SF Ruby 2025 and the Thousand People Framework

I think it's important that the Ruby community knows what just happened in San Francisco last week.

400+ Rubyists got together and shared ideas and visions. They exchanged opinions and presented the past, present, and future of Ruby.

I went to very few talks (lately, the hallway track is the one that's getting most of my attention) but was impressed (no surprise there) by Vova's talk "Rails X". He did such a good job going through the current state of Ruby tooling, highlighting some areas where we need to pay a bit more attention to detail. I love the whole vision and how he showcased our community members and their work.

Avo was there too. Paul and I prepared a cool booth where quite a few guests came to learn more about Avo, see demos, and talk through issues or problems they'd encountered along the way. We brought Romanian chocolate biscuits and chocolate, and showed off the new design which we have ready for the next release.

The venue was pretty eclectic too. Fort Mason is a former military fort now administered by the National Park Service (we even shot an impromptu podcast interview). The event had some cool surprises like a space where you could get your t-shirt screen-printed live in front of you, a secret room where you could play games using Ruby, and the Ruby Embassy with its event stamp. After collecting that one, you could visit the sponsor booths to get extra stamps.

After the event, there were several activities set up. AngelList held a hackathon at their HQ, some went for a swim to Alcatraz in the morning, and some (like myself) rented e-bikes and took a ride around the waterfront, across the Golden Gate Bridge, and into Sausalito. It's a tour I won't forget anytime soon.

But the most important thing that happened at SF Ruby was the statement it made.

If you've crossed paths with me and we've gotten deep into conversations about Ruby, Rails, and the current state of affairs, you've probably heard me talk about the "One Thousand People Framework". Don't get me wrong, I love the "One Person Framework" approach. It enables small teams to be incredibly nimble and ship value at an unprecedented level. There are so few frameworks and ecosystems out there that can do that.

While this tagline helps a lot with adoption at the bottom of the funnel (single developers and small teams), I don't think it does justice to larger teams (100 people or more). Those companies where tech stack decisions are taken with much larger considerations in mind. Where they ask questions about what support exists at that scale.

I know what you're thinking: "Why should I give a damn about that?", but I'd say it's more important than ever nowadays.

It's important because these huge companies have the manpower and resources to actually push the language and framework forward. They're the ones that can fund 40-person teams to improve Ruby and Rails like Shopify does. Without Shopify, Ruby and Rails would be worse off.

Another big idea I stand behind is that optics matter.

It matters what we put out there into the world. It matters what we say and how we frame things. It matters that Ruby looks like a viable solution going forward for new developers and brings them opportunities. Same for companies who haven't made their bets on their tech stack yet.

And I think this is what happened at SF Ruby last week.

SF Ruby made a statement: that Ruby and Rails is still alive and kicking, powering big and upcoming companies. The new generation of Shopify-level companies. Companies like Chime, Bolt.new, Intercom, Gusto, PlanetScale, and others. SF Ruby showed that Ruby and Rails is still powerful in the Bay Area and around the world.

And that's one of the most important things that could have come out of this event.

Irina, Amanda, Anton, Steven, Ken, Cameron, Garry, and the rest of the Evil Martians and organizing team did an incredible job putting on a swanky event with small-conference vibes but big implications. Thanks everyone for the fantastic job you did

I hope to see it organized again and again for a long, long time.