software builders are everywhere. Companies need to find them and turn
them loose. Make them feel like owners. Theo says the project has been the
highlight of his career. Ever modest, Theo credits his engineers as well as
the top brass at ING, which dared to let his group take a big risk. “I’m two
levels below the CIO, but I feel that I can be entrepreneurial and try things
and even make mistakes,” he says.
In a Build vs. Die world, ING Bank is the model of evolution.
I happened to pick a banking example to demonstrate Build vs. Die in
action. It’s hard to imagine an industry more immune to disruption, given
the high stakes (people’s money!) and the byzantine regulations involved.
Yet even banking is becoming a software industry. I’m not even talking
about the potential impacts of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency; I’m just
talking about the basics of how to run a retail bank, acquire customers, and
keep them happy.
These dynamics are playing out in every industry, all around the world:
in Munich, at Allianz, the world’s biggest insurer; in the United States, at
Domino’s, Target, and U-Haul. Whether they are cooking pizzas or writing
insurance policies, renting trucks or delivering tulips—no matter what their
business, they’re all becoming software companies.
Build vs. Die is becoming a natural law of business, just as evolution
defines organic life on earth. This is simply survival of the fittest, where
fitness is defined by how well companies can arrange magnetic particles.
To gauge how prepared you are for the new Build vs. Die reality, you
might consider asking your senior technical leaders how they make Build
vs. Buy decisions. What technologies are table stakes, and should be

bought, and which digital innovations are the differentiators between you
and your competition? Dig in on the answers—many of the factors people
perceive as differentiating have become table stakes over the last decade.
What analog bits of your business should you invest in digitizing? What
off-the-shelf software solutions are holding you back? How often do you
hear “We can’t do that”? Instead of accepting the answer, ask your teams
what changes or investments could change the answer to “Yes, we can build
that!”

Chapter 2
The New Software Supply Chain
What matters isn’t how you use servers, but rather how you serve users.
—Me, 2010
As I noted in Chapter 1, I believe every company that’s going to survive
and thrive in the digital economy needs to build software. Thus, your
supply chain matters. If your digital supply chain is better than your
competitors’, you’ll be in a much stronger position to succeed. Conversely,
if your supply chain is lagging or nonexistent, and your competitors are
getting better every day with a supply chain that’s accelerating their lead,
you’ll always be behind. Chances are, your digital supply chain is not a
commonly discussed idea at your company—it’s a brand-new concept. But
understanding the emergence of the digital supply chain, and how to best
leverage it to build your lead, is critical to success in the digital economy.
Think about industries that produce physical goods—things like cars,
refrigerators, houses. They have mature supply chains. Auto manufacturers
don’t create every piece of a car themselves. They buy steel from a steel
company, leather from a leather company, seats from a seat company,
speedometers from a speedometer company, and so on. All those Camrys
and F-150 pickup trucks zipping past you on the highway contain parts
provided by hundreds, maybe thousands, of major suppliers. Those

suppliers in turn draw from hundreds or even thousands of smaller part
makers along the global supply chain. As industries mature, so do their
supply chains, allowing many companies to specialize in parts of the
process, making the entire industry more efficient and productive.
Until recently, the software industry had no such thing. Most software
companies—think of companies like Microsoft, Oracle, or SAP—pretty
much wrote all of their own software end to end. That worked when
software was a highly specialized field and there were relatively few
software companies, right up through the 1990s and into the 2000s. That
notion was especially true when software companies sold products as
downloads or CD-ROMs.
But now every company is becoming a software company, and most
companies can’t build everything from scratch. They need a supply chain—
just like Ford and Toyota—that divides the industry into areas of expertise
and allows each company in the ecosystem to specialize on its core
competency. But the software supply chain looks different. Instead of
specializing in speedometers or steering wheels, software supply chain
companies deliver reusable chunks of code that developers bring together to
make finished applications. These are Application Programming Interfaces
(APIs). Each API supplier provides only a piece of the solution. Amazon
Web Services delivers the data center. Twilio provides communications.
Stripe and PayPal enable payments. Modern apps integrate dozens of these
small components into a unique value proposition for the customer. This
shift to component software is the next big leap in the evolution of the
software industry.
I call it the Third Great Era of Software.
This trend—from solutions to building blocks—was best predicted by a
1990s-era IBM commercial. A raggy-haired consultant is showing a
business owner their first website, which seems to have been made without
much input from the business owner. The consultant finishes by saying,
“Now you have a choice . . . between the spinning logo or the flaming
logo.” The upper left corner of the website (where the logo always stood
back on those days) had the company’s logo, cheesily spinning in circles, or
animated with amateurish flames. The nonplussed businessman responds,
“Okay, but can it optimize my supply chain?” This idea was that packaged
software with only cosmetic flexibility would never satiate the needs of a
fast-moving, complex business. And now, more than twenty years later, that

commercial has proven incredibly prescient. But, as is often the case, the
incumbent is not the company that made it a reality.
A Brief History of Software
To understand the new way of thinking about software, we need to look
back at how the software industry began and how it has evolved.
At first, companies ran mainframes. Many still do—more than you might
imagine, in fact. Then came minicomputers, Unix workstations, and finally
the PC. Anyone under the age of thirty might not remember this, but when
the personal computer came out, the software programs literally came on
floppy disks. Later they shipped on CDs. Software literally came in boxes!
You drove to a brick-and-mortar store like Babbage’s, Egghead Software, or
Software Etc., and you took it off a shelf. Seriously, those stores were rad.
From mainframes to PCs, the computers kept getting smaller, the
operating systems changed, but the software industry pretty much used the
same business model. A software maker would invest R&D dollars to
create an application, then sell it to individual users or to huge enterprises.
Selling to consumers was a good business. But selling to enterprises, the
way Microsoft, SAP, and Oracle did, was a great business. From the
standpoint of profitability, selling packaged software to big corporations
might be the greatest business in history. You built software once, and
incurred practically no incremental cost for each unit sold.
But for these business customers, the whole scheme was a huge pain in
the neck. Each company had to have its own IT department, which would
rack and stack servers, and install and maintain this infrastructure. Most of
the software programs were ones that ran back-end office chores, like
financials and ERP. These big enterprise software projects were notoriously
prone to failure—at one point, more than 70 percent of these big
installations were never actually completed successfully. These projects
took so long to implement that oftentimes multiple generations of company
leaders would come and go before they were completed.
And importantly, companies weren’t using all this software to deliver
better experiences to customers or differentiate themselves in the market.
They just used software to run their internal operations—accounting,
enterprise resource planning, and the like. And if you were a line-of-

business owner inside a company, such as a head of sales or HR, and you
wanted software to run your department—well, you had to send a request to
IT and then get in line.
This problem got solved when the second era of software—Software as a
Service (SaaS)—began, about twenty years ago. The company that
pioneered this model is Salesforce. Its founder and CEO, Marc Benioff,
interned as an assembly language programmer at Apple (translation: he was
a hard-core coder) and after university joined Oracle, where he quickly
became a legendary salesman. He won Rookie of the Year and was
promoted to vice president while in his mid-twenties, the youngest ever at
Oracle. In 1999 he launched Salesforce with the slogan “The End of
Software.” Of course it wasn’t actually the end of software—it was just a
new way of delivering software.
With SaaS, line-of-business owners who needed a new software program
didn’t need to send a request to the IT department and then get in line and
wait for them to undertake a huge multimillion-dollar, multiyear initiative.
Instead, the head of sales could just go to Salesforce, fill out some online
forms—and almost instantly have their whole department up and running
on a best-in-class sales automation software product. The sales chief didn’t
need to know anything about IT, and didn’t need to rack up servers or
install software or hire IT staff to maintain the system. Just fill out a form,
and you were in business.
Over time, SaaS companies sprang up to serve every line-of-business
owner. The chief financial officer (CFO) reached out to NetSuite, provider
of SaaS financials software. The chief marketing officer signed up for
Marketo, provider of SaaS marketing automation. The chief human
resources (HR) officer signed up for Workday, provider of SaaS HR
information software. You paid based on the number of employees who
were using the software. You didn’t have to worry about data centers or per-
CPU licenses anymore. In fact, many products were so inexpensive to get
started that a small team could just put it on a credit card and expense it.
The model also came to be known as cloud computing, which became
possible because of high-speed Internet connections and what’s called
“multi-tenant” software. Once we had superfast Internet backbones, people
realized you could zip bits from a server located thousands of miles just as
quickly as you could from a server down the hall or across campus in the
company’s own data center. (Or at least the difference was so small that

