David Heinemeier Hansson

Ruby on Rails and 37signals

Heinemeier Hansson created the Ruby on Rails web framework in 2003. Basecamp, the project management application launched by 37signals in 2004, was the original Rails application. In 2022 Heinemeier Hansson started The Rails Foundation, which works on documentation, education, marketing and events for the Rails ecosystem, and serves as its chairman.¹

Heinemeier Hansson owns 37signals together with Jason Fried. The company makes Basecamp and the HEY email service, launched in 2020, as well as other products such as Highrise, Campfire, Fizzy and the ONCE line of self-hosted software including Writebook. Since November 2024 Heinemeier Hansson has also served on the board of directors of Shopify.¹

Omarchy and local AI

Omarchy is an opinionated Linux system that Heinemeier Hansson created, released under the MIT License and incubated at 37signals. Its manual includes a section on running local language models with tools such as LM Studio and Ollama, and its Install menu offers these tools along with agent applications. In 2026 Heinemeier Hansson started the Omacom Foundation, a nonprofit that holds Omarchy's trademarks, funds its infrastructure and supports the open-source projects it depends on, and serves as its president.¹²⁴³⁶

In September 2026 the Omacom Foundation announced that it would be the premier sponsor of 0xSero's work on local AI through Sybil Solutions, with the goal of making local models work well on Omarchy without extra setup.⁵

Writing

With Jason Fried, Heinemeier Hansson has written four books drawn from running 37signals: Getting Real, on building Basecamp and an early software business; REWORK, on starting and running businesses; REMOTE: Office Not Required, on remote work; and It Doesn't Have To Be Crazy At Work, on running a calm company.¹

Work and contributions

• Omarchy

  Created Omarchy, an MIT-licensed Linux system. Its manual's Local LLMs section recommends LM Studio, for finding, installing, and running open-weight models through a graphical app, and Ollama, for doing the same from the command line; both install from the Install > AI menu.¹²³⁴

• Ollama setup in Omarchy

  Omarchy's Install > AI menu installs Ollama, choosing the CUDA build when it detects an NVIDIA GPU and the ROCm build when it detects an AMD GPU, and its removal command deletes Ollama together with the models it downloaded.⁶⁷³

• Hermes and OpenClaw in Omarchy

  Omarchy can install Hermes Desktop and make Hermes, Nous Research's agent, or OpenClaw the default agent. Its manual documents how Omarchy manages the Hermes runtime and OpenClaw's Control UI with its own local gateway.³⁶

• Omacom sponsorship of local AI work

  Announced on September 23, 2026 that the Omacom Foundation will be a premier sponsor of 0xSero's local AI work for three years, collaborating on making local models work out of the box on Omarchy; the post describes 0xSero's Local AI Registry of model configurations, hardware-specific recipes, and performance measurements.⁵

Timeline

1. 2003Created the Ruby on Rails web framework.¹
2. 200437signals launched Basecamp, the original Ruby on Rails application.¹
3. 202037signals launched the HEY email service.¹
4. 2022Started The Rails Foundation and became its chairman.¹
5. Nov 2024Joined the board of directors of Shopify.¹
6. 2026Started the Omacom Foundation, a nonprofit supporting Omarchy, and became its president.¹
7. Sep 23, 2026Announced the Omacom Foundation's sponsorship of 0xSero's local AI work for Omarchy.⁵

Where they work

• 37signals 1 person in the wiki
• Omacom Foundation 1 person in the wiki
• The Rails Foundation 1 person in the wiki
• Shopify 1 person in the wiki

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