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“About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

• the-dude 6y ago
  "Changes at Basecamp" : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26944192 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26944192 ( 4 days ago, 774 comments ). Which is a feel good piece about management philosophy ( a bit back to our roots ) and does not mention layoffs once.
  • detaro 6y ago
    Sounds more like a "if you don't like it you can leave" and a bunch of people taking them up on it than a planned layoff. Would love to know what number of leavers they expected (I assume they expected/hoped for some) vs they got.
    • the-dude 6y ago
      Now you mention it, is surely reads like that. Especially at the end : Who made these decisions? Well, David and I did. And I searched the HN comments, and nobody seems to have uttered the words leaving or layoff.
  • albedoa 6y ago
    The announcement of buy-out offers came later.
  • switz 6y ago
    If you want more context, this article really breaks down what happened internally. There's a lot more to the story than was presented. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26963708 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26963708
    • the-dude 6y ago
      Thank you.
    • creamytaco 6y ago
      I don't see a lot more there, besides referring to (long) past events to justify continuing with specific policies and actions. In fact, it's definitely smart of Basecamp to realize that the kind of politics and ideology we encounter today in the US are anathema to any workplace and may lead to paralysis and rot-from-within outcomes. I expect more companies to follow suit.
    • SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      Seconded. I'm one of the strongest "no politics at work" guys you'll find, and unless there's substantial missing context, even I would consider leaving Basecamp over this. A widely circulated list to make fun of people's names is pretty egregious, and demands a lot more introspection on company culture than it sounds like the founders were willing to do.
      • CydeWeys 6y ago
        This article makes a great point about what might be considered "politics at work": > What that view misses, I think, is how confusing rules like these are to employees. One Basecamp worker I spoke with today, who requested anonymity, wondered the extent to which parenting issues could be raised at work. “How do you talk about raising kids without talking about society?” the employee said. “As soon as I bring up public schools, then it’s already political.” Or what if you're black, is talking about your race or your own lived experiences considered political? I don't tend to talk about political stuff at work too much personally, but recently we've been talking about the pandemic a lot (like everyone else). Is that political? Sure seems like it could be construed to be political. Even public health advice from the CDC is considered to be political these days.
        • SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
          Like any category of social behavior, the boundaries are fuzzy. It's also hard to draw a crisp line between passion and rudeness, yet I don't think anyone would conclude that being rude to your coworkers should be allowed. If you have a healthy culture, mutual respect and benefit of the doubt will smooth over the fuzziness; I've worked in multiple teams across multiple companies that manage to generally avoid politics, while still talking about parenting and lived experiences and the CDC.
          • mandevil 6y ago
            This story makes clear that it wasn't 'politics' the way all the outsiders thought of it. The way this rule was instituted makes it clear that it was about protecting company leaders (and DHH's ego) from criticism over their failures w.r.t the widely circulated list of funny names of customers.
    • shoo 6y ago
      > “There's always been this kind of unwritten rule at Basecamp that the company basically exists for David and Jason's enjoyment,” one employee told me. “At the end of the day, they are not interested in seeing things in their work timeline that make them uncomfortable, or distracts them from what they're interested in. And this is the culmination of that.”
  • ptrkcsk 6y ago
    > Yesterday, we offered everyone at Basecamp an option of a severance package worth up to six months salary for those who've been with the company over three years, and three months salary for those at the company less than that. No hard feelings, no questions asked. For those who cannot see a future at Basecamp under this new direction, we'll help them in every which way we can to land somewhere else. https://world.hey.com/dhh/let-it-all-out-78485e8e https://world.hey.com/dhh/let-it-all-out-78485e8e
  • xt00 6y ago
    Reading the thing about the "small council" made me think, hmm this must be a huge company, but its 60 people.. I wonder how many of the people on the small council that got disbanded quit. Sounds somewhat like there were a number of employees who probably feel like they previously had a lot of say in the company and now maybe don't -- so yea hard to say who's right here, but big personalities sometimes do make things hard if there isn't some order to the chaos coming from the company leaders.
• brrrrrm 6y ago
  Isn’t that only 20 people? Edit: as in, this is misleadingly phrased as if it’s a large collective action
  • minimaxir 6y ago
    Still a third, which has organizational consequences. More importantly, this 20 people includes senior employees which cannot easily be replaced. > The entire iOS team is out, Head of Design and one of the oldest hires is out of the team and the Rails Core Team as well. https://twitter.com/agisilaosts/status/1388213430004375555 https://twitter.com/agisilaosts/status/1388213430004375555
  • williamsmj 6y ago
    "About one-third of stools legs removed." "Isn't that only one leg?"
    • pschuegr 6y ago
      "Single leg removed from every stool! How will we replace them all?" "But we only have one stool?"
  • whymauri 6y ago
    *Three* org heads, two lead developers, and seven developers (apparently the entire iOS team) in that group, at least. That's a recruitment/headcount nightmare... I wouldn't be surprised if other employees leave based on crunch and headcount alone.
    • bob33212 6y ago
      I left a job because management decided to take on a customer that was going to be a disaster to work with. This could be happening here. If you were the lone iOS dev you would be on call 24/7 until they hired more people. Why not take a paid vacation
    • joelbluminator 6y ago
      Well the ios team is 2 engineers I think, Basecamp is very lean on mobile...its mostly html.
• tosh 6y ago
  https://workflowy.com/s/basecamp-resignation/qrBBdTQydmTKLu0y https://workflowy.com/s/basecamp-resignation/qrBBdTQydmTKLu0... via https://twitter.com/RogersKonnor/status/1388212747947679744?s=20 https://twitter.com/RogersKonnor/status/1388212747947679744?...
• TigeriusKirk 6y ago
  If a third of the people were willing to leave the company over a decision, it sounds like there was a real, meaningful mismatch in priorities. Which is fine, but it's for the best for everyone to end that mismatch.
  • dbt00 6y ago
    If more than a third of your employees think that a single policy change is enough for them to leave, then maybe your policy change is dumb.
    • Trasmatta 6y ago
      Yeah, this is my take. I feel like a huge amount of the blowback here is the insensitive way in which it was handled. They announced it all publicly on their blog, meaning most employees heard about it first on Twitter. It could / should have been handled carefully and tactfully first. The resignations feel less less like a result of a mismatch and more like result of a slap in the face from mismanagement.
    • ldiracdelta 6y ago
      Some times the way to make the company happier is to fire all the unhappy people.
      • ironmagma 6y ago
        The unhappy people didn’t get that way by virtue of their genetics.
        • luckylion 6y ago
          It doesn't matter how they got unhappy and activist. Unless you want to spend your time making them happy (instead of building products), what matters is to get them out. I'm a firm believer that you can help toxic people become normal (again). But it takes a lot of time and effort that you can't spend otherwise, and you might alienate others over it who don't want to suffer under the (maybe reforming) toxic person. The question is whether you want to help someone, or build products. Basecamp seems to have opted for not turning themselves into a SuperPAC/self-help group.
• kutenai 6y ago
  The employees that left probably spent most of their time protesting. The next article will be “Influx of resume’s for talent that prefers to work and be free from the thought police”
  • geofft 6y ago
    30% of the company spent most of their time protesting instead of doing their job?? That speaks pretty poorly of DHH and Jason's business skills, doesn't it? Shouldn't they have noticed this problem earlier?
    • kutenai 6y ago
      You are right. "most" was the wrong word to use. "some", not zero, might be better.. it is just speculation anyway. Regardless of how much time they spent, they may have made others uncomfortable. I've heard that any kind of speech that makes someone uncomfortable is bad.
      • geofft 6y ago
        I've heard that too, from Jason's blog post: > No more societal and political discussions on our company Basecamp account. Today's social and political waters are especially choppy. Sensitivities are at 11, and every discussion remotely related to politics, advocacy, or society at large quickly spins away from pleasant. But I think that's a misguided worldview, and people have to be able to deal with unpleasant conversations at work. The real world isn't a safe space for rich CEO's feelings. Maybe it used to be, but it no longer is.
• danjac 6y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if this will become a case study in future in how to self-destruct a successful company with a single bad communication, much like Gerald Ratner (although this may be due to long-term grievances we're not aware of).
  • aaomidi 6y ago
    They had many opportunities to reverse that blog post. They didn't and doubled down.
    • baggy_trough 6y ago
      Some people are willing to stick to their principles even if it costs them. We need many more such.
      • JeremyBanks 6y ago
        You may see principles, but I just see ego.
        • deleted 6y ago
          [deleted]
        • disgrunt 6y ago
          Hang on to your ego.
      • threatofrain 6y ago
        For those willing to stick by their principles, we should also see if they stick their landing.
      • mempko 6y ago
        Didn't realize authoritarianism is a principle we really should be rewarding.
      • tshaddox 6y ago
• peruvian 6y ago
  Seems like the entire iOS team is out.
• yoelo 6y ago
  Looking at what DHH tweets, it sure seems like the only acceptable politics at Basecamp is what helps selling their product
• JauntTrooper 6y ago
  They offered a severance of 6 months salary if you've worked there for 3+ years... I would be tempted by that offer regardless of any other circumstances, especially in today's competitive jobs market.
  • thrower123 6y ago
    Yeah, I've got to say, that kind of offer, even if I liked working for a company, would be hard to turn down. Especially right now. Take the summer off, enjoy things after this hellacious year, get back into a position somewhere in the fall. I don't imagine that it's going to be a black-balling mark for these people.
    • ghaff 6y ago
      Depends on the situation of course. The grab a new job in a week heuristic doesn't actually apply with a lot of people. But a good exit package, as used to be more routine, is certainly something to take into account.
  • fighterpilot 6y ago
    Even if I liked the job I would take it. Six months paid holiday would be too good to pass up.
    • swyx 6y ago
      depends. it (used to be) a tough job to get. i've heard vague indications that their profit sharing would have been extremely lucrative. but i dont know exact numbers. but just on a numbers basis if you made 1m a year profit sharing but a normal job outside you'd make 200k, you'd have to really hate working there to quit purely for the 6month payout.