people using the program couldn’t tell the difference.) In cloud computing,
you no longer needed to run your own data centers. And individual
employees didn’t need to run local versions of a program on their PCs.
They could just do everything they needed to do via a web browser. That
made life easier in all sorts of ways. If a software program had a bug and
needed to be updated, or if the software vendor released a new version of
the app silently, customers didn’t need to send IT guys to everyone’s desk
and install the new version. Those fixes and upgrades just happened—out in
the cloud. To the user, this was all invisible.
Another change involved the business model. Instead of paying to license
a program based on how many servers you deployed—including a big
initial payment up front and then paying annual maintenance fees—you just
subscribed. When you stopped needing the software, you ended your
subscription, not unlike a magazine subscription.
When Salesforce started out, in 1999, a lot of people thought Benioff was
nuts. Why would anyone pay for software but never actually take
possession of it? What would happen if the Internet went down? Remember
that in those days the Internet wasn’t speedy and reliable enough for SaaS.
By 2001, only 6 percent of Americans had broadband Internet access. Most
connected via squonky dial-up modems, according to the Pew Research
Center.
But Benioff knew the Internet would get better and more robust. As high-
speed Internet became the norm, Salesforce took off, growing into one of
the largest software companies in the world, with 2019 revenues of $17
billion in its 2020 fiscal year. But they’re not alone—many multibillion-
dollar SaaS companies arose over the years since the turn of the
millennium, representing tens of billions of dollars in revenue, and
hundreds of billions of dollars of market cap.
But as good as SaaS companies are, the fastest-growing software
company in the history of the world didn’t look anything like Salesforce or
Workday.
Amazon Web Services Changes the Game
I joined Amazon in 2004 in the early days of Amazon Web Services
(AWS). Once I joined, my boss explained the mission. Amazon was going

to build enormous data centers and rent compute-power and storage
capacity not as applications, but as building blocks that developers and
other companies can use to build their apps. This would enable any
developer and every company to leverage Amazon’s mastery of web-scale
infrastructure. The service would be flexible, able to scale up and down on
the fly. If your traffic surged for a few days, the “Elastic Compute Cloud”
would simply throw extra computer horsepower at your website. When the
surge ended, your virtual data center would shrink back down. You paid
only for what you used. You paid a monthly bill, just like you do for your
mobile phone and your electricity.
The pay-for-what-you-use model was a huge breakthrough—maybe as
significant as the technology itself. The old model of buying hardware up
front was ridiculously expensive and wasteful. For decades companies
bought way more capacity than they needed and were vastly
overprovisioned. CPUs sat idle. Storage space sat empty. Utilization rates
for disk storage systems could dip as low as 30 percent. Servers typically
sat at 10 percent utilization. Each application needed its own dedicated
servers and storage—enough to handle the maximum load it might ever
experience.
The capacity from one application often could not be shared with the
others. A retailer’s point-of-sale system might need extra capacity during
the busy holiday season but could not borrow the idle capacity and empty
storage space in the HR system sitting right next to it. Instead, you had to
buy enough horsepower to handle the load experienced during the holiday
season, even though for the rest of the year you didn’t need it. Software
makers developed programs that let IT systems share resources, but that
became yet another piece of expensive software that you needed to buy and
required another team of IT workers. Fixing one headache just created
another. Switching to AWS meant not only that you no longer had to buy
expensive hardware—you also didn’t have to hire a huge 24-7 IT
department to manage all that hardware. That was another huge cost
reduction.
With AWS it seemed as if Amazon had waved a magic wand and made
all of those headaches go away. Sign up, and you need never think about
how to run hardware and storage ever again—just pay for what you use.
The difference between this model and the first-era model was like the
difference between generating electricity with your own diesel generator

and buying electricity from a utility company. You have no idea where your
programs are running, or what kind of computer they’re running on. And
you don’t have to care. It’s all happening out in “the cloud.” (Factoid: in the
early days, “the cloud” pretty much meant Virginia.) Someone else is taking
care of it. The only thing you care about is that when you flip the switch,
your data center is there for you, as much or as little as you need. Big
companies jumped on this. They started moving applications from their
own data centers to the Amazon cloud.
Other implications of AWS were not immediately apparent. One was that
AWS would drive down the cost of launching a new company—to almost
zero. Before AWS came along, when you started a tech company you
needed to buy expensive servers, storage systems, routers, and database
software. You might spend a million dollars buying and installing hardware
just to stand up version 1 of your idea.
With AWS and its pay-as-you-go model, an entrepreneur could spend
maybe a hundred bucks and launch in a few minutes—the time it took to fill
out a form and tap in a credit card number. The implication of low startup
costs was that there would be a lot more startups. Those startups also could
get to market faster. They could go from an idea sketched on the back of a
napkin (or in Twilio’s case, the back of a pizza box) to shipping product in a
matter of months. They could expand and grow without any friction from
infrastructure. They could move fast and build things.
The realization I had while working inside AWS was that the AWS
platform would unleash a new generation of startups that would be so much
faster and leaner than traditional companies as to seem almost like a new
species. Those nimble little superpredators would start disrupting
companies across every industry. And then those big companies would start
building software, further accelerating the pace of software innovation.
But to me, the most interesting implication of AWS was that it changed
not just the way computing power was bought, but who was buying it. In
the traditional world, IT decisions were made by people near the top of the
organization—the CIO or the CFO. That’s because these were high-stakes
decisions, with years of work and millions of dollars being decided. At
AWS, however, a lot of customers were just ordinary developers. Individual
engineers or department managers could spin up a server and storage
capacity at AWS just by entering a credit card number. When the company
started using that application the IT department didn’t move the code back

to their in-house data center. They left it on AWS. As their usage went up,
so did their monthly bills. And because of it, developers gained much more
influence over how companies bought infrastructure.
The result of these trends is shown in the business results of AWS. Its
sales have grown from practically zero in 2007 to an annualized $40 billion
as of the first quarter of 2020. From zero to $40 billion in twelve years,
which is pretty much unprecedented growth. That’s why it’s obvious that
this business model—the platform business model—represents the next big
thing in software.
But AWS isn’t the only company driving the Third Great Era of
Software. Microsoft, Google, and Alibaba have also developed their cloud
offering to compete with Amazon, providing compute, storage, and more as
services developers can integrate. Microsoft Azure booked $37 billion in
revenue in 2019, and Google Cloud $9 billion. These are the giants leading
the field. My company, Twilio, provides APIs for communications, and
we’ve grown quickly to reach $1.1 billion of revenue in 2019. Private
company Stripe, which provides payment APIs, hasn’t disclosed its sales
numbers, but private investors have valued it at $36 billion as of their April
2020 fund-raise. There’s a lot of value being provided to customers, and
being created for investors, in this Third Era.
How’d We Get Here?
Even more interesting than the “API economy” that’s developed over the
past decade is how it came to be. It’s not obvious how a bunch of tiny APIs,
each priced in pennies per use, would rack up tens of billions of dollars in
revenue and run the apps we all use every day. But the genesis story of
APIs is intricately tied to many of the other aspects of the software
playbook I detail in this book. It all starts with small teams.
In 2000 Amazon had a giant monolithic mess of engineers and code
powering the fast-growing retail business. Engineers were stepping all over
each other, and the coordination energy to get anything done was massive.
Things were slowing down, so Bezos wrote the “two-pizza team” memo
proposing that they divide the company into small teams in order to move
faster. (The idea was that you could feed the whole team with two pizzas.)
But they had a problem.

How can you organize a company into a bunch of small, independent
teams when their work is all intrinsically tied together in the code they
write? They can’t truly perform independently when the changes one team
made to the code broke the code other teams were working on. It just
wouldn’t function.
The answer turned out to be keeping the code and the teams together. As
Amazon split the organization up into small teams, they also kept carving
up the code into small pieces so the teams could “take it with them” and
operate it independently. These teams and their respective code needed a
way to talk to each other, and “web services” turned out to be the answer.
Instead of each team shipping code into some giant repository that
somebody else would deploy and run on servers, each team would run their
own code as a service that other teams could interoperate with. Because
each team was small, the surface area of their service was typically
somewhat limited as well. Over time, these became known as
“microservices” because each individual service typically did one thing,
and did it well.
These microservices were delivered not as a pile of code, nor as a
website, but as a web-based API. APIs are well-defined interfaces that
enable code to talk to other bits of code. Once a team builds and exposes an
API to others, it’s important that they teach other teams how to use it via
documentation that’s accurate and up to date. So at Amazon, an internal
culture of API documentation arose. One team could find another team’s
API documentation and start using their services, often without even
needing to talk. This enabled the teams to effectively work together, solving
the coordination problem.
The next problem, though, was how to measure the effectiveness of each
of these services, and how to account for where the business was spending
money. If one team ran their service on ten thousand servers, was that good,
or was that horribly inefficient? And what business purpose should that cost
be ascribed to? So Amazon started ascribing a cost to using these services,
even internally. Some people call this transfer pricing, but in fact it’s a
system of doing two things: holding teams accountable for their costs, and
deciding where to put more resources in budget cycles.
Small teams are accountable for the efficiency of their service, because
they have to effectively publish a “price” for internal customers, and those
internal customers have to pay the costs out of their P&Ls. If those

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korvaavat, mitä pelloista tulee tappiota. Aionkin ruveta parantamaan
karjanhoitoa, jos lyötte kaupan valmiiksi.
— Miks'en löisi? Mutta velkakauppoja en mielelläni tekisi, nykyjään
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— Minulla on rahat taskussa.
— Te taidattekin olla rikas.
— En minä rikas ole, mutta minulla on hyvä nimi.
Vielä samana päivänä tehtiin talonkauppa valmiiksi. Kaaren isäntä
itse kirjoitti kauppakirjat, ja hän vaati rikkojaisiksi puolet
kauppasummasta. Kauppias siihen empimättä suostui. Piirtäessään
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kaikki muut ikävät. Mikko oli taas sama onnen mies, joka ottaa
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pöydältä setelikimpun. Voi peeveli miten luja mies olette, puolet
kauppasummasta panitte rikkojaisiksi.

