[thebaer]

Haha well they certainly don't make the covers of magazines very often, but I don't know that they're as rare as you think. The people behind Basecamp, Balsamiq, and tons of other smaller companies are able to build "old-fashioned" businesses that stick to their principles and only answer to their customers. You need a little fortitude on the founder's part of course, but also the right financial incentives -- a key aspect the GP post missed.

As for Write.as, I spend copious time talking about why I built it [0] and making sure people know me personally, to address your exact point. Personally, I'm a simple dude who relishes putting more value on principles than a number in a bank account. And I'd rather have a tent in the woods than Mai Thais on the beach.

But we do have an open API [1] and one-click export to get your data out, so you can be sure :)

[0] https://write.as/matt/who-is-this

[1] https://developers.write.as/docs/api/