      • void_mint 6y ago
        Eh. This thread is about employees of 3+ years, in which case, even if the profit share is very lucrative, they've received that profit share 3+ times. On top of that, I doubt Basecamp pays poorly. If you're even vaguely burnt out or bored, 6 months off sounds like a dream.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• Ozzie_osman 6y ago
  I'm surprised this isn't on the front page here. 120 points in an hour. Plenty to discuss. I hadn't seen this article and posted an article similar from the Verge and it was almost instantly flagged. EDIT: Looks like it bounced back and forth. I'm still getting downvoted on this comment though....
  • minimaxir 6y ago
    Everything involving Basecamp seems to get death-by-flags pretty quickly, which is disappointing. The better question is how this post got 120 points while not being on the front page. EDIT: Looks like dang unflagkilled it.
    • thrower123 6y ago
      I believe that if you submit a URL and it already exists, and it's within some time limit of the original posting, that acts like an upvote. Or at least it used to work like that.
    • SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      These kind of submissions tend to bounce back and forth as flags and upvotes fight against each other. I've been on the front page 3 times in the past 10 minutes, and it was there the first and third time.
• throwawaysea 6y ago
  I really hope more companies declare their workplaces to be politics free. I am completely tired of the long march through the institutions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_long_march_through_the_institutions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_long_march_through_the_ins...) that has culminated in corporations being weaponized for one-sided progressive political agendas. These departures really just give away the biases of the tech industry at large. As for Basecamp's leaders - I think they did the right thing in making their blog posts and sticking to their principles. However, they should not have offered a buyout incentive, which can expose a small organization like themselves to destabilization. They also tuned the buyout offer incorrectly - it basically provides free money, which will be tempting to even those who would be fine working there. Really that's the only part they got wrong. I hope they're able to hire quickly and make it through this period - if they do, this will have been the right decision in the long-term, since there's no point in retaining employees who have such a mismatched set of values.
  • NickNameNick 6y ago
    The alternative to 'politics in the workplace' isn't really no politics in the workplace. Its unchallenged politics of whoever established the company culture. And anything thats unchallenged is going to slowly devolve until it's unfit for purpose.
    • SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      Have you been in an apolitical workplace? I see this idea a lot, and it's very hard for me to reconcile with my personal experience, where I've never felt like I'm endorsing or propagating the politics of the higher-ups. It's hard to see how I could be, since there's not a single person in my management chain where I know who they voted for or what kinds of political ideas they favor.
      • kingsuper20 6y ago
        > Have you been in an apolitical workplace? Well, yes. I only ran into it in the last decade or so. Thinking back, it's interesting how utterly apolitical university was back in the day. About the closest we ever got to politics was the occasional and largely ignored pentecostal preacher.
• Hamuko 6y ago
  Didn't Coinbase do something similar and only have 5% take the buyout option? How is this so different from what Coinbase did?
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • babelfish 6y ago
    1/3 of your company choosing the buyout is way more significant than 5%
    • epivosism 6y ago
      I think there's another interpretation to his question - he's seriously asking why this decision had such a different result in this case, not trying to assert that this is a similar result.
    • monkeywork 6y ago
      if we are talking 5% of 100 people or 1/3 of 3 people you'd then the 5% is more significant. I don't know how folks don't understand that - % and pure numbers tell different stories depending on scale. If my hard drive has 5% remaining on it my reaction is going to be totally different if its a 250GB HD or a 10 TB HD.
  • coding123 6y ago
    Coinbase employees are probably "hodl"ers.
  • minimaxir 6y ago
    Two theories I've seen: 1) Coinbase's corporate culture is more libertarian (where an argument on "don't focus on politics" may go across more reasonably) while Basecamp's entire corporate brand is based on power for employees. 2) Coinbase was about to IPO and thus taking a buyout is harder to justify financially, while Basecamp equity is essentially worthless.
    • 6y ago
• btilly 6y ago
  WTF Twitter? I clicked on the story. Clicked the back button. And Twitter had a big giant popup on THIS page suggesting that I install the twitter app. That had no obvious way to be removed. I have no idea how they did that. But I really hope that the advertising spam industry doesn't start abusing this to place invasive ads all over other people's pages.
  • bosswipe 6y ago
    Got a screenshot? What platform?
    • btilly 6y ago
      Chrome on OS X. I did not take a screenshot.
  • danuker 6y ago
    I also hate this; it happens more often with mobile. Here: https://archive.is/UJrNo https://archive.is/UJrNo
  • asadlionpk 6y ago
    You mean a modal on HN?? That has to be a bug in browser. Maybe even security bug?
    • btilly 6y ago
      It was indeed displaying on top of HN and embedded in the page. That's what shocked me.
• 4ndrewl 6y ago
  I guess it's important to note the scale here. About a third of Basecamp employees is ~15-20 people?
  • uomo 6y ago
    According to the Verge, 18 employees (out of 57 total) have tweeted that they are going to leave. Source: https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/30/22412714/basecamp-employees-memo-policy-hansson-fried-controversy https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/30/22412714/basecamp-employe...
    • tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
      If that's just the ones quitting publicly, that's a really bad sign. If I was at Basecamp right now, I'd seriously consider accepting that offer, not out of concern about the policy change but out of concern about the future of a company that lost 1/3rd of its employees.
      • DiNovi 6y ago
        Yeah I’m surprised it didn’t accelerate tbh. If I saw how Much work was about to be dumped on me I would bolt
        • Quarrelsome 6y ago
          wouldn't you just scale back commitments as a business and push back ship dates?
          • ryanbrunner 6y ago
            To some degree sure, that's probably inevitable, but I've never seen a situation where a significant percentage of people leave (for whatever reason) and there isn't a followup a day or two later that everyone needs to roll up their sleeves and work harder to make up for it.
  • 6y ago
• notadoc 6y ago
  Guessing nearly 1/3 of employees at many companies would leave immediately if offered 6 months salary. Or maybe it's because those people were upset that discussing politics was not part of their job description?
  • predaking 6y ago
    I'm guessing it might be that 1/3 of those employees were upset that they found out about the initial policy change via a public facing blog post, possibly felt that the behavior of one of their main leaders was increasingly toxic and poisonous, didn't want to be associated with him and got a buyout. I mean, if I was working for a raging asshole who suddenly said "if you don't like me, here's 6 months salary" you bet your butt I'd take that. =)
  • blocked_again 6y ago
    6 months salary is only for long term employees. For rest it's 3 months.
    • fastball 6y ago
      Sure but 46/57 employees count as long-term.
  • cblconfederate 6y ago
    isnt that a very large amount of money?
• version_five 6y ago
  Putting aside the other aspects of this story, I think a buyout offer, possibly even a "standing offer" is an interesting practice to consider at companies. I worked somewhere where there was a large, low morale group of employees that I think were just there because of money concerns + fomo if the company ever went anywhere. At the time I thought a buyout offer would have been a great way to separate the people who wanted to be there from those that were just putting in time.
  • throwawaypolicy 6y ago
    And on the flip side, compensation plans that encourage people to stay to arbitrary dates are probably a mistake. That's where I'm at today. There's a lot of money resting on my staying at a company for a year. I don't feel like I've been working effectively with the culture or team, and I'm pretty sure both me and the employer would be better served by my leaving, except the financial incentive, sunk cost, and avoiding having a "I worked here for only 6 months" on my resume is enough to justify me staying an extra 6 month. Potentially not coincidentally "percent of engineers who stay a year" is one of the key metrics of the team that sets up the compensation structure...
    • patja 6y ago
      Same thing happens with relocation expenses. Many employers make you pay them back if you leave within a year. That's normally quite a sum, and can be even bigger if the employer paid closing costs or otherwise made a new hire whole for selling a home in order to move.
  • Wolfr_ 6y ago
    I think if 1/3 of your company leaves there is short-term morale loss for the ones that remain. But the loss of internal IP will be devastating. Especially if you are not big on docs and have that “just be smart and ship” approach that Basecamp has. Basecamp has a real problem hand here... they probably never expected this.
    • 542458 6y ago
• grumblestumble 6y ago
  A lot of the conversation from the "no politics at work" crowd here is centered around "these folks were wasting company time and losing productivity protesting this". That entirely misses the point. The loss of productivity around this issue is entirely on the leadership team. They let this fester - they were complicit in allowing this dumb-ass list to be circulated around the company for years, and when it became an issue, they refused to take any action on it. I was wondering how this would go down where I currently work, because people here rarely discuss politics at all. Then I realized that making fun of customer names - and we work with large enterprise customers across the globe - would be shut down in a personal conversation with anyone I work with, and circulating a list like this would just never happen. The way to keep politics out of work is to keep your work environment professional. This wasn't employees pontificating on the merits of BLM or party politics in Basecamp channels, this was direct response to dumb shit the company was allowing certain people to get away with. DHH's blog post where he got into the details was still basically tittering at "lol Bigbuttson is a funny name", and it's deplorable.
  • Graffur 6y ago
    Is Bigbuttson an actual name? That is funny to an English speaker.
    • wincy 6y ago
      Just as funny as something like Takeshita, which is a real Japanese surname. If I was working with someone with that last name I definitely wouldn’t bring it up.
      • hpkuarg 6y ago
        Can confirm, went to (an English-speaking) school with a Takeshita. Juvenile jokes were had.
      • deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      • Rapzid 6y ago
• baron816 6y ago
  The proposed changes are wholly reasonable, and definitely not that different from 99% of the companies out there. The real problem is that they’ve spent years hiring for a type of person where this sort of thing is anathema.
  • Trasmatta 6y ago
    Yeah, DHH is very outspoken politically, and fairly progressive. Of course there was going to be a selection bias where they hired similar people. This shouldn't have come as a surprise to them, and they should have realized the backlash. Shockingly bad foresight.