— Asiat väliin vaativat lujaakin.
Kaaren isäntä korjasi kauppakirjat ja meni todistajain kanssa
piammiten pois. Ulkona sitte virkkoi:
— Te ette tiedä, miten väsynyt minä olen pelkästä
mielenponnistuksesta. Vaikka näytin tyyneltä, kuohui ja kiehui
vereni. Viimeiseen silmänräpäykseen asti epäilin. Kun hän oli
piirtänyt kauppakirjoihin puumerkkinsä, ihmettelin ett'ei hän samassa
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teki hyvän kaupan, mutta minä tein vielä paremman.
— Kaaren talosta tulee pieni kartano.
— Mennään meille juomaan harjaiskahvia. Kylässä on aina
laulettu, ett'ei sitä miestä synny, joka Mikon pettäisi, mutta kyllä
minä sen nyt petin. Vanha kettu muistaa myyneensä talon hyvästä
hinnasta.
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sai tuhansia yhdessä erässä; mutta minä pelkään, että ilo tulee
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Niin kävikin.
Saadakseen Oskarin velan maksetuksi oli Helma lähettänyt eräälle
puuliikkeen harjoittajalle tiedon, että heillä löytyy metsää myödä.

Heti kesän tullessa tuli Herttalaan tukkiherra, joka luki puut ja teki
tarjouksen, kolme markkaa kannolta. Helma suostui tarjoukseen,
mutta tinki kontrahtiin tärkeän ehdon, nimittäin että lähes koko
kauppasumma eli kymmenentuhatta markkaa piti heti maksettaman.
Pieni sanakiista siitä syntyi, mutta Helma osasi, polttavaa
rahantarvetta kuitenkaan ilmoittamatta, ajaa hyvin asiansa, ja herra
suostui siihenkin ehtoon.
— Turhaa on teidän naisten kanssa väitellä, sanoi hän ja kirjoitti
mainitun maksuehdon.
Kontrahdin saatuaan lähti Helma heti Jukan hevosella kaupunkiin
rahoja noutamaan.
Mutta herra meni salavihkaa kylän metsään, käveli ja kurkisteli
siellä pari päivää. Sitte meni hän kylään ja poikkesi mennessään
puotiin. Kauppiaan hiukset ihan nousivat pystyyn, kun kuuli että
jokaisen talon metsässä löytyy yhdeksän tuuman vahvuisia puita
niinkuin seinää.
— Möiväthän ne joka mies jo metsänsä, sanoi hän, ja kasvonsa
olivat mustat kuin pata.
— Siitä on jo enemmän kuin kymmenen vuotta, virkkoi herra.
Harvennettu metsä ehtii kymmenessä vuodessa kasvaa paljon. Kyllä
tämän kylän metsästä lähtee puita ja rahaa, jos vaan myövät.
— Paljonko arvaatte tulevan taloa kohden?
— Sitä on vaikea sanoa, sillä se riippuu siitä, miten kauppa
tehdään. Mutta puita on perhanasti, ja hyviä puita. Liikkeen
alkaessa, jolloin metsiä saatiin pilkkahinnoilla, ei niin tarkasti eletty,

toinen hutiloi enemmän, toinen vähemmän. Joka täällä on työtä
johtanut, ei ole liioin tarkkaa tehnyt; paikoittain ei ole viety muuta
kuin mastopuut. Perhanan hyviä ovat tämän kylän metsät.
— Älkää hitossa.
— Minkämoisissa varoissa täällä talot ovat?
— Huonoissa, peräti huonoissa, isännät ovat köyhiä kuin kirkon
rotat. Kyllä he myövät vaikka seiväspuutkin. Paljonko Herttalan
metsästä tulee rahaa?
— Tulisihan sieltä paljonkin, mutta ne eivät myö kaikkia.
Isäntärenki jätti suuren kulman, johon ei saada sattuakaan, ja tytär
pidätti itselleen oikeuden lopettaa, jos hän niin tahtoo, hakkuu heti,
kun kymmenentuhannen markan edestä on otettu puita. Semmoisia
metsiä kuin täällä en ole eläissäni tavannut, paljasta korpea ja puut
yhtä paksuja latvasta kuin tyvestäkin. Älkää sitä sentään juosko
isännille kertomaan.
— Olkaa turhia puhumatta, mitä siitä tulisin paremmaksi? Käykää
sisään juomaan lasi olutta.
— Kiitoksia! Minä kuulun raittiusseuraan! Herran mentyä
tapaamaan kylän isäntiä päästi kauppias vihansa valloilleen. Hän repi
tukkaansa ja kiroili yhteen sijaan puolen tuntia. Tavattuaan rouvan
ruikutti hän:
— Voi suurta surkeutta! Kaaren isäntä sai minulta talon ilmaiseksi.
Puodissa kävi äsken tukkiherra, joka Herttalan metsää ostelee, ja
hän tuli tänne kylään tekemään kauppoja isäntäin kanssa. Niillä
kerjäläisillä on jok'ainoalla metsiä myydä. Ja minä hullu ennätin

myödä taloni, metsineen päivineen. Kirottu mies se Kaaren isäntä.
Puheli minulle hevosista ja heinämaista, vaikka metsät ja tukit
paloivat mielessä. Se vasta on kirottu mies.
— Enkö minä kieltänyt sinua ryhtymästä hänen kanssaan
kauppoihin? virkkoi rouva vihoissaan. Ennen minä olisin heittänyt
taloni vaikka mereen, ennenkuin vihamiehelleni olisin sen myönyt.
Kun hyvin sopii, saa hän rahaa metsästä niin paljon, että pääsee
eroon kaikista veloistaan, ja Anna on kuin kahden talon emäntä
tietenkin. Kuka heitä sitte jaksaa katsella?
— Voi tätä turhuutta! Velkakirjankin panimme liian myöhään
liikkeelle. Helma saa metsästä rahaa niinkuin lantaa; ei ne kiipeliin
joudu. Piruko niillä luuli olevan niin suurta metsää jäljellä?
— Joutuvat ne kovaan kiipeliin. Ensi viikolla tulee kuvernörin
päätös, ja silloin maksa pois! Mutta mistä saada rahat? Sukulaisten
luo eivät kehtaa mennä, ja rikkaita tuttavia niillä ei ole tässä kylässä,
eikä muuallakaan. Kun nimismies siellä kävi välipäätöksen kanssa,
pääsi emännältä itku, mutta ensi viikolla ajaa nimismies uudestaan
oven eteen, ja sitte ei päästäkään enää itkulla. Tarvitaan rahaa,
mutta sitä ei talossa ole, eikä saadakaan, ennenkun arvatenkin
talvella. Kovaan kiipeliin ne joutuvat.
— Jospa joutuisivat. En minä odota tuntiakaan. Vuotta ennen jo
olisi tarvinnut hätyyttää heitä, mutta kun Helma rupesi velan
takaajaksi, niin eihän sitä raskinut heti. Mutta nyt on jo aika.
Tuleehan kirjoitus kuitenkin, vaikk'ei ryöstöä tulekaan. Hyvää tekee
jo sekin.
— Siinä Herttalan emäntä taas saa hautoa päätään kylmällä
vedellä, kun nimismies on mennyt ja kirjoihinsa kirjoittanut eläimet,

laihot ja muun irtaimiston. Eikä tule rahoja, vaikka Helma kiireesti
kirjoitti tukkiherran perään heti kun välipäätöksen saivat.
— Ennen se jo kirjoitti. Herra käveli jo metsää, kun nimismies
sinne meni. Mutta heti illalla sitte syntyivät kaupat. Olisi herra asunut
täällä lähempänä, että olisimme ulottuneet kuiskaamaan hänelle pari
sanaa korvaan, ei sitte lapiolla olisi tarvittu luoda rahaa, kuivuneet
ne olisivat puoleen.
— Eihän ne itse saa rahoja pitää, meillehän ne tuodaan.
— Se on totta. Ja parin vuoden perästä kysyn minä Kaaren
isännältä, arvaako hän kenen kukkaroon isäntäin rahat ovat
pysähtyneet. Luulen, että hän osaa vastata kysymykseeni.
Seuraavana päivänä matkusti kauppias kaupunkiin ja toi sieltä
monta hevosenkuormallista helppoa ja huonoa tavaraa; kattuuneja
ja trikoitakin oli kahtakymmentä eri lajia. Kauneimmat tavarat, jotka
enin silmää houkuttelivat, asetti hän näkyville. Eräs isäntä tuli puotiin
terästä ostamaan kauppiaan juuri levitellessä kauneita tavaroita
seinille.
— Iloitaan ystävät, sanoi hän isännälle. Nyt tulee ilon aika.
— Mikä ilon aika? kysyi isäntä.
— Hä kun metsiänne myötte ja suuria rahoja saatte. Jo tässä on
köyhyyttä kärsittykin. Paljonko saitte käsirahoja mieheen?
— Käsirahoja, hm! Kyllä nyt saatte iloita yksin, me emme myö
puutakaan tänä vuonna, emme vielä toisenakaan.

