A story of joy.

In 1993, while still at Boston University, Naphtali (our founder) began working with Internet technologies at the first-ever Internet consultancy. By 1997, he'd worked at 3 companies, building the very first versions of some Very Large Websites. That was neat, but he was disheartened with the complete lack of a cohesive culture at those companies.

He knew that it’d be fun to create software in the early days of the Internet, but his primary goal when starting Furnace Labs was to create a fun atmosphere — a "clubhouse" — where people would love to spend their days. He assumed that if they got that part right, they'd be able to find great clients and make a good living. Furnace Labs organically grew from "just Naf" to a 6-person organization that initially operated out of the living room of Naphtali's apartment, to a group of 15 amazing folks in a “proper” loft-style office in downtown Boston.

Furnace Labs ran a successful business for four years — maintaining profitability, providing competitive salaries and benefits, and creating a  really fun atmosphere. They worked on projects that, for the most part, everyone found interesting and challenging. In many ways, they were more successful than a similar company across the street that raised over $100MM, had massive clients, and still managed to go out of business.

After four years, Furnace Labs' biggest client, because their promised second round of funding didn’t materialize, went out of business. As a result, they weren’t able to pay us a huge sum of money they owed — for work already completed. Naphtali was shocked and clearly disappointed, but knew that they could recover. However, within a week of that happening, all of their other clients got cold feet due to a  economy in tail-spin (in early 2001) and as a result, had no more projects to issue. It was at that point that Naphtali was convinced that the business was no longer viable.

There was no money and $40,000 needed to appear in two days to make payroll. It was clearly time to shutter the doors, so Naphtali summoned the team of 10 people at the time. With tears, told them that he loved them, that it had been a great run, and that he hoped they'd stay close-knit, but it was time to go home; there was just no other option.

It took a while for anyone to say anything, but eventually Jim, who had a bit of a reputation as a wise-ass, said, “I’ll stay.” It was unclear if he was being sincere or sarcastic, so Naphtali acknowledged his kindness, yet completely dismissed the comment. A few seconds — that seemed like minutes —later, Mark, piped up with, “Me too. I’ll stay.” Then Thomas, with his deep voice, “Me too. You’ll come up with something, you always do.” One at a time, each of them said they’d stay. Naphtali was perplexed and had no idea where this amazingly generous gesture came from, nor what they really meant by it, and had no words to express feelings of deep gratitude in that moment. He told them that he had no idea what they meant, but was willing to “run with it” and see what happened. He suspected that the adrenaline of the moment would wear off by the next morning.

Sure enough, the next day, and every day for 2 months, everyone came to work, on time. There was a light trickle of client work, and when they weren't working on that, they helped create proposals. They all stayed for two months, without salary, until they landed their largest client ever — and then sold the company! In the sale of the company, Naphtali only negotiated a) that the entire staff would be hired by the new company; and b) that everyone would get a raise. This was definitely a bold negotiation, since layoffs, even among programmers, were rampant. They emerged from the darkness and joined the acquiring company. While that experience came with its own set of challenges, they really felt like they'd managed to make some lemonade.

Following that amazing experience, while still working in technology, Naphtali realized that he had an deep understanding of what really makes people tick and how to create really special organizations. Since then, Naphtali spent several years digging deeper into psychology, neurology, biology and spirituality to deeply understand the human dynamic, especially in the context of professional organizations. He encapsulated some of those learnings in a book called "Humans Working" and started a company of the same name.