    • danieljacksonno 6y ago
      It's not that long ago that hiring a progressive usually meant hiring a tolerant person who would go the extra mile to include everyone, also people they disagreed with. It's only recently that parts of the progressive movement has radicalized.
      • Trasmatta 6y ago
        > a tolerant person who would go the extra mile to include everyone, also people they disagreed with That sounds like the definition of liberalism rather than progressivism. I don't think the progressive movement has ever really fit under your definition -- or even wanted to. I think what you may be seeing is more people shifting from liberalism to progressivism (at least in certain communities like this).
        • chubbyish 6y ago
          At the extreme ends of the spectrum people always end up turning on each other. Many liberals like DHH who don’t stay up to the minute eventually get cancelled. The US left is unrecognizable from just a few years ago. I couldn’t imagine being able to dissent on anything in public. And who knows what will be outlawed in the future. Hopefully it all collapses somehow.
• BitwiseFool 6y ago
  I wonder how many would have walked on principle alone, rather than a combination of principles and a rather substantial buyout. Paying employees to leave over a disagreement changes the calculus on how much the policy itself was to blame.
  • randomsearch 6y ago
    It also balances PR and reduces the chance of legal disputes. They knew what they were doing.
• notJim 6y ago
  A big part of me wonders if this was the point of this whole exercise. A certain subset of employees are getting too uppity, so you just tell them to fuck off and then show them the door. Theoretically you could fire them, but that might risk lawsuits or even more turmoil. If you have the cash to do this, why not. Basecamp may be getting exactly what they wanted.
  • sbierwagen 6y ago
    Elsewhere in this thread it's said that in the compensation package there's a big payout if the company is acquired. Though I can't imagine how huge it would have to be that paying each employee six months of salary is cheaper.
    • easton 6y ago
      They created that rule with the plan that Basecamp would never be bought out or acquired though. If they were planning something we would've heard something, although their business model/culture is basically the opposite of something that someone would want to acquire. It's biggest feature is that it doesn't feel like enterprise(tm) software.
    • asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
      I highly doubt losing 30% of the talent, including a big chunk of built up institutional knowledge, is going to make them a more attractive buyout target. Would you want to acquire a company with maybe a little too much internal political discussion? Or one that just spent a million of dollars to buy out their entire iOS team, low and high performers alike? To me it seems like I'd much prefer the company with the iOS team, all other things being equal.
  • Ar-Curunir 6y ago
    These are all core team heads...
  • prh8 6y ago
    They're not losing the bottom third of employees, no company ever wants this.
• mark_l_watson 6y ago
  I have a different take on this, different than most comments here: I think that the founders/owners knew what they were doing based on reading their book and lightly following them. I have never been a customer. I know that I am just guessing, but they might have been making the lifestyle decision that they wanted a smaller and more focused company that was more joyful to manage/run. Also, I have some sympathy for a “no politics” guideline for two reasons: no one should be allowed to say or do anything at work that makes anyone uncomfortable in a personal way; no one should really care much about other peoples’ politics. Life is about so much more than politics. I am judgmental, but I judge people on how well they treat other people and by how much effort they make improving the world (understanding that people have different natural abilities).
  • Wolfr_ 6y ago
    If that's really their intent why not do a layoff round with a bigger severance package for 10-20 ppl to get back to 30 people, it would be less painful than this PR disaster?
    • ezekg 6y ago
      All press is good press?
    • haihaibye 6y ago
      Purging overly political employees is probably illegal, so they made a policy then offered $ to voluntarily self select themselves out.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  • deanCommie 6y ago
    > no one should be allowed to say or do anything at work that makes anyone uncomfortable in a personal way; Agreed. But frequently calling that out IS what is deemed "political" by the person who was "just expressing an opinion", and "i just have a different ideology from you" > ; no one should really care much about other peoples’ politics. Some people's politics is other people's human rights. Would you want to work with someone who you knew in their heart was racist and thought that people of your race were inherently less capable than their own. (Even if they believed you individually were okay)
• mmmcookies 6y ago
  I wouldn’t hire any of these people if they left due to the policy change. How about you put your money where you mouth is and join a non-profit if you care so much about these issues. Instead, it’s a bunch of incredibly privileged individuals throwing a tantrum from their ivory towers without any skin the game. It’s pathetic.
  • FemmeAndroid 6y ago
    Off the top of my head, Jane Yang, who I believe has quit, left non-profits and joined Basecamp to explicitly pursue a strategy of earning to give (https://80000hours.org/articles/earning-to-give/ https://80000hours.org/articles/earning-to-give/). That seems like she's "put her money where her mouth is," as you say. What's your basis for believing these people don't really care?
    • mmmcookies 6y ago
      Hi Femme, my basis is their career choice. There are plenty of non-profits hiring in tech and doing some great work. And yet, these individuals chose not to work in this space. The earnings-to-give model sounds awfully similar to trickle down economics. Or, “once I get mine, everyone else can have theirs”. I don’t believe that as an altruistic premise. It’s what people convince themselves of in order to continue to feel self-righteous without really sacrificing anything. It has nothing to do with whether these people care or not, it doesn’t matter. Because when push comes to shove, they chose an avenue in spite of what they claim to believe in.
      • deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      • mtlynch 6y ago
        If you haven't read much about earning to give, I recommend jefftk's blog.[0] That was where I first heard about the concept. I found it interesting to see how much he and his wife had earned for charities by working lucrative jobs and donating a large percentage of their earnings. [0] https://www.jefftk.com/donations https://www.jefftk.com/donations
• whynea 6y ago
  Sounds good for Basecamp's remaining employees, they can seek out new colleagues who don't throw a tantrum when being politely asked not to bring their politics to work. I mean, look at the state of this whiner: https://twitter.com/dankim/status/1387378826364260354 https://twitter.com/dankim/status/1387378826364260354 "In my entire professional career of 20+ years, I have never once cried at work until today." An absolutely pathetic child of a man. Asked not to rile colleagues up with divisive political discussions, and then literally cries about it.
  • deanCommie 6y ago
    " Asked not to rile colleagues up with divisive political discussions," is not an accurate representation of the stated policy that was introduced. Divisive was not a factor.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• newsclues 6y ago
  Funny names?
  • intergalplan 6y ago
    Make friends with anyone who deals with lots and lots of people across socio-economic status boundaries—teachers, social workers, anyone in government who deals with the public on a regular basis—and they can tell you what that means. You'll think they made some of them up, but they didn't. And that's without going international.
    • newsclues 6y ago
      I worked in a call centre for telcos and Apple doing tech support. We didn’t have lists but funny names and stupid customers were frequent topics of discussion
  • kingsuper20 6y ago
    It's not totally unusual to run into names like 'Suk Wang' if you're dealing in Asia. God knows what my name means somewhere else.
  • Quarrelsome 6y ago
    I used to work in a horrible outbound call centre a very long time ago and kept my own list. It cheered me up in an otherwise soul destroying job that had the most awful manager I've ever experienced in my life. The list itself is lost to the sands of time but I remember at least three: Mr and Mrs Hunnybun (yes, that was the spelling), Miss Cumcup, Dr Strangleman so I guess it was something like that.
• quadcore 6y ago
  Can someone explains a bit more what it's all about for outsiders so we can understand whats intellectually interesting in that news?
  • didibus 6y ago
    Seems like there was internal chatter about the fact that some Basecamp employees had kept a list of funny customer names over the years as a joke. And people were discussing how this happened, what they could do to change the internal culture so it doesn't happen again, how it portrays on their internal inclusivity, etc. And it looks like the founders were annoyed by all these discussions about it, so they made a policy change that you can only talk about business on official work channels. Keep in mind this is a fully remote company, all communication is done on official work channels. So after that policy change, a lot of employees felt they now worked at some authoritarian place where they couldn't just chat to their coworkers anymore except for serious business stuff, and they now need to watch what they're saying to others. As a result, about 25% of all employees quit. That said, they also offered a 6 month severance to those who wanted to leave, so who knows if employees all quit fully out of finding the phone policy draconian, or out of simply thinking the severance was a good deal.
    • kboom 6y ago
      Dont know their products well but customers names should clearly be disclosed on a need-to-know basis - if ever. I believe they did the right move (just my opinion). I just agree. Harassement is a bigger subject we think it is. I think harassment is our population regulation mechanism. I think human-to-human violence is always based on harassement. It's our alpha male fight. It is wired in our brain. It is also suffering. With innovation, we may escape the need for population regulation and then suffering goes down (while suffering is everywhere in the animal kingdom, we make it go down, it's fundamental to life innit). I dont have understood it yet completely but trully, it goes well beyong the concept of a school bully. A list of funny names? Population regulation is at play again, beneath the surface.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
• ipaddr 6y ago
  Interestingly the employees who left have the best career prospects. Entire iOS team, head of marketing and head of product team. The 6 months free money is hard for anyone entering a strong job market to pass up. A lot of comments seem to think 1/3 left because of the no politics policy. 1 / 3 left because it would increase their wealth or give them the summer covid took away last year. How many people would leave your job now for 6 months salary? How many could get a job tomorrow if they did? A few probably left because they want to change social policy. Many are probably staying but still want to change social policy. The head of marketing, products and the iOS team are not leaving because of social policy.
  • pantulis 6y ago
    Some of them are also world-class Ruby developers. They seem to be mostly north americans (i could be wrong).
    • pantulis 6y ago
      I should have written: all of them are world-class developers, otherwise they would not be having a job there.
      • suction 6y ago
        Ruby isn't exactly a "hot" language from a hiring point of view anymore.
        • pantulis 6y ago
          Well these people will probably quickly land a job at GitHub, Shopify or Stripe. Also, there are iOS and data scientists. Again I am assuming they are really good in their field.
    • WDCDev 6y ago
      It doesn't take much to be a world class Ruby developer.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• rawland 6y ago
  "Everything is politics." ~Thomas Mann Especially: "Shut up and work."