— No helvetti! Paremmin en taida sanoa teille. Eikö rahaa kelpaa
ottaa silloin kun sitä saa?
— Kyllä joskus, mutt'ei aina. Talonpojan pitää elää
maanviljelyksellä ja karjanhoidolla, niihin hänen tulee luottaa.
Helposti ansaittu raha, kuten metsänhinnat, hupenee käsistä ett'ei
tiedäkään ennenkuin on viimeinen penni mennyt. Sitte ei ole kuin
haikea mieli jäljellä. Eikä suuret rahasummat vaikuta terveellisesti
talonpojan tapoihin. Kun on rahaa isommissa määrissä, tekee mieli
yhtä ja toista turhaa, mutta kun metsä saa olla pystyssä, kasvaa se
suureksi pääomaksi, josta hädän hetkenä voi saada apua. Me
olemme käyneet kovaa koulua viimekuluneena vuosikymmenenä,
emmekä enää myö ja osta niinkuin viimeistä päivää.
— Voi tarhapöllöt teitänne, kun kuuntelette Kaaren isännän
lipotuksia. Voi vietävä teidän järkeänne! Ihan tupaan tullaan rahaa
tarjolle, ja te ette huoli, vaikka velka kasvaa miehen korvien tasalle.
— Unhotatte että metsäkin kasvaa. Senkin unhotatte, että viime
vuosina on jokainen velkahinen isäntä maksanut velkansa korot,
onpa joku vähentänyt pääomaakin. Muiden mukana maksoin
minäkin korkojen lisäksi pääomaa sata markkaa. Tänä vuonna aion
maksaa kaksisataa. Sanokaa vaan meitä tarhapöllöiksi, mutta metsiä
emme myö. Poikivia lehmiä, nuoria hevosia, viljaa ja karjantuotteita
kyllä myömme. Ostakaa itse talo ja koettakaa ruveta elämään sen
tuloilla, niin saatte kokea, kelpaako siihen toimeen tarhapöllö. Seistä
täällä puodissa, nylkeä ihmisiä ja siten rikastua, siihen ei syvää
viisautta tarvita. Mutta saada pieni talo siihen kuntoon, että siinä voi
suuri perhe elää ja edistyä, siihen tarvitaan miehen mieltä, vaimon
tarkkuutta. Isäntä otti tiskiltä teräskappaleen, sylkäsi lattiaan ja lähti
ovesta ulos.

Yksin jäätyään rupesi kauppias kiroilemaan koko kylän isäntiä.
Saman päivän ehtoopuolella tuli Herttalan Helma puotiin ja virkkoi
iloisesti:
— Minä tulin maksamaan sitä velkaa, tuokaa velkakirja tänne.
Kauppias hätääntyi, eikä osannut vastata mitään.
— Tuokaa pian; minulla on kiire.
— Tule saliin istumaan, sanoi kauppias hädissään. En minä nyt saa
velkakirjaa käsiini.
— Kenellä se sitte on?
— Jos Franssi erhetyksessä otti sen mukaansa kaupunkiin. Käy
istumaan saliin.
— Ei minulla ole aikaa. Kirjoittakaa kuitti, että velka on maksettu,
ja hakekaa joku todistajaksi.
— Kenenkä tässä sais? Kaaren isäntä näkyy tuolla kyntävän
perunamaata. Jos ma käsken hänen, hän osaa kirjoittaa.
— Käskekää.
Kauppias meni rapulle ja huusi Kaaren isäntää, joka kynti
perunamaata harmaalla hevosellaan, tulemaan heille.
— Tulkaa tänne, sanoi hän, täällä vähän tarvittaisiin teitä.
Kaaren isäntä kynti sahrat kiinni, pani ohjakset lyhyelle ja meni
puotiin.

— Mennään saliin, käski kauppias taaskin.
— En minä tule likaamaan huoneitanne, kielsi Kaaren isäntä.
Näettehän, miten olen savessa ja loassa.
Samassa hän näki Helman. Tämä seisoi melkein kätkössä ja luki
rahoja, ihka uusia seteleitä. Hän loi hätäisen silmäyksen äsken
tulleesen, ja sitten levisi hieno puna hänen kasvoilleen, ja katseensa
näytti hämmästyneeltä.
Esittelemättä tervehtivät he toisiaan; Kaaren isäntä ensiksi ojensi
suuren kätensä. Hänkin joutui hämille nähdessään ensi kerran
naisen, josta Anna oli niin paljon puhunut. Lopettaakseen kiusallisen
äänettömyyden virkkoi hän leikillisesti:
— Täälläkö se rikas tyttö onkin, jota minä olen ikäni etsinyt.
Lausujan olento vaikutti, ett'ei sukkeluus kuulunut julkealta
Helman korvissa. Hän vastasi yhtä leikillisesti:
— Ja niin ahkeraan, että hiki on hatussanne. Samassa hän
punastui enemmän. Kaunis mies, joka unessa ilmaantui
kääpiösulhasen sijaan, seisoi ilmielävänä hänen edessään. Siniset
silmät, keltaiset hiukset, roteva ja kehkeytynyt vartalo, kaikki olivat
ihka samat. Yksi pieni virhe toki oli muistikuvassa. Musta pilkku
vasemman korvan lähellä, johon Helman huomio oli erittäin kiintynyt
silloin, kun kätensä ojensi ja vihkituoliin astui, ei ollutkaan suuri ja
häiritsevä…
— Hirmuisen paljon teillä on rahaa. Kenelle ne annatte?
— Minulle, hyvälle miehelle ne annetaan, vastasi kauppias. Te kun
kykenette kynään, kirjoittakaa kuitti. Mutta käydään saliin, ei meillä

peikkoja ole.
— En minä tule, kielsi Helma taaskin. Kirjoittakaa kuitti, että minä
olen tänäpänä maksanut kauppiaalle veljeni velan,
kymmenentuhatta markkaa. Velka on koroton, joten olemme kuitit.
En minä ainakaan tiedä mitään muuta.
— Ei muuta olekaan, todisti kauppias. Selvät me sitte olemme.
— Tässä rahat, lukekaa, onko oikein. Helma työnsi suuren
seteliläjän kauppiaan eteen.
Tämä ensin antoi Kaaren isännälle kirjoitusvehkeet ja rupesi sitte
lukemaan rahoja. Kädet vapisivat, silmät kiiluivat ja kasvoille levisi
onnellinen hymy. Rahain lukeminen oli hänelle jumalain nautintoa.
— Oikein on. Käsi, joka piteli setelejä, vapisi niinkuin kuolemaan
tuomitun.
Puumerkkiäkin kirjoittaissaan kuittiin vapisi hän kättään yhtä
väkevästi.
— Nyt on kaikki hyvin ja oikein. Käydään nyt sisään.
Mutta pyydetyt eivät suostuneet tulemaan. Asiansa suoritettuaan
lähti Helma heti pois, ja Kaaren isäntä jouduttihe hänen kanssaan.
Maantiellä sitte kysyi Helmalta:
— Miksi lopetitte seurustelemisen Annan kanssa heti kun minä
tulin tänne? Ette ole kertaakaan käyneet meillä.
— Eihän Annakaan ole tullut meille, vastasi Helma. Ja tiedättehän,
että veljeni on heikkona sairaana. Tuskaa teki, että pääsin nytkään

lähtemään, mutta kun ei äitini millään ehdolla suostunut tulemaan,
täytyi minun tulla.
— Älkäämme riidelkö näin ensi kerran tavatessa. Tänään
iltapäivällä en ole vielä juonut kahvia, ja Anna odottaa minua.
Menkää edellä meille, minä sidon hevosen lujemmasti kiinni ja tulen
sitte perässä.
— Kauniistihan se seisoo. Tulkaa kanssani, ett'en saa toruja.
— Syyllisellä on aina paha omatunto. Käydään sitte.
He lähtivät yhdessä käymään.
— Mitenkä nuori Miekkonen jakselee näin kevätkiireillä? kysyi
Kaaren isäntä. Sitä miestä ei näy täällä kylässä päin koskaan.
— Hyvin siellä jaksetaan, vastasi Helma. Anni muutti tänäpänä
vanhan Miekkosen naapuriksi. Mummon tuli tyttöään niin ikävä, että
huone täytyi muuttaa. Hän ei ikäväänsä kenellekään ilmoittanut,
mutta mylläri ja vaimonsa huomasivat, että hän salaa itki ja suri.
Tämä päivä on Annille ja vanhalle Miekkoselle ilon päivä.
— Eikö sinne jo kohta tule ristiäisiä?
— En minä tiedä. Mitä varten sitä kysytte?
— Minun pitäisi päästä kummiksi, ensimmäisen kerran…
— Taidatte olla Jukan kanssa hyväkin tuttava?
— Olemmehan me vanhoja tuttavia. Hautausmaalla tapasimme
toisemme jo silloin kun Jukan äitiä haudattiin. Silloin ei Annalla ja
minulla ollut vielä äitipuolta. En tiedä, miksi kohtaus jäi mieleeni