• mfer 6y ago
  Another way to look at this is... job openings are coming to Basecamp and people know the culture is a no politics at work place. I bet a lot of people will sign up for that. Enough to fill the openings.
  • arcturus17 6y ago
    This is exactly what I thought, I’d personally find a company with an explicit non-activism policy insanely attractive, all other things being equal.
    • bytelines 6y ago
      Did you have a previous experience at a job where that was an issue?
      • arcturus17 6y ago
        No, exactly the opposite, every company I’ve ever worked for was neutral without ever needing to enforce it, but anything other than that would be a nightmare for me, so having it as an open statement about culture suits me.
  • bachmeier 6y ago
    There'll likely be a big pool of applicants that want to work there because of this policy.
    • themolecularman 6y ago
      Yea I considered looking into Coinbase when they announced a similar policy - but I've got some equity keeping me at my current job. If that weren't the case I may jump ship.
  • distribot 6y ago
    Not really a buyers market rn. Maybe this ideological position will specifically attract people who feel alienated by SV culture, maybe not. But there's no way that losing a large fraction of your engineering team is anything but a disaster.
• daodedickinson 6y ago
  Meanwhile, many of us powerless cry ourselves to sleep over widely seen, publicly available evidence that happens to implicate rulers.
• baron816 6y ago
  What I think is lost in the conversation here is that people don’t really have organizations they can go to to advocate their political positions. People have their families, their jobs, and maybe a couple of friends and that’s about it. They need an outlet to push the ideas and causes they care about. The workplace is one of the few places where they can feel like they’re having an impact, but that’s not really appropriate. I’d hate to go into work and be harassed about being “silent is complicit” (which seems like it was one of the major drivers of the change). I would hate it even more if I went into work and people were trying to convert me to evangelical Christianity, or Islam. I like that people want to express themselves and improve the world we live in, but they need to find a better place to do that.
  • pochamago 6y ago
    I think for the people who are so passionate they can't imagine not engaging with politics at work should look for careers in NGOs. I don't feel any disdain for activists, I just don't really want to work with them, and I think we'd both be happier if they were engaged in work that had first order effects on their beliefs instead of second or third
    • randoramax 6y ago
      Not necessarily work for a ngo, but volunteer for one, join a union, join the local political groups that actually make a difference locally in your community. So many options, besides the work place.
    • fighterpilot 6y ago
      This assumes that it's an earnest desire to improve society (which it sometimes is), and not a desire to gain/maintain status or power through virtue signalling.
      • seoaeu 6y ago
        > a desire to gain/maintain status or power What you're describing is basically a textbook definition of 'politics'. I find it funny that you call this virtue signalling when that term was literally invented to describe the opposite: halfhearted political activism that isn't trying to build power.
• w0mbat 6y ago
  Why has nobody at/leaving Basecamp posted the "Best Names Ever" list so we know what we are talking about? I make up my own mind what is funny and what is offensive.
  • fastball 6y ago
    Probably because that would be a massive violation of privacy, much larger than the original list in the first place.
• postit 6y ago
  Reverse layoff
• scarface74 6y ago
  Why would I want to talk about politics at work that don’t affect my job and what would it change? Why would I bring up BLM and how it relates to the justice system at work if my company can’t do anything about it? On the other hand, I would be more than happy to discuss having recruitment drives at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, expanding the hiring pipeline, equal pay at my company for equal work, expanding maternity/paternity leave, etc.
  • mcintyre1994 6y ago
    My understanding of their new policy is that it bans everything you said you’d be happy to discuss FWIW. All of that sounds like political/societal discussion.
    • scarface74 6y ago
      If I am working for BaseCamp, there is a difference in my mind about a mailing list discussing Hobby Lobby’s health care policies with regard to birth control and discussing BaseCamp’s policy toward birth control. I would quit if I as an employee can’t discuss my own company’s policies that affect me as an individual.
    • mtlynch 6y ago
      I had a different interpretation. I'm not disagreeing with you because anyone outside of the company is left kind of guessing, but it's making me realize that people's varying reaction might be different interpretations of what Basecamp's "no politics" rule really means. I've read everything DHH and Jason Fried have posted in the last few days, and my impression that politics directly related to the company and products are fair game for discussion. It seemed like DHH and Fried were forbidding people from connecting those discussions to larger social movements. DHH was appreciative that people raised the issue of the Funny Names List, but he objected to people connecting it to the Atlanta shootings or genocide: >I was dismayed to see the argument advanced in text and graphics on [Employee 1’s] post that this list should be considered part of a regime that eventually could lead to genocide. That's just not an appropriate or proportionate comparison to draw. >Out of the 78 names listed on the last version we were able to recover, just 6 names appear to be Asian. So connecting this to the shootings in Atlanta, because the Asian victims of that atrocity had their names misspelled in news reports, is exactly the kind of linkage I'd like us to avoid when we analyze our mistakes together at work. https://world.hey.com/dhh/let-it-all-out-78485e8e https://world.hey.com/dhh/let-it-all-out-78485e8e
• fortran77 6y ago
  John Warnock once said at an Adobe company meeting "when an employee leaves a company it's like taking your hand out of a bucket of water -- it doesn't leave a hole." This was in response to a similarly contentious issue -- moving from Mountain View to San Jose. People said they were going to quit. John Warnock said, in effect, "good riddance." And the company started growing very rapidly after that move. (This doesn't detract from the fact that I think DHH is a fool and often mean-spirited.)
  • rachelbythebay 6y ago
    Employees as "resources" I've heard of, but employees as displacement or maybe even ballast? Damn! That's a new one by me.
• achenatx 6y ago
  I run a small politics forum. I was able to get down to one rule that seems to work. No ad hominem or insults of any groups, people, or policies. People can talk about why they like things or why things will or wont work. People continually try to work around them and sometimes there are comments that are borderline. Most people are very respectful and libs and conservatives can debate. An example of trying to bypass is someone calling trump a Nazi. this is obviously meant as an insult. The person claimed it was a statement of fact. Trump has never identified as a nazi and therefore it isnt a statement of fact but is simply an opinion meant as an insult. Once the insults were removed the group functioned well.
  • bluefirebrand 6y ago
    There's a pretty big difference between running a political discussion forum and having those same political discussions at work, though. On a political forum, people's main relationship is coming together to talk politics. They sought that out. At work people's main relationship is to work together. Talking politics becomes messy because it becomes a secondary relationship that can affect the key one, the work one. It also runs into the messy part of some people at a workplace have authority over others at the workplace. People get really funny about authority sometimes.
    • aeturnum 6y ago
      People have lives outside of work that sometimes intrude into work. Part of running a workplace is making the appropriate amount of space for those intrusions. How "political" your life is comes mostly from factors that you can't control: your race or ethnicity, your religious beliefs, your citizenship, your sexuality or gender. Saying "we don't talk politics" has massively different implications for different people. I get that workplaces can become distracted. I think we've all experienced it. I just think that banning "politics" is no replacement for engaged leadership and discernment while navigating a company through the world.
  • blarg1 6y ago
    > Most people are very respectful and libs and conservatives can debate. Can you work on curing cancer next?
• 40acres 6y ago
  From what I understood this wasn't a "we want to talk about Trump and BLM all day" situation but a "owners/leaders refuse to reckon with a toxic aspect of our internal culture". At some point the two mixed, the "pyramid of hate" is definitely out of the SJW playbook and probably went a bit too far for some people's taste. But shame on the leaders who for years have written books and blogs about how awesome their culture is to have 1/3rd of your workforce (so far) leave because of that aforementioned culture.
  • Kye 6y ago
    The ADL has been around for over a century saying everything encapsulated in the pyramid. What is an "SJW" to you?
• tashoecraft 6y ago
  The problem with no religion and no politics is that it’s impossible to draw a line on what is politics or religion. Let’s say you hire a gay employee, there very existence is political. Are they wrong for mentioning that they are gay (no), but to some at the company that may be trying to advance their gay political agenda. Idk what the solution is, but just blanket “No religion/no politics” is just a way to say you like everything the way it is and don’t want to feel uncomfortable
  • danjac 6y ago
    The thing is, it's not that Basecamp is apolitical. Politics is fine if it's the founders doing the politics. DHH has been very vocal in the last few months in public tirades against Apple, government lobbying, etc. While he has every right to his views, he's also the public face of Basecamp. So it comes across as a teeny bit hypocritical to issue a no-politics diktat on his workforce. The real problem with Basecamp isn't the no politics thing. The problem is that the company exists for the personal gratification of its two founders, and it's one rule for them and one rule for everyone else. If you're on board with that, fine, but maybe for some employees this was just the final straw.
    • LegitShady 6y ago
      >DHH has been very vocal in the last few months in public tirades against Apple, government lobbying, etc. While he has every right to his views, he's also the public face of Basecamp. So it comes across as a teeny bit hypocritical to issue a no-politics diktat on his workforce. Being vocal about apple's business practices isn't necessarily political. It sounds more about business to me.
  • justicezyx 6y ago
    > what is politics or religion. How is that so? They have pretty clear definition.
    • eropple 6y ago
      "My pronouns are she/her" is political when you have an audience who disagree with your right to choose them. (And those disagreeing are wrong, but telling them that suddenly, by the logic of the "no politics" crowd, makes you the problem. Almost like all of this exists to reify a status quo that's good for the people currently high on the hog. Hm.)
• robocat 6y ago
  I would be interested in how many people quit that were involved in the DE&I council: "Nonetheless, the DE&I council attracted significant support. More than a third of the company — 20 out of roughly 58 employees — volunteered to help. They began examining Basecamp’s hiring processes, which vendors the company works with, how Basecamp employees socialize, and what speakers they might invite to one of the all-remote company’s twice-yearly in-person gatherings." - from: What really happened at Basecamp - https://www.platformer.news/p/-what-really-happened-at-basecamp https://www.platformer.news/p/-what-really-happened-at-basec...
• faitswulff 6y ago
  So all the free speech maximalists are here in force, right? …right?
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • thu2111 6y ago
    Which free speech activists have been advocating that employees shouldn't have to do work when they're at work? None, because believing that isn't a part of free speech rights, and Basecamp made it clear they didn't care what employees said off company time, so it's an irrelevant strawman.
    • faitswulff 6y ago
      > Which free speech activists have been advocating that employees shouldn't have to do work when they're at work? Ironically you’re strawmanning my comment, yourself.
• Celebros 6y ago
  Saw this article from the same author of this tweet a few days ago on here (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26963708 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26963708) This part of the article had me scratching my head: "Hansson’s response to this employee took aback many of the workers I spoke with. He dug through old chat logs to find a time when the employee in question participated in a discussion about a customer with a funny-sounding name. Hansson posted the message — visible to the entire company — and dismissed the substance of the employee’s complaint"
• hardwaregeek 6y ago
  Not gonna provide my view on the politics side, but cutting benefits while at the same time making a controversial statement about workplace politics is a...bold move. The letter very noticeably says that they are providing compensation for these benefits for this year. That holds the clear implication that they won't keep compensating people for the lack of benefits. Also, providing a monetary value for benefits misses the fact that time is also worth money. If you're going to cut my benefits, you should also compensate me for the additional time spent replacing these benefits. Doing such a clearly cost saving move and trying to frame it as keeping focus makes me feel like Basecamp is using "mission focus" as an excuse to make a bunch of unpopular decisions and bundle them together.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• happyweasel 6y ago
  Nice... being able to get rid of the annoying P.C. folks at work for a fixed price. That is a great deal for Basecamp.
• ezekg 6y ago
  This seems pretty meta, but very relevant: https://basecamp.com/gettingreal/15.5-ride-out-the-storm https://basecamp.com/gettingreal/15.5-ride-out-the-storm
• jariel 6y ago
  "He told me today that attempting to link the list of customer names to potential genocide represented a case of “catastrophizing” — one that made it impossible for any good-faith discussions to follow. " And there you have the unavoidable issue. Some people believing that 'name mocking' is the 'core hate' upon which genocide is built, some people think that's a bridge to far. I agree with the CEO that the intellectualized vitriol towards the list is just far too much. It's hard for some people to grasp this, but if you allow rank and file to create councils that allow them to control the company, especially from inflated moral positions, then some of them will do that. A lot of people I believe express their anger and frustration through aggressive moralization and this is another outlet for that. There's a 100% chance that these movements attract bad faith actors and will cause problems, they have to be dealt with very carefully.
• geuis 6y ago
  I’m not aware of the background behind this. Can someone provide the details?
• FemmeAndroid 6y ago
  It's very hard for me to take all the talk of the pros and cons of talking politics at work seriously when it seems like this issue was about a list of 'funny names' of customers, including a number of names from people of different cultures. Then someone posted this one page PDF: https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/pyramid-of-hate.pdf https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/pyramid-of... And DHH seems to have taken that pdf wildly out of context, calling it the "genocide pyramid": https://world.hey.com/dhh/let-it-all-out-78485e8e https://world.hey.com/dhh/let-it-all-out-78485e8e It seems like if your co-founders are escalating tensions at work when people bring up reasonable issues (like not making fun of your customers), I don't know what to say. The one other time politics has come up at Basecamp seems to have been a group of people commenting to DHH and Jason that their upcoming book's title may be ablest due to the use of the word "crazy." I work at a company where we don't talk 'politics' at work. We're a fairly professional group who frankly have a limited set of interactions. But I think both of these would be reasonable things to bring up, and at least once I did bring up what I thought was some problematic use of racially insensitive language in my team. It was changed, and we've moved on. I'm all for getting to work, and doing good work, but when the 'politics' you're trying to remove is suggestions to improve a legitimate issue at a company, I think that leads to this kind of mass resignation. One can imagine a situation where there really are a group of people in a company just discussing and fighting over politics all day and not getting anything done. But after reading the tweets of dozens of Basecamp employees over the past few days, I see no evidence of that happening here. If anything, it seems like the founders of Basecamp continually failed to de-escalate the situation. See the list of Basecamp employees comments over the past few days: https://twitter.com/i/lists/1202647 https://twitter.com/i/lists/1202647 Many people whose work I've followed closely as a Rails dev have left today. People whose work I used and relied on. I appreciate all they've done for the Rails community, and wish them luck in the months ahead.
  • fastball 6y ago
    That's a stupid pyramid.
• coldtea 6y ago
  It's sad that the target for those employees' "political disruption" is Basecamp. One of the arguably nicest companies to work in, which treats employees well, has a sane work/life balance and advocates so, pays well, embraces remote work, gives back to open source (RoR, etc.), and has good products, with no shady anti-consumer practices, that people actually like and pay for (as opposed to somewhere where they sell ads and attention). It's like these people took a stance against the nicest possible employees this side of a hippie co-op. Those leaving: (1) given the IT demand, will get a job elsewhere pronto, (2) will get the money of the buyout, and (3) will get to play the principled martyrs, too. It's a triple win for hypocrisy. At some point in the future, this will be marked as a time when cancel culture jumped the shark in IT.
  • norswap 6y ago
    The outrage crowd always prefers easy targets over good targets.
    • DiNovi 6y ago
      Again I don’t get this. 1/3 of basecamp left. They arw basecamp. Basecamp are the people who are leaving! Lol
      • coldtea 6y ago
        Basecamp are the people who built it and wrote it from scratch, like DHH. Not 1/3rd who came later, landed on cushy jobs, and now leaves with a buyout.
        • aniforprez 6y ago
          This is such an awful disrespectful comment. Some of the people leaving are veterans who have been working there for 15 years. How can you say such unsubstantiated nonsense?
          • coldtea 6y ago
• 40acres 6y ago
  Does anyone remember when DHH went on a long Twitter rant accusing the Apple Card as sexist? These guys built a culture that they couldn't control and when they tried to take a step back lost a third of their workforce.
• totony 6y ago
  I'd be curious if someone could explain why they offer such steep buyouts? A company can always change policies and mostly does not pay you if you disagree with them. What makes this different? I agree an employee could become disgruntled after a policy their disagree with is implemented, but what entitles them to a payout? I assume a 6 months payout is attractive to everyone, that you agree or not with their decision. Isn't that way more dangerous than a few disgruntled employees? (You could also offer less than 6 months and still eliminate those)
  • crocodiletears 6y ago
    Incentivises potential agitators to leave peacefully and on good terms. If you implement a no-politics policy in a politicized workplace without an easy to use escape hatch, you risk creating a fifth column in your company acting against your interests. It may seem expensive in the short term, but it saves a headache later on. The alternative is the gory legal and political process of executing a targeted purge which may create controversy, sympathy, and miss more quiet actors.
• senbarryobama 6y ago
  I am shocked a company with ~60 employees warrants this much discussion and media coverage.
• deleted 6y ago
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• drailsusers 6y ago
  DHH has a history complaining about censoring at HN [0] while this fuckup lands him a front page hit. [0] https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1368957511118843908 https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1368957511118843908
• numair 6y ago
  1. I’ve seen great, failed, and dysfunctional companies and teams up-close and personal; companies that went from zero to $100B, from $50B to near-zero, and are stuck somewhere in zombie-land. In every case, the passionate employees defined a lot of what made things work, and were the canaries in the coal mines. When it comes to knowledge work, people who are “alpha” are passionate about every little detail in their lives — so, silencing them is a nice way of embracing complete, utter mediocrity. 2. If Apple had teams circulating customer data internally and laughing about it, DHH would be asking for a Congressional investigation.
• Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
  I think that activists at the workplace are disastrous for productivity. When they band in groups, they act as a multiplier for each other, stopping all positive work. So I heartily support disbanding committees. I'm more or less OK with discussing any topic at non-work time, during lunch or whatever, but only until every participant in a discussion is willing to accept the views he/she personally disagrees with.
• deleted 6y ago
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• softwaredoug 6y ago
  Is there a TL; DR summary of what’s happening? I have no context other than something something basecamp mission driven company something something politics.
  • ineptech 6y ago
    The CEO's post is presumably one-sided, but AFAIK contains all the details: https://world.hey.com/dhh/let-it-all-out-78485e8e https://world.hey.com/dhh/let-it-all-out-78485e8e
• disgrunt 6y ago
  Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
• rmk 6y ago
  The old-fashioned dictum, "don't talk politics and religion at work" is very much worth following. I hope plain old professionalism comes back into fashion --- we can all use a return to norms that have existed for a very long time, and for very good reason. Free political and religious association can proceed unhindered outside the office, while the sanctity of work and common courtesy is preserved at the workplace.
  • gifnamething 6y ago
    I recall that old-fashioned society wasn't so great if you weren't DHH's demographic.
    • rmk 6y ago
      It's not an all-or-nothing deal. You can take the good while leaving out the bad.
• jarek83 6y ago
  Chatting with work-mates about some funny name is what probably most (all?) of us done and will be doing. A chat fades away in a minute after the laugh. But setting up a list like that which goes viral inside company? That's just plain childish. What an embarrassing thing for any mature person that had to acknowledge the list.
• shalmanese 6y ago
  Important to note, the number is not the number of Basecamp employees leaving, it is the number of employees who have thus far publically tweeted they are leaving. Of Basecamp's 57 employees, as of right now, there are 20 who have announced a departure on Twitter: https://twitter.com/_breeeeen_/status/1388198266651688963 https://twitter.com/_breeeeen_/status/1388198266651688963
• georgeburdell 6y ago
  I laud them for standing up for their ideals. That said, as a conservative, I don't ever "bring my whole self to work", even if my employer says to, because (a) I know my personal views are not welcome in the Bay Area, and (b) I think it's concerning that many companies are trying to become more than just a place to work on interesting stuff and get paid for your work. They must now make political views known that align with those of their employees as if to be one of the tribe. I have my own tribe, consisting of my family and friends, and they won't fire me when the economy goes south.