haihtumattomaksi. Jos olisin piirustaja, muistaisin tehdä vielä nytkin
Jukan kuvan, niin ehjän ja tarkan, ett'ei suinkaan virhettä tulisi.
Punaruutuinen takki, harmaa saali, suuret saappaat, avomieliset ja
hiukan typerät kasvot, kaikki nuo jäivät ainaiseksi mieleeni. Silloin
näin teidätkin.
— Minutko? Nyt muistatte väärin.
— Ihan Herttalan Helman minä näin. Hän istui miellyttävän
näköisen, mustatukkaisen pojan rinnalla; poika oli muistaakseni
kauppiaan Franssi. Reessä oli vielä veljenne ja joku muu tyttö, mutta
heitä en tullut katsoneeksi tarkkaan.
— Teilläpä on hyvä muisti.
— Joku tapaus on semmoinen, ett'ei mene koskaan mielestä. Ei
ihmekään, että Jukan kuva on pysynyt muistossani ja
himmentymisen sijaan vaan tullut selkeämmäksi. Pääpiirteissään
ovat elämämme yhtäläiset. Molemmat tiedämme, mitä leipä ja vaate
maksavat, ja molemmille koittaa nyt kaunis tulevaisuus. Anna ja
Jukka ovat luonteiltaan siinä yhtäläiset, ett'eivät surut ja taistelut
jättäneet heihin tuntuvia jälkiä, kun sitä vastoin minussa on aina
jotakin raskasta ja surullista, minä en koskaan voi näyttää oikein
iloiselta. Tuolla Anna jo juoksee vastaamme, näette miten hän osaa
olla iloinen…
— Ja ilonsa on niin luonnollista, tarttuvaista… Anna purskahti
nauramaan, kun tuli Helman eteen. Kaaren isäntä joutui naurusta
hämille. Pyyhkien otsaltaan hikeä lähti hän käymään edellä tupaan.
Vasta illalla pääsi Helma lähtemään Annan luota kotoa kohden.
Kylän ohi ehdittyään käveli hän melkein juosten. Pian vaikutti

kiireinen käynti kovan hengästyksen; Toramäen kohdalla hänen jo
täytyi hiljentää askeleitaan ja hengittää syvään.
Ilta oli erittäin ihana; tuomet olivat kukassa ja metsistä kuului
lintujen viserrys. Joku sanomattoman onnellinen tunne hiipi Helman
rintaan, ja hän tunsi kevyttä rauhaa, hyvinvointia. Unhottunut oli
entinen elämä taisteluineen, tuskineen; suuri valtameri oli
nykyisyyden ja menneisyyden välillä. Maailma ja elämä tuntuivat
kokonaan uusilta, onnellinen tunne loi kultakiiltoa turhempaankin
ajatukseen, vähäpätöisimpäänkin esineesen.
Peltojen tiellä otti Helma käteensä kuitin, jonka Kaaren isäntä oli
kirjoittanut ja todistanut.
— Minkämoista lie käsiala? kysyi hän itseltään ja rupesi lukemaan
kuittia.
Ensin näyttivät kirjaimet oudoilta ja liian teräviltä, mutta kun silmä
tottui niihin, näkyi sopusuhtainen kauneus yltä ylitse. Sievyydellä oli
oma uransa. Kirjaimet olivat koruttomia, mutta ihmetyttävän
säännöllisiä, joten kirjoitus kokonaisuudessaan näytti niinkuin vaksiin
painetulta.
— Hän on etevä, hirmuisen etevä, virkkoi Helma, kun oli silmäillyt
kuittia, mutta sanojaan ei hän osaa laatia hyvin. Sama vika hänessä
kuin Jukassakin. Etevyyttä lukuunottamatta onkin hän kaikessa
olennossaan juuri kuin Jukka. Sama tyyni mieli, luja tahto ja sama
ujosteleva, melkein kömpelö käytös on molemmilla. Mutta etevä,
hirmuisen etevä hän on, vaikka näyttää niin tavalliselta.
Ennenkun Helma taittoi kuitin kokoon, luki hän sen vielä kertaan
lävitse. Nauttien onnellisesta tunteesta tuli hän pihalle ja aikoi

mennä vielä puutarhaan haaveksimaan hetkiseksi ja nauttimaan
kaikesta siitä ihanuudesta, jota tunsi ja näki, mutta samassa kuuli
hän epätoivon ja tuskan sanat:
— Joudu, joudu. Oskari kuoli jo. Emäntä ne lausui, tuskan
musertamana.
Helma tunsi miten hervottomiksi hänen polvensa äkkiä kävivät.
Seisoen rapulla toisti emäntä sanat:
— Joudu, joudu. Oskari kuoli jo.
Nojaten äitiinsä jaksoi Helma käydä kamariin. Oskari makasi
kuollunna, kalpeana; Jukka seisoi lähellä, silmänsä olivat kosteat,
kasvonsa liikutetun näköiset.
— Onko siitä kauankin? Helma tuskin kuultavasti kysyi.
— Ehkä viisi minuuttia, vastasi Jukka hilliten liikutustaan ja
pyyhkien silmiään.
— Miten hän kuoli? Mitä hän puhui viimeiseksi?
— Kauniisti hän kuoli, yhtä kauniisti kuin äitini? Antaen toisen
kätensä emännälle ja toisen kätensä minulle sanoi hän: Jääkää
hyvästi ja sanokaa Helmalle, että minä olen saanut kaikki syntini
anteeksi. Sitte hän veti kolme kovaa henkäystä…
— Hyvä Jumala! Helma heittäikse vuoteelle ja kiersi kätensä
kuolleen kaulan ympäri.
Kauan hän kyyneleillään kasteli kylmiä, kalpeita kasvoja.

IX.
Jo samana kesänä kiinnitti Kaaren isäntä molemmat talonsa
hypoteekkiyhdistykselle. Arvioimisessa myönnettiin hänelle niin suuri
summa, että se riitti kaikkiin velkoihin. Siten köyhällä miehellä oli
parhaat takeet päästä itsenäiseen, muista rippumattomaan
asemaan.
Hänen esimerkkiään seurasi jokainen velkahinen isäntä. Kun
kauppiaan Ainun ja tuomarin häitä vietettiin, tarkasteli agronomi
kylän peltoja ja rakennuksia, joiden parantamisessa viime aikoina oli
kiitettävää intoa osotettu. Talot arvioittiin kalliisen arvoon, joten
myönnetty summa tuli riittämään kunkin suurempiin ja pienempiin
velkoihin; monelle myönnettiin enemmän kuin tarvitsikaan.
— Kaaren isännän juonia kaikki tyyni, sanoi kauppias, kun eräs
isäntä hänelle kertoi ja selitti lainapuuhat. Sillä miehellä on keinojen
keinot, ja te tarhapöllöt juoksette hänen perässään vaikka kaivoon.
— Ei kaivoon juostu tässä puuhassa, vastasi kertoja, joka oli kylän
köyhempiä isäntiä. Kyllä minä tiedän, mitä yksityiselle velassa
oleminen merkitsee. Pää on aina painossa.