  • shostack 6y ago
    I'm curious, what conservative views do you hold that you think would make you so incompatible?
    • draw_down 6y ago
      Come on
    • xerxesaa 6y ago
      I don't think it would be that difficult to imagine such topics. For example, supporting the border wall, or being against gender reassignment for minors, or believing biology has an impact on career choices on average, or being against race/gender as part of the selection process at universities, or being in favor of the ar15 being available for legal purchase, or believing IDs should be mandatory to vote. There are any number of topics where it's only safe to discuss one side of the issue at most bay area tech companies. I'm not taking a side on these issues. I am simply recognizing that it's the case they cannot really be openly debated.
    • majani 6y ago
      Not OP, but small government principles, religious morals and being in favor of the government's defense functions are conservative views that are definitely not welcome in most parts of the Bay.
      • 6y ago
• dragonwriter 6y ago
  So, maybe Basecamp wanted to downsize and found a way to avoid making it look like layoffs... Sure the targeting might not be quite optimal, but if it gets the job done...
• stevespang 6y ago
  Hey, you work for me - - you leave the politics at home - - or else you get the pink slip faster than a New York minute. Employees think they can act like unionized and destroy startups over their political sway - - that is BS.
• throw14082020 6y ago
  I spent a lot of time reading about this... TLDR: Basecamp had a list of funny names which originated a long time ago. You can imagine that certain ethnicities have names which sound funnier than a common name, so these names go on the list. Some people think its racist, others don't. These people who don't think its racist still admit its rude/ unprofessional though, just not racist. Anyway, there was too much political arguing going on in the company, and the founders offered people they can get paid a few months salary to leave, and some people are taking them up on this offer. "About one-third".
  • Quarrelsome 6y ago
    FWIW, DHH stated that only a handful of names were Asian. The vast majority of names on the list were English or Nordic. :|
    • ryanbrunner 6y ago
      I don't see why the percentage is super significant. If the reason they are on the list had to do with their ethnicity, it's still bad and something that should absolutely be addressed. Like 90% of the runtime of old racist Disney movies are fine and don't contain racial stereotypes, but that doesn't absolve the remaining 10% in any way, and if the movie was twice as long, the 5% of remaining insensitive content wouldn't be more justified.
      • Quarrelsome 6y ago
        From the outside it sounds like the "racist name list" is a bunch of ethnic group one laughing at ethic group two where in practice its actually ethnic group one laughing at other ethnic group one people. I feel like that perspective paints a slightly different picture. This means the percentage is of some import.
    • einarfd 6y ago
      So they have an asshole list of "funny" names. When they get caught they argue that most of the people they are racists towards are white, So it's fine? White people can definitely be racist towards other white people, you can easily find examples of that in Europe, so that is definitely a thing. As an ethnic Norwegian, I'm not impressed over doing the list in it self, and then doubling down on the racism towards us by pretending it isn't. That makes it way worse.
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• deleted 6y ago
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• thinkingemote 6y ago
  I think at root this might be about authority. Today's SV culture seems to challenge authority and hierarchy (the boss, management) in favour of the team, flat organisations, and fair play. When the boss makes a decision then, the boss often gets challenged and the challengers feel right doing so. Disruption, innovation. All this is new but we think it's normal now! Businesses used to have clear lines of authority, heirarchy and the boss was on top, made the decisions and was generally obeyed. I wonder how management academics will write about this period of time in 20 years or so.
• jrochkind1 6y ago
  People are gonna wanna make this about politics, but my sense is that it's really just about the owners of basecamp are crappy tyrants to work for, that's about it. I don't think it's really even about the specific policy. Note that the "changes" [1] also include "no more committees" (ie, no more feedback/authority/responsibilty except through the line-of-report hieararchy), "no bringing up past decisions you disagree with", and "no more 360 degree reviews" (no formal way to give feedback to your boss). I think they are basically changes to focus on... "insubordination". Do what we say, do your job as we say it, don't have an opinion. I think people are leaving because they don't trust or respect or feel respected by the boss, not over a single particular policy -- although in part over how little he cared what his employees opinions were about the policy. [1] https://world.hey.com/jason/changes-at-basecamp-7f32afc5 https://world.hey.com/jason/changes-at-basecamp-7f32afc5
  • madeofpalk 6y ago
    > it's really just about the owners of basecamp are crappy tyrants to work for, that's about it. Sounds pretty political to me! Of course it's not just about the specifics of the policy. It's about the list and the leaders discussed and handled it. Rather than just taking the L they kept Posting Through It and alienated their employees.
  • anon7725 6y ago
    > no more committees 1/3 of the company had joined this D&I committee, which apparently felt that it’s scope included everything that the company did. The employees proved that they couldn’t be trusted to self-organize into a committee and keep it on topic.
    • madeofpalk 6y ago
      > which apparently felt that it’s scope included everything that the company did Eh? Source? Elaborate.
      • anon7725 6y ago
        “Nonetheless, the DE&I council attracted significant support. More than a third of the company — 20 out of roughly 58 employees — volunteered to help. They began examining Basecamp’s hiring processes, which vendors the company works with, how Basecamp employees socialize, and what speakers they might invite to one of the all-remote company’s twice-yearly in-person gatherings.” https://www.platformer.news/p/-what-really-happened-at-basecamp https://www.platformer.news/p/-what-really-happened-at-basec...
• dang 6y ago
  All: this thread is paginated, so to see all the comments you need to click More at the bottom of the page, or like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998127&p=2 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998127&p=2 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998127&p=3 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998127&p=3 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998127&p=4 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998127&p=4 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998127&p=5 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998127&p=5 (Posts like this will go away once we turn off pagination.) Edit: as long as this is at the top, I'll include the related links that users have helpfully been mentioning: What Really Happened at Basecamp - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26963708 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26963708 - April 2021 (15 comments) Changes at Basecamp - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26944192 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26944192 - April 2021 (762 comments) Behind the Controversy at Basecamp - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26963975 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26963975 - April 2021 (32 comments)
• taftster 6y ago
  Doesn't Basecamp have something like ~50 employees? It's a very small company. The concerns around the current issues scale to larger companies just the same. But saying "1/3 of employees" doesn't really amount to that many people, in this specific case. It feels more hyperbole and click bait to phrase it that way. I think the impact of this statement would be more interesting with a big company. If Amazon or Microsoft were to lose 1/3 of their workforce, that would be something big. But knowing the size of Basecamp, it just kind of makes me shrug. I'm guessing that Basecamp will be easily able to replace those people that took the buyout and will probably just be better for it in the long run. [edit: removed unnecessary comment-on-voting, per HN guidelines]
  • eugeniub 6y ago
    Basecamp isn't a typical company, it has an outsized influence on work culture, development trends, etc. Its CTO is the creator of Ruby on Rails with nearly half a million Twitter followers. One of the people resigning, George Claghorn, also resigned from the Rails core team.
    • taftster 6y ago
      Fair point, I think. It's a very impactful company, for sure. But again, the hyperbole around "1/3 of employees" is just too much for me to take seriously. That's 15-20 people? Not that interesting of a story, even for the influence of Basecamp.
  • dang 6y ago
    > I'm guessing not the most popular opinion, let the downvotes commence. Please don't break the site guidelines like this. Your comment would be just fine without it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    • taftster 6y ago
      Fair. Thanks for the reminder. Should I edit?
• deleted 6y ago
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  • lolbert 6y ago
    if you want to know what its like ask your coworkers
• grey-area 6y ago
  I don't think this is really about making fun of people's names, or holocaust references. It's about power. The managers at basecamp were unhappy that their employees asserted power over them in the workplace, and decided to assert their own power in turn over what they view as their personal fiefdom and retract some of the freedoms they had so graciously granted their workers, because those ungrateful workers actually expected them to live up to their words about openness and owning mistakes. At least 1/3 of the staff, when confronted with their true relations with their management, then decided to quit. I did find it amusing they announced this new policy of no personal/political stuff at work on his personal blog on hey.com, not on a company blog, and DHH continues to rant on twitter about a very political and public fight with Apple, one he chose to enter on behalf of the company.
  • predaking 6y ago
    Oh man, 100 thousand percent agreed with this. I'm not sure why this seems to have escaped the notice of a lot of the discussion here. If you suddenly are confronted with the fact that the company you worked for isn't what you thought it was, you're left with a pretty significant choice to make. If I had something like that happen to me, I wouldn't have needed the severance to bolt.
    • bewareandaware 6y ago
      Easier said than done. If it was me I would certainly think three times before quitting over this.
      • markmark 6y ago
        I wouldn't quit over this, but if I was offered six months salary to leave like they were I'd go. It's free money and the job market is great.
  • jrochkind1 6y ago
    bingo. I think they realized the boss didn't respect them and wouldn't tolerate dissent, and that therefore they didn't respect the boss. More than about "talking about politics at work".
• thatwasunusual 6y ago
  What is the TLDR here?
• HNfriend234 6y ago
  Our work implemented a similar policy as well because politics was being brought up all the time and it was becoming a nuisance and some employees were basically harassing other employees. I have no problem with people being activists in their private life but when you go to work, you have to work. You can't be an activist while at work and causing a hostile work environment for others. I agree with the policy and think every company should do the same. Since the policy has been implemented, our work environment has improved significantly.
• failwhaleshark 6y ago
  It's never been professional or a good place to have political discussions at work because it's awkward and causes problems. And a racist list of names doesn't set a good example either. As long as employees aren't told what opinions, beliefs to hold, and causes to rally behind, carry on. To not be able to express an opinion related to work, or say, the weather, would just be ridiculously-insane. Complaining does lead to more complaining, winging, and whining. It's best to not tolerate it but to do so softly: tease and suggest action. Complaining about what is "wrong" is sometimes rooted in a shared experience observation but it can just as well be people passively seeking others to fix things for them. The point being one could spend that time and energy complaining working to try to fix it.