— Voi sinua tarhapöllöä! Pankki vasta piru onkin, sillä se ei leiki
korkojen kanssa, vaan ottaa ne ulos vaikka silmän sisästä.
— Me tiedämme sen, ja se onkin juuri hyvä kohta, sillä sittehän ei
velka pääse kasvamaan.
— Mutta jos vilu tapaa viedä viljanne. Entä sitte? Menee talonne
niinkuin pilanpäiten.
— Yleisen hädän aikana voi pankki armahtaa ja odottaa. Ja
kokemus on osottanut, että juuri yksityiset velkojat ovat hädän
aikana pahimpia. Jos katovuosi tulee, silloinhan ne syöksevät
saaliisensa niinkuin sudet. Viimeisessä hädässä voimme turvautua
metsiimme. Jos kovalle käy, maksamme metsäntuotteilla vaikka
useamman vuoden korot yhtämittaa, eikä metsä lainkaan vähenny.
Tämä lainahanke oli meillä jo keväällä mielessä, ja siksi emme
kukaan myöneet metsiä. Nyt ne ovat meille hyvänä turvana.
— Voi varjelemaan, kuinka viisaita ja rikkaita olette!
— Te vihaatte tätäkin puuhaa, kuten kaikkea yleistä edistystä,
omien etujenne tähden. Ei kukaan niin hävytön velkoja ole kuin te.
— Mitenkä niin? Milloin minä olen lentänyt kenenkään silmille liian
aikaiseen? Odottanuthan minä aina olen.
— Niin olettekin, mutta entä korot ja korkojen korot? Moni sadan
markan suuruinen velka on hätä kättä teidän kaapissanne kasvanut
tuhanneksi markaksi. Mutta kohta loppuu teiltä sekin rahasuoni. Heti
rahat saatuani maksan minäkin teille velkani, jota olette keloneet
suureksi jos jollakin lailla. Ette suotta sanokaan meitä tarhapöllöiksi.
Me olemme hikoilleet ja tehneet työtä, mutta te olette saaneet

työmme hyödyn, kaiken hyvyyden. Nyt toki jo lakkaamme
rikastuttamasta teitä ja lakkaammekin yksimielisesti. Nyt eivät ole
ajat enää niinkuin oli ennen. Tarhapöllöt ymmärtävät jo muutakin,
kuin kantaa rahaa teille. Jonakuna päivänä vievät he vielä teiltä
koreasti leivän suustanne. Ette tiedä kuinka vihattu olette.
— Te raukat ette vihallanne minulle mitään voi. Sinäkin nyt
ylvästelet, kun on rahoja tulossa, mutta pian ne menevät kädestäsi.
Kyllä sitte taas tulet nöyränä miehenä…
— Valhe, niin pitkä valhe, kuin meiltä tänne teille.
Eläen ahtaassa näköpiirissä ei kauppias voinut käsittää, miten
kylän isännät kykenisivät viemään häneltä leivän suusta. Että he sen
mielellään tekisivät, sen hän kyllä uskoi, mutta millä keinoin sen
voisivat tehdä, oli hänen mahdoton ymmärtää.
— Myrkyttää minua eivät tohdi ja kauppaoikeuksiani eivät saa
millään pois, tuumasi hän itsekseen. Hurjassa vihassaan vaan
uhkailevat ja pelottelevat.
Kuitenkin vaikutti uhkaus kauppiaassa salaista pelkoa ja
levottomuutta. Monena yönä pakeni uni silmistä, ja kasvojen kavalat
rypyt painuivat syvälle muutamassa vuorokaudessa. Urkkijoita
käyttämällä hänen vihdoin onnistui päästä uhkauksen perille. Se
olikin tosi ja pahinta laatua, sillä kylään hommattiin yhtiön kauppaa.
Puuhan etupäässä oli Kaaren isäntä ja Herttalan Helma. Kaksi
kokoustakin oli jo salaa pidetty, ja tärkeimmistä kohdista oli jo
sovittu. Liike alotettaisiin viidentuhannen markan pääomalla, ja
osakkeiden hinta oli määrätty kymmeneksi markaksi. Liikkeen
hoitajaksi oli ehdoteltu Klaun Kaisua, ja johtokuntaan oli valittu
Kaaren isäntä, Herttalan Helma, ynnä kylän muut etevät isännät.

— Se keino niiltä piruilta vielä puuttui, sanoi kauppias. Kaikkia
muita ovat jo kokeneet. Mutta minäpä tiedän, mitä teen. Minä ostan
kolmesataa osaketta, niin saan vallan käsiini.
Huono lohdutus, sillä urkkija toi tiedon, ett'ei osakkeita myödä
kellekään kymmentä enempää. Tuo kohta oli otettu erityiseen
huomioon; jopa Kaaren isäntäkin oli sanonut, ett'ei hän takaa
itseänsäkään voitonhimolta, joll'ei osakkeiden määrää rajoiteta.
Kolmas kokous, osakkeiden kirjoitusta varten pidettiin syyskesällä,
jolloin lainaajat olivat hypoteekkiyhdistykseltä saaneet rahoja.
Julkinen käsky, että yhtiön kauppaa harrastavat henkilöt saapuisivat
Kaaren taloon, oli lähetetty ympäri kylän. Moni isäntä, joka
parikymmentä vuotta oli kumarrellut kauppiasta, asteli nyt rynkeänä
kokoukseen, sata markkaa kukkarossa osakkeiden ostoa varten.
Kauppias oli ihan kidutuskoneessa.
— Tuokin nokinenä menee kokoukseen, sanoi hän, kun näki Jukan
astelevan Helman ja Klaun kanssa kylään. Ovat muut ihmiset joskus
siistiä ja puhtaita, mutta tuon miehen kädet ovat aina lannassa.
— Ja tuo myllärikin, joka ei koskaan tee meillä kauppaa, menee
tuulen mukana, virkkoi rouva. Ei nyt ihmeempää, miten pahasisuisia
ja kateellisia ihmisiä pitää löytymän maailmassa.
— Jos minäkin menen.
— Mene ja osta pilkoilla yksi osake. Mutta tule ensin tänne
katsomaan. Näitkö, tuomari, Ainu ja Franssi joutuivat Helmaa
vastaan. Oh, tuomari ei nostanut hattuakaan, ja Franssi löi piiskalla
silkkimustaa. Kuinka muhkeat nuo ranskalaiseen malliin tehdyt

ajopelit ovat, kai ne häikäsivät Miekkosen pojan silmiä. Menkää
kokoukseen tai kokouksen taa, ette meitä köyhiksi voi tehdä. Ainu
saa viisikymmentätuhatta myötäjäisiksi; hänen rinnallaan on
Herttalan Helmakin kuin tavallisen torpan tytär. Menkää vaan
kokoukseen, raukat.
— Kiusallakin menen minä sinne. Kiroten Kaaren isäntää meni
kauppias ulos ja lyöttäytyi ohi kulkevain seuraan.
Samassa ranskalaiseen malliin tehdyt ajopelit kääntyivät pihaan.
Rouva riensi vastaanottamaan vävyään ja virkkoi:
— Kaukana te ajoittekin.
— Oli niin vilpoisa ilma, vastasi tuomari. Mutta miksi talonpojat
arkipäivänä jouten ovat? Miksi eivät tee töitään?
— Sekö heidän tiesi? Ne sivistyvät niin, etteivät enää huoli muusta
kuin seuroista ja kokouksista. Nyt näitte tarpeeksenne navetoita ja
perunamaita. Ei täällä voi olla kauneudesta puhettakaan.
— Semmoista on muuallakin Suomessa. Talonpojat eivät välitä
kaunistella kartanoltaan. Kunhan vaan saavat paksua vaatetta ylleen
ja rasvaista lihaa syödäkseen, on kaikki hyvin.
— Niillä on tänäpänä tärkeä kokous, virkkoi Ainu. Menikö isäkin
sinne?
— Meni, uuden kauppayhtiön osakkeita ostamaan.
— Täysi tosi talonpojilla sitte on ollutkin, vaikka minä pidin koko
juttua pilana. Tuomari tarjosi käsivartensa Ainulle ja lähti käymään
edellä.

Mustine hiuksineen, vaaleine kasvoineen ja kultasankaisine
silmälasineen oli hän rouvan mielestä hienon herran täydellisyys.
Kaunis ja hieno oli Ainukin keikaillen kävellessään hienon herran
rinnalla. Hänellä oli yllään kuosikkaasti tehty harmaa silkkipuku, ja
uudella kalliilla hatullaan oli se hyvä ominaisuus, että se teki kasvot
hieman pyöreämmiksi, naisellisemmiksi. Tottuneena latelemaan
hänelle aina pelkkiä kohteliaisuuksia virkkoi tuomari kävellessään:
— Sinä olet niin herttainen ja sievä. Ja kääntyen rouvaan lisäsi
hän: Kun erämaasta löytää kauniin kukan, se vasta onkin kaunis.
Rouva loi lausujaan kiitollisen katseen, ja Ainu virkkoi:
— Sinä kykenet runoilijaksikin.
Kauppias viipyi kylässä kauan. Kun hän tuli kotiin, oli kasvoillaan
ilkeä hymy, ja katseessa näkyi kätketty kiukku. Istuen tuomarin
rinnalle sanoi hän:
— Olin siellä loppuun asti, jotta kaulin asiat juurin jaarin.
— Puhu kuulemasi meillekin, pyysi rouva.
— Kaaren isäntä siellä johti puhetta, alkoi kauppias kertoa, ja
isäntiä oli kokouksessa niinkuin kärpäsiä kesällä karjatarhassa,
muuta väkeä vielä sitäkin enemmän. Osakkeiden kirjoitus alkoi
pitkän keskustelun jäljestä. Johtaja, Herttalan tytär ja Klaus mylläri
ensiksi ostivat, kukin sadan markan edestä. Se oli merkki muille
väkeville. Neljättäkymmentä pohattaa astui toinen toisensa jäljestä
Klaun Kaisun eteen, joka kirjurin kunniakasta virkaa toimitti.
Kymmenen kappaletta, kymmenen kappaletta, kuului jokaisen