• zebnyc 6y ago
  I for one would be glad if more companies mandated No Politics / No Religion" policies. As some one who used to bring up politics intermittently at work, I realized the error of my ways. There is nothing to gain in bringing up politics. If they are in the opposite camp, now you have built a new trust barrier between the two of you. Even if they are on the same camp, it is very rare to be perfectly on the same page and you will be damned for not being sincere / believing enough. Creates a circular firing squad scenario akin to what President Obama warned against.
• nell 6y ago
  30% of basecamp employees left → 70% stayed in spite of the 6-month severance. I think everyone should evaluate if the company we worked for offered a 6-month severance how many would stay?
  • redisman 6y ago
    Not bad right? If you’re very employable it’s just a free 50% annual bonus
    • asien 6y ago
      > If you’re very employable it’s just a free 50% annual bonus I’ve seen comments on HN going the opposite way , but let’s be honest for a minute : most of them will find work within less then a month. We are looking at top talents from SV with years of experience as iOS engineers / executive those talents are hard to find and quiet rare regardless of the pandemic or not. Honestly it’s just free money , I won’t deny the emotional aspect that may take time to recover but outside of that they’ll have no problem finding new jobs in the comings weeks.
• gordon_freeman 6y ago
  One thing that I am wondering about amid all these departures is how would Basecamp operate on day-to-day basis when 1/3rd of their staff is leaving all at once. It's gonna be tough times ahead for Jason and DHH.
• julianmarq 6y ago
  Assuming this is true, all this tells me that this is a great time to apply at Basecamp. Not only they promise a politics-free environment—a huge bonus by itself for me—but they're likely to be laxer than usual in their standards, for a while anyhow. I'll give it a try.
  • christophilus 6y ago
    My thoughts, exactly. I’m super happy with my current gig, or I’d apply.
  • yerwhat01010 6y ago
    Similar thoughts from me. If I wasn't happy in my current job, I'd have sent Basecamp my CV yesterday. And incidentally, one of the things I appreciate about my current company is that there isn't any politics at work. Seriously, I can't imagine anyone at my company getting into political debates on company time. Why bother? If anyone at my workplace started dragging colleagues into contentious political debates of no direct relevance to the job, I'd consider that not only unnecessary but staggeringly unprofessional. How common is this at other companies? Is it a US vs UK thing?
• deadite 6y ago
  HN will look back at this as one of the better choices Basecamp made, but for now they will grill DHH and Jason Fried over the coals because how dare they.
• karl11 6y ago
  Will be interesting to see how many of these employees take the severance when the company asks them to sign an NDA in exchange, which would likely includes a non-disparagement clause, and would also mean many of these tweets would need to be deleted.
• andrew_ 6y ago
  Imagine being so insufferable that your CEO will half ruin his company to get you out. That's the takeaway here.
  • brown9-2 6y ago
    Imagine being such an insufferable CEO/CTO that 1/3rd of your company quits after you blindside them with new policies and benefit changes in a public blog post.
    • andrew_ 6y ago
      There are more in this industry that align with the OP than you apparently believe.
      • jasonvorhe 6y ago
        And vice versa.
• chubbyish 6y ago
  I wonder how those who wanted political discussions allowed would feel for example if they had to have political discussions with Trump supporters. I’ve never come across a leftist who wanted to debate anything or was open to changing their mind, or even wanted others to change their mind. It’s all just intimidation tactics, name-calling, and cancelling. This is what is unique today. There’s no trying to convince someone to “come to our side”. Once an enemy, always an enemy.
• harel 6y ago
  I've never used Basecamp, I don't have an opinion this way or that on DHH or the Jason (they are Parve to me - not meat nor dairy). But that list of changes doesn't sound too radical to make me believe people left because of those changes. The changes are actually reasonable. People more likely left because they were given a hefty lump sum of cash but didn't want to admit it.
• musicale 6y ago
  > Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government s/Government/Company/
  • chubbyish 6y ago
    Companies ain’t democracies.
    • Quarrelsome 6y ago
      IMO ruling by consent yields more productivity.
      • chubbyish 6y ago
        The people are fickle. They need to be led.
• treelovinhippie 6y ago
  The simplest filter to avoid hiring these Woke cult people in the first place is to check for pronouns in their Twitter bio. You can see it in the tweets from people leaving Basecamp. I'm not against using preferred pronouns in the workplace, but when it's in their bio that says a lot about how far down the Woke rabbithole they've gone.
  • gifnamething 6y ago
    Politics: pronouns No politics: trans people don't exist
• lettergram 6y ago
  Good. Can we please stop with politics in the office. We have laws against discrimination, use them if there’s an issue. Otherwise can we work together to build better products (and in turn world)? I’m so sick of politics in my office and “inclusion” which really just breeds resentment. I’m sure basecamp discovered what most places discover - working together is better. Anything that divides us should be removed.
• deleted 6y ago
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• kenneth 6y ago
  If I were interviewing and someone came to me from the Basecamp buy out, it'd be an incredibly clear red flag and no hire decision. If someone cares more about political activism at work than the well being of the company, it's not someone I want on my team.
• lurker3901 6y ago
  good riddance to troublemaker employees.
• predaking 6y ago
  For me, here's a common thread going through everything that's happened to Basecamp in the last several days and in laser focus today. Today 1/3rd of the employees left Basecamp. Also today: DHH is back to tweeting and fighting with Apple like nothing of note happened and it's just another day. The original situation that sparked everything was brought about largely by dismissive and irresponsible leadership that disrespected and devalued the feelings of the other people the leader served. Today's reaction is more of the same. To project to the public - whether pretending or legitimate - that 1/3rd of the company leaving barely registers with you? It's that same devaluing and disrespect, just shown off in a different form.
  • randomsearch 6y ago
    I noticed this too, but I couldn't imagine what dhh could post about this that wouldn't add fuel to the fire and enrage some more people. What would you post if you were dhh?
    • predaking 6y ago
      So to preface this response a bit...I don't know that for me as a leader, it should or would be about adding fuel to the fire or enraging more people; if I'm DHH, it's not the feelings of Twitter that I'm concerned with today*, it's the feelings of the people who have left my company. My top answer here would be "nothing". =) Several hours after 1/3rd of your workforce leaves isn't the time to start going after Apple again like nothing of note happened. Hypothetically (and this is off the cuff) if I had no choice but** to post something on Hey or Twitter - it would be something to the effect of: "You've likely heard that a large number of people left Basecamp today. They were very talented people, great contributors, and I want to thank all of them for contributing to this company. I still strongly believe in the changes we are making, but I respect that the people who have left today don't agree with those changes and have exercised the option to leave. As promised we have provided them with 3-6 month severance packages and wish them all the best in the future." Again, I think the best thing would have been for David to have been quiet today instead of going on a blocking spree and posting about cancel culture the night before the all-hands; but at least this statement would indicate some degree of respect for the people that had given a lot of their time to Basecamp. * and clearly from his rampant blocking behavior (to the point that "dhh block" is the second autocomplete suggestion of twitter), he definitely cares a bit too much about it today ;) ** again, there's always a choice =) Some of the best advice I ever received was "Before you hit send, sleep for at least 8 hours."
• Bantros 6y ago
  Good
• debrice 6y ago
  I can see an exodus of 33% of the workforce creating ripple effect in the coming months through burnouts. As a founder I’d be very concerned about the next 6-12 months
• kjjjjjjjjjjjjjj 6y ago
  If basecamp employees are so desperate to talk about politics at work, maybe they should work in Washington DC or something? Seems like a lot of drama over nothing. Also, who would turn down 6 months of free money while they get a higher paying job?
• birdyrooster 6y ago
  They just lost all their employees that aren’t forced to stay to pay their bills because they can’t find work elsewhere. They cut loose their best employees. I don’t want to coddle anyone into my position, please censor politics in your business so that mine can succeed by seeing around corners your company can't.
• deleted 6y ago
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• villgax 6y ago
  Thanks for the laughs in these gloomy times
• villgax 6y ago
  Slaves shouldn't talk about slavery in the masters estate is the closest analogy apart from WW2
  • joelbluminator 6y ago
    You are out of your mind...
    • villgax 6y ago
      Sure & JF+DHH aren't? What a shitty workplace if you can't even talk about issues impacting the society. Kinda like keep your head down & keep working, nothing happening outside impacts us.
      • joelbluminator 6y ago
        Maybe Basecamp isn't for everyone, they wanna focus on work and not have everyone constantly arguing and fighting on politics. I understand not everyone likes that.
        • villgax 6y ago
          If that is the case then they should outright ban verbal communication since you can't filter what comes out of people's mouths but you can preemptively filter out text/have stored data for later analysis, which is what basecamp would love to do.
          • joelbluminator 6y ago
            What do you mean? If they said their policy is not to curse and not to be racist you would also say the only choice is banning verbal communication?
  • blakebreeder 6y ago
    Remember all those times slave masters offered 6 month severage packages for them to leave?
• birdyrooster 6y ago
  Please censor politics in your business so that mine can succeed by seeing around corners your company can't.
• wideareanetwork 6y ago
  Offering six months pay is a major own goal by Basecamp.
• antipaul 6y ago
  When someone said, corporations are people, it got a lot of flack. And yet, corporations then became people, finding it necessary to have and voice strong political opinions. It looks like some companies are now going back to focusing on being companies, and less people.
• lazyasciiart 6y ago
  A lot of people discussing this appear to be unfamiliar with the values and history of Basecamp, and might benefit from reading their company handbook for background https://github.com/basecamp/handbook https://github.com/basecamp/handbook
• monkeywork 6y ago
  It should be made known that "about one-third" of basecamp employees would be what 15-16 or so? It's not difficult to imagine that you'd have a handful of people who felt politically / socially strong enough to take the buyout for their stated reason and another handful that saw 6 months of pay and a high demand job market and went for it as well. 1/3 sounds like a big deal if you are thinking basecamp is a massive company but in reality they are less than 60 people last time I checked. If I have a company with 2 other people and one of us leaves due to some sort of dispute, that's also a 1/3 but has a very different feel than if a 1000 head count shop loses 333 people.
  • faitswulff 6y ago
    They lost the entire iOS development team, among others.
    • monkeywork 6y ago
      Great how many people was that team?
      • faitswulff 6y ago
        "They lost an entire leg in that accident..." "Oh yeah? How much did it weigh?"
        • monkeywork 6y ago
          strawman argument. The # of people completely matters - if they were all from the same subteam of the company or not doesn't really matter.
          • faitswulff 6y ago
            Nobody on this site seems to understand what a strawman argument is. I'm saying they lost an entire functional unit of their engineering team. That's momentous no matter how many people were in it.
• throwarayes 6y ago
  Intimate access to top leadership seems commendable in small in person companies. But the types of skills you have paling around the office like you’re “one of the team” are different than those when you’re faced with essentially a PR crisis. Your every word, especially when written, will be scrutinized. It’s not time to just craft your own feelings into a message. DHH seems like he would have been best suited to not be so authentic with his true feelings and consulted some professionals here instead of taking it into his own hands...
• iainctduncan 6y ago
  To be honest, I'm a little surprised at how surprised people are by the number leaving. Not passing a value judgement here, I have no dog in this race, I'm just surprised. They've made a significant cultural change (deliberately), and there's a big turnover. And they made this turnover very easy (even attractive) to do, which can only be because they thought it would be a good thing. Say what you will about them, they aren't stupid - there's no way they didn't fully expect a big departure with a carrot that big. Big turnovers during big changes aren't uncommon. If we were talking about an acquisition, turnover of 1/3 wouldn't raise an eyebrow. The place I was at during an acquisition turned over 80% in a few months - that's big! My partner is a civil servant, and when there's a change in government, this kind of mass exodus in non-elected positions is considered par for the course. I imagine they're completely fine with the outcome and decided it was time to clean house. It's not like they're going to have a hard time hiring.
• deleted 6y ago
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• abductee_hg 6y ago
  raises an interesting question: what is Basecamp?
• midrus 6y ago
  As an European. I don't get this. So, employees create a list for making fun of people. Employees start to fight each other because they take offense. Company states at work, you're supposed to work, not to discuss politics. Th bad actor is the company so we all leave. (??!!!) Honestly, I don't get it. I think it is a cultural thing in the US, due to the long term racism issues ,etc. And how extremely easy is for Americans to feel offended. Sorry if that hurts, I accept your down otra but would appreciate what I am missing. As somebody from a first world european country, we go to work to work. If we're developers we're expected to do development. We like football (soccer) and some like politics and discussing controversial stuff, but we do that in the proper forums. For football it is the pub. For politics ist is elections, friends and family. Business are business and we're there because we need money and a profession we like. I feel these problems happen only in America, it sad to see this going on.
  • libraryatnight 6y ago
    You completely omit the company's actual response. If the company had shut down the list as being unprofessional and that "work is for work" we wouldn't be here. So I don't really get your point. Are you saying in the EU that if such a list were circulating, the business would take a stance that the list has a place in the workplace? That seems to contradict your statement that "work is for work" And, honestly, mocking your customers even if it isn't offending employees seems like something management should discourage.
    • midrus 6y ago
      > If the company had shut down the list as being unprofessional and that "work is for work" we wouldn't be here Ok, I assumed this was done and part of all the changes they just did. Wasn't it? Are they still sharing the list around?
      • aniforprez 6y ago
        The problem was the initial complaint included references to something called the "Pyramid of hate" which asserts that larger conflicts and discrimination start from innocuous biases and insensitive remarks and DHH took great offence to using that image WHILE apologising for the list being circulated. He felt using that image was "catastrophizing". When people disagreed, he became vindictive and lashed out, dug up message logs of an employee to dismiss their complaints. This disturbed employees which resulted in anonymous HR complaints. And this in turn led to the situation we have now. Keep in mind, all of this seems to have been going on as they were trying to fix diversity issues in the company My reading of this seems that the internal group seems to have badgered management which was probably unprofessional and stoked some sentiment but instead of DHH simply accepting criticism and trying to diffuse the situation, aggravated it and made it far worse and instead of trying to fix the issue, shut it down completely [https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/27/22406673/basecamp-political-speech-policy-controversy https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/27/22406673/basecamp-politic...]
• TOSSAWAY_1 6y ago
  I think im going to try Basecamp now.
• fredsmith42 6y ago
  It sounds like working there has become a distraction to working there, which means that working there has become fratcally stupid. Quitting sounds like a reasonable position to take.
• ashtonkem 6y ago
  Turns out subtweeting your entire workforce is dumb. Report at 11. The issue is that the most senior people probably left first, since they’re more marketable and have more connections. A non trivial chunk of the remainder probably want to leave, but haven’t yet. Also, I don’t think Basecamp is ready for a world where remote first is a game changing hiring advantage; that’s de rigueur nowadays, and there are a ton of companies ready and willing to snatch up engineers who have no interest in returning to an office.
• etempleton 6y ago
  I don't pretend to know what the culture is like at Basecamp, nor do I have a dog in this fight, but as a general observation I have found the recent openness of people to discuss their feelings and opinions about anything and everything at any place, including at work, a bit...weird. I guess growing up an emphasis was placed on knowing my "place," so it is a foreign concept to me in that regard. I do not judge people who feel otherwise, but I cringe when I see it even when I agree with the sentiment. I understand that there are often real issues at hand and positive movement that people want to make in the workplace, but it is career suicide, and always will be, to join a committee that makes demands of leadership.
  • lcpriest 6y ago
    I think part of it is how much work has encroached into our lives - long commutes and long work hours tend to prevent people from finding/existing in social spaces where it is appropriate to talk about these things. For many people, work is the only place in their life where they see other adults en masse (especially if they are parents).
• throwawaybchr 6y ago
  The people who want to do their political activism at work in 2021 are all exclusively democrats. Framing it this way is important. Calling it "politics" is limiting because this is just a small manifestation of a larger issue with society in the west, driven by these social constructionist folks who are in a state of perpetual grievance
• anovikov 6y ago
  This company has become too successful and too rich, so could afford to sink itself into bullshit, which it did, just because it could. Sad.
• ur-whale 6y ago
  > About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today IMO, here's the very definition of a win-win.
• tlear 6y ago
  6 month salary? They would be foolish no to do it. I am not sure what the management was thinking when they offered this much of a buyout. 1 month 2 tops
• barry27 6y ago
  where can i get this list
• Kiro 6y ago
  Meanwhile I've worked at companies where the CEO was openly racist, the management rated female employees based on looks and published a top list, bosses threatening to fire people left and right... Yet, it all happened without anyone objecting or making a fuzz on Twitter about it. The difference? Not tech companies. I wish tech employees realize how privileged they are. Actually having a say in anything work-related is something most people could only dream of.
  • Kye 6y ago
    This is like when people who should be paid more complain about people advocating for a higher minimum wage. People in other industries advocating for things you don't have isn't the problem here.
• maxrev17 6y ago
  Shrewd move! By mgmt,and by those leaving. Way to create a win-win!
• avocade 6y ago
  Thought they had an economic meltdown when I first speed-read the headline. But this is _way_ more interesting than that; a culture shakeup — and since Basecamp are usually trailblazers in so many areas, I’m sure we’ll see many more orgs doing similar realignments in the months and years to come. Knowing Jason and (having also met) DHH, I know they usually do things (esp the significant things) with the utmost consideration. So I’d be shocked if this wasn’t a long time in the making. And I won’t have to wonder about the topic of their next book any longer.
• bongobingo 6y ago
  I am sure many of these people will land on their feet, but I would absolutely not hire someone who quit their last position because they were told to stop talking about politics at work. Is there any place where you can exist, in 2021, without having political viewpoints crammed down your throat? Some people just want to work. If you want to change the world go do it outside of business hours.
  • Kye 6y ago
    >> "Is there any place where you can exist, in 2021, without having political viewpoints crammed down your throat?" Depends on who you are. Some people have never had a refuge from others politicizing their existence.
• 0xbadcafebee 6y ago
  Well this Twitter thread is very insightful. If you're a Twitter user and like random people's dumb opinions. (But then again, look where we are)
• dbattaglia 6y ago
  In fall 2008 I moved from Long Island to New Hampshire (for family reasons) and found a job in a small niche B2B shop doing C# Windows apps. On my first day of work, I notice the receptionist desk has a stack of McCain/Palin 2008 bumper stickers. The next couple of months were filled with employees talking non-stop about the election, from their deeply conservative point of view. Being quite progressive left-leaning this was pretty frustrating and distracting to listen to while I tried to just get some work done. They all seemed to believe Obama would send people to their door to take away their guns and assault rifles, and somehow also turn us into the Soviet Union. The thing is, these weren't bad people. They took a chance on an self-taught programmer / art-school dropout in their late 20s with 1 year of professional experience, and they treated me well. When I moved back to New York (for other dramatic family reasons), the CEO offered for me to stay at their own house. I just didn't agree with their political opinions. I think for most folks working in tech hubs its just the other way around, where they are in a left-leaning bubble and its hard to imagine another POV. Coming from someone who was on the outside, I can say for me it was at best distracting and at worst alienating, and I can see why companies want to put an end to it.
  • JPKab 6y ago
    I worked years ago in defense contracting, and remember being treated in a hostile fashion for admitting I was an Obama supporter. Mostly good people, but super isolating when they would talk politics. And I should note, that the pattern I noticed then and notice now with my mindlessly, tribally left colleagues who are mirror images of the right wing lemmings in defense: People who are really into politics at work are mediocre at best, borderline incompetent more often. Anecdotal of course, but I honestly don't think basecamp will be impacted badly by this months down the road. I don't see a single standout amongst the folks leaving. Sorry.
    • predaking 6y ago
      “I don’t see a single standout among the folks leaving” (emphasis mine) Considering that