isännän kuonosta. Muut olivat vakavia, mutta kirjuri naureskeli, että
hampaat välkkyivät…
— Piikatyttö pääsee herrasväen luokkaan, keskeytti rouva;
navetasta yhtiön puotiin. Sitä onnea!
— Sitte myötiin osakkeita kaksittain ja kolmittain, jatkoi kauppias
kertomustaan. Koturit, suutarit, sepät ja räätälit niitä kilvan ostivat.
Asian ääretön suuruus ja tärkeys kutkutti raukkojen itsetuntoa,
isänmaallisuutta, ja Jumala tiesi mitä kaikkea se kutkutti. Viho
viimeiseksi tuli renkien vuoro. Miekkosen poika alotti, ja minä
lopetin; kymmenen markan miehiä olimme molemmat.
Tuomari rupesi nauramaan, ja nauruun yhtyivät kaikki muut paitse
Franssi. Hän pysyi kylmänä.
— Niillä on nyt viisituhatta markkaa koossa, ja pian alkaa taistelu.
— Ei se riitä, arveli tuomari. Jotta voisivat kilpailla teidän
kanssanne, tarvitsee olla kolme sen vertaa.
— Niin sitä outo luulisi, mutta ei muualla maailmassa ole
semmoisia viisaita kuin täällä meidän kylässä. Yhtiön kaupalla tulee
olemaan kaksi suurta päämaalia, nimittäin kukistaa minun kauppani
ja siinä samassa vähentää yleistä ostohalua.
— Sepä oivaa!
— Yhtiön puoti rupee tekemään kauppaa parhaasta päästä
kotimaisilla tavaroilla, tavaran pitää olla hyvää, halpaa ja
välttämättömän tarpeellista.

Turhat ja kalliit tavarat pois kylästä ja koko Suomesta, kirkuvat
isännät, koturit ja rengit.
— Se on sitä nurkka-isänmaallisuutta, joka nykyään on muodissa.
Ihmiset, jotka eivät milloinkaan ole käyneet omaa tunkiota
edempänä, innostuvat siihen. Tyhjät sanat ja tyhjät päät mieltyvät
toisiinsa ja ylpeilevät yhdessä.
— Tuo oli kohdalla sanottu. Meidän kylän isännät pitävät itseänsä
maailman viisaimpina, ja itse mielestään kelpaisivat he vaikka
kuninkaan neuvonantajiksi. Ei sitä asiaa, jota he eivät pysty
arvostelemaan. Eivätkä he tarvitse nähdä tai kuulla mitään, sillä
kaikki viisaus on sanomalehdissä niinkuin vesi järvessä. Kauha vaan
käteen, niin kyllä viisautta lähtee. Kun minä olin nuori, oli
kyläkunnassa joku viisas mies, joka tiesi ja ymmärsi lakikirjat ja
muut ennustukset, mutta nyt on jokainen viisas. Ja ne kirotut
sanomalehdet! Niistä ovat he onkineet aivoihinsa yhtiökaupankin.
Siellä ja siellä pitäjässä on jo semmoinen, sanovat he, miksi ei se
kävisi täälläkin laatuun? Herrat ennen sanomalehtiä lukivat, ja
talonpojilla oli virsikirjat. En minä voi ymmärtää, mitä valtamiehet
ajattelevat, kun painattavat sanomalehtiä suomeksi. Ei siitä hyvää
seuraa.
— Ei seuraakaan, todisti tuomari. Nyt jo on alituinen riita kansan
ja virkamiesten välillä. Talonpojat pistävät nenänsä, missä vaan on
rako, johon mahtuu, ja sitte sanomalehdet kirkuvat ja parkuvat,
miten meillä Suomessa on Egyptin pimeys ja turkkilaiset virkamiehet.
Siksipä en minäkään viitsinyt pieniin virkoihin ruveta, mutta kun
pääsen tuomariksi, niin tuomitsen minä talonpojille ropoja niskaan.
— Ei ne pirut muuta ansaitsekaan. Mutta sanokaapa, mitenkä
minun tulee menetellä, kun yhtiön puoti avataan. Mitenkä minä voin

kukistaa sen?
— Siten että myötte helpompaan; se on yksi ja ainoa keino.
Parikin vuotta kiusaatte, eivätköhän jo sitte väsy.
— Sitä minä en luule. Osakkeiden korko on nyt aluksi tavattoman
alhainen, nimittäin neljä sadalta, huoneet ilmaiseksi ja hoitajan
palkka pieni. Sitäpaitse ovat osakkaat sitoutuneet kärsimään
tappiotakin alkuaikoina; jos kireälle käy, ei makseta korkoja lainkaan.
Siten sen menestyminen on kaiken uhalla taattu. Jokainen osakas on
hyvinvoipa; ei heille tunnukaan, vaikka osakkeiden korot jäävät
joinakuina vuosina tulematta; ajan pitkään saavat he
monenkertaisesti takaisin. Ja niinpian kun yhtiön kauppa avataan,
käyvät he sieltä ostamassa, se on tiettykin. Yhteinen kateus minua
vastaan yhdistää heidät yhdeksi mieheksi. Minä en voi uida niin
väkevää vastavirtaa, en voi joukolle mitään. Kaaren isäntä vei leivän
suustani.
— Myökää puotinne tyhjäksi ja eläkää rauhassa rahoillanne tai
rahojenne koroilla. Siten ainakin minä tekisin teidän sijassanne.
Vävyn hellä rakkaus liikutti rouvaa.
— Mitä meidän tarvitsee huolehtia? sanoi hän ylpeästi. Ei ikävä
tule, kun ei raha lopu.
— Mutta millä minä saan päiväni kulumaan iltaan, sitte kun
kaupan lopetamme? Myöminen ja ostaminen on minun elämäni. Jos
olisivat ajat niinkuin ennen, mikä sitte olisi eläessä ja ollessa.
Muuttaisimme johonkin toiseen kylään ja alottaisimme mahtavasti.
Mutta nyt ei sekään keino kannata, sillä kauppiaita on joka kylässä,
on liiaksikin.

— Missä markka on ansaittavissa, siinä on kymmenen kättä jo
ottamassa, huomautti tuomari. Samoin on laita kaikilla muillakin
aloilla.
— Franssi, teitpä hullusti sittekin, kun et nainut Annaa. Hänestä
olisit saanut muhkean rouvan, ja tässä olisimme sitte elelleet kuin
kalat kudunaikana. Tämmöinen suuri kylä ja…
— Sinä olet jo ihan höperö, keskeytti rouva. Nyt vasta Franssin
hyvin käy, saa rikkaan ja rakkaan.
— Se on vielä saamatta.
— Ei ole, se on jo varma. Isä ja äiti ovat myöntyneet, kun ovat
kuulleet että Franssi on parantunut, ja tyttö on itsekin rakastunut,
kuten novelleissa sanotaan.
— Ei se mikään suuri onnenpotkaus ole, vaikka saisikin; ei
maanviljelyksellä kukaan rikastu.
— Mutta sillä pysyy rikkaana.
— Kymmenessä vuodessa ansaitsen minä kaupanteolla enemmän,
kuin semmoinen talo koskaan maksaa. Ja köyhän minäkin nain. Ei
vaimon perinnöistä ole muuta kuin riitaa, sillä ne eivät kuitenkaan
riitä pitemmälle kuin Tuomaan päivästä jouluun.
Tuomari naurahti.
— Etkä sinä puhu mitään, sanoi hän Franssille, joka näytti
kylmältä, välinpitämättömältä.

— Älkää minusta riidelkö. Franssi ei ollut kuullut keskustelusta
puoliakaan. Minä annan pitkän hiton kaikille rikkaille ja rakkaille.
Rouva viittasi tuomaria tulemaan kanssaan kamariin. Siellä sitte
sanoi kuiskaten:
— Tuommoiseksi hän heti tulee, kun vaan näkee vilaukseltakaan
Helman.
— Missä hän tänäpänä Helman näki?
— Tuolla maantiellä, kun tulitte ajelemasta. Muistatteko tyttöä
kahden miehen seurassa tässä meidän lähellä.
— Muistan hyvinkin. Hänellä oli ihmeen tyyni katse ja ihmeen
kaunis vartalo. Kasvoissa oli jotakin kovaa, ja ankaraa ja puku oli
semmoista ristiraitaista, arkipäiväistä kangasta. Minä luulin häntä sen
nuoren jättiläisen vaimoksi, jonka rinnalla hän käveli. Arvelin
myöskin, että täällä tuskin kukaan osaa kadehtia sitä nuorta miestä…
— Se oli Herttalan Helma, lapsuudesta asti Franssin kihlattu.
Tiedätte miten heidän rakkautensa kävi. Käärme tuli siihen väliin ja…
Mutta Franssi raukka ei voi unhottaa. Nähtyään vaan vilaukseltakin
Helman puhuu hän heti halveksien elämästä ja maailmasta. Itse
näitte, miten tänäänkin heti muuttui, hän ei enää kuullut eikä nähnyt
mitään. Semmoinen tauti on vaarallista. Mikä siihen sopii lääkkeeksi?
— Iloinen seura. Tuomari tarjosi käsivartensa rouvalle ja meni
jälleen saliin.
Franssi istui sohvalla, pää oli käden nojassa ja kauniit kasvot
surullisen, mietteliään näköiset.

— Älä sure, sanoi tuomari ja löi häntä olkapäähän. Elämä on lyhyt,
ja haudan taakse ei näe kukaan. Koska nautit, joll'et nyt?
Franssi ei vastannut sanaakaan.
— Ruvetkaa pelaamaan sitä uutta peliä, sanoi rouva. Minä
lämmitän totivettä.
— En minä viitsi pelata, vastasi Franssi kärsimättömästi; paitse jos
pannaan rahaa pöytään.
— Pankaa sitte, mutta älkää suuria summia panko. Vaihtakaa
puodista pieniä.
Kotvasen kuluttua alkoi kiihkeä kortinlyönti. Sitä häiritsi ainoastaan
keltasirkun laulu, joka avonaisesta akkunasta kuului saliin, ja
pelaajain kiihkeät kiroussanat.
Kaaren isännän ja Herttalan Helman toimesta ruvettiin
puuhaamaan arpajaisia, joiden tulot käytettäisiin kylään aiotun
lainakirjaston hyväksi. Voittoja kerättiin vapaaehtoisissa antimissa, ja
itse Kaaren isäntä meni kerjäämään kauppiaalta almuja.
— Ette siitä köyhemmäksi tule, sanoi hän, vaikka annattekin
tuommoisia kaupaksi käymättömiä tavaroita; eivät antamanne
hukkaan mene.
— Mihin tulot käytetään?
— Kirjaston perustamiseen. Nuorilla on niin hyvä lukuhalu, että
siitä oikein sopii iloita. Minun kirjani kulkevat ympäri kylää yhtenään.

— Ne ovat arvatenkin semmoisia lorukirjoja, joita Ainukin nuorena
tyttönä lueskeli. Ja ne ovat turhia. Toiset ihmiset niissä maalataan
sysimustiksi, toiset lumivalkoisiksi. Mitä varten, on mahdoton
meikäläisen ymmärtää. Meissä on kaikissa vähä vikaa, yhdessä yhtä
lajia, toisessa toista lajia, mutta piruja tai enkelejä emme ole
kukaan. Ja vaikka tuhannen joukossa löytyisikin yksi jalo ihminen,
niin mitä hyvää siitä lähtee, että minä luen kirjasta hänen elämänsä.
Ajan haaskausta lorukirjain lukeminen on, eikä muuta. Ei ihminen
kirja kädessä tule toimeen.
— Minä en katso asiaa siltä kannalta kuin te. Joka ei mitään lue,
hän ei mitään tiedäkään. Muista hyödyllisistä kirjoista
puhumattakaan, ovat lorukirjatkin nuorille tarpeellisia, niiden
jalostava vaikutus nuoreen sydämeen on äärettömän suuri. Tuon
tiedän omasta kokemuksestani. Paimenpoikana minä luin
ensimmäisen lorukirjani. Sankarin kuva painui ainaiseksi sydämeeni,
ja minä päätin tulla samanlaiseksi. Päätös oli minulle hyvinkin
tarpeellinen. Sankarin vaiheisin en tosin joutunut, mutta jouduin
kuljeksimaan maailmaa, jouduin hyvien ja huonojen ihmisten pariin.
Minä asuin kolme vuotta talossa, josta oli vaan kymmenkunta
askeletta kapakkaan ja saman verran julkiseen synninpesään. Mutta
minulla oli sydämessä lorukirjani sankari, ja minä olin omissa
silmissäni suurempi kuin muut kuolevaiset. Hauskin huvitukseni oli
lukeminen. Vanhoja kirjoja vein pois, uusia toin, ja kun ne kolme
vuotta saivat kuluneeksi kovassa työssä ja ahkerassa lukemisessa, oli
minusta tullut aika mies. Mitä työlläni voin säästää, ne säästyivät
tarkkaan. Saatuani pienen perintöni tulin sisartani tervehtimään, ja
nyt minä olen kahden talon isäntä.
— Olin minäkin nuori ja kuljin maailmaa, muita turhia kirjoja en
lukenut. Kuitenkin voin vakuuttaa, ett'en käynyt kapakoissa, enkä

hypännyt tyttöjen perässä.
— Minä en voi vielä nytkään elää lukematta. Raskas työ ja hyvät
kirjat ovat minulle välttämättömiä.
— Voivat olla teille, mutta minä en ainakaan kaipaa lukemista. Ja
luulen, ett'ei se sovikaan minun ammattiini.
— Hm! Minä taas olen vakuutettu, että juuri lukemattomuus ja
aineellisuuden jumaloiminen vaikuttivat perikadoksenne. Palvelitte
kultaista vasikkaa liian hartaasti, liian sokeasti. Tavattoman suuri
voitto, jota otitte tavaroista, niinkuin myös olut- ja viinakauppa…
— Älkäämme puhuko niistä enää. Perin kerjäämälläkö te aiotte
saada arpajaisvoitot?
— Ei muu keino auta tällä erällä.
— Onko jo yhtään voittoja tiedossa?
— On maarkin. Mylläri antoi puolen tynnyriä rukiita, vanha
Miekkonen perunoita, Herttalan Helma kangasta ja samoin kaikki
muutkin kylän varalliset henkilöt. Ei kukaan ole saituri ollut.
— Annan minäkin, kun vaan ehdin katsoa ja kääntää tavaroitani.
Te olette semmoinen mies, että teihin täytyy suostua väkisin. Älkää
nyt vain suuttuko, vaikka puhun teille eräästä vanhasta ja tärkeästä
asiasta, olettehan jalo ja viisas mies. Minä tahtoisin Annan ja
Franssin välin jälleen hyväksi. He ovat kerran tykänneet toisistaan…
— Vai niin! Kaaren isännän ääni oli tyyni, ja hän hymyili
kauppiaalle.

— Annasta puhumattakaan on se Franssinkin mielessä hautaan
asti.
Sanotaan, ett'ei vanha rakkaus ruostu, ja niin se onkin. Minä tiedän,
että Franssi antaisi jo sormen kädestään, jos sillä saisi vaimokseen
Annan.
— Vai niin.
— Teillä kun on semmoinen voima ihmisten yli, niin yhdessä
saisimme tämänkin asian menemään mieltämme myöden.
— Vai niin.
— Mutta te vihaatte meitä ja kiellätte Annaa.
— Enpä kiellä. Anna saa tehdä kuin tahtoo.
— Onko se totta?
— En minä valehtele koskaan.
— Tulkaa sitte huomenna ottamaan meiltä voittoja, mutta tulkaa
hevosella.
— Kyllä tulen. Kaaren isäntä naurahti, hymyili ja läksi tyytyväisenä
pois.
Arpajaiset, ensimmäiset laatuansa kylässä, pidettiin Kaaren
talossa, jossa oli tilavia huoneita. Rahallisessa suhteessa ne
onnistuivat hyvin, sillä väkeä tuli huoneet täyteen; olikin jouluinen
aika, jolloin ei ollut töillä kiirettä. Raakaa menoa ja humalaisia, jotka
molemmat ennen olivat kaikkiin huvituksiin yhdistyneitä, ei näkynyt;
siisteys käytöksessä ja puvuissakin oli yleinen. Kotikutoinen kangas

oli jälleen vallassa, ja jonkunmoinen ujous somisti nuorien käytöstä.
Se miellytti vanhoillisia, jotka rakastivat siivoutta ja suomalaisen
miettiväisyyttä.
Arpoja möivät Helma, Anna ja Kaisu; heidän ympärillään ihan
kiehui ostajia. Innokkain onnen-onkija oli kauppias. Koko ajan kun
arpoja myötiin hääräili hän Annan lähellä, lahjoitellen voittolippuja
lapsille ja puhellen iloisesti kansan sivistymisestä. Se oli hänellekin
tullut rakkaaksi; kaikkiin rientoihin ja pyrintöihin, jotka kansan
parasta tarkoittivat, oli hän sydämestään mieltynyt. Kun arvat olivat
myödyt loppuun, ja voittojen jakaminen anasti yleisen huomion,
virkkoi hän Annalle:
— Ikävä, ett'ei Franssi päässyt tänne. Hän olisi ostanut sinulta
urakassa kaikki arvat.
— Miks'ei tullut?
— No ei hän ole kotonakaan; Ainu kirjoitti ja vaati tulemaan sinne.
Eilen Franssi lähti rouvan kanssa, ja minulla oli ikävä ilta. Aioin jo
tulla teille, mutta…
— Olisitte tulleet. Anna katsoi terävästi ja epäilevästi kauppiasta
silmiin.
— Tule sinä huomenillalla veljesi kanssa meille. Jos tulevat kotiin,
niin saadaan tulijaisia.
— Eivät he sieltä niin pian joudu kotiin, kun on yksi tie ja kaksi
asiaa. Morsiamissa käyvät samalla.
— Eivätkä käykään. Eikö veljesi olekaan sinulle puhunut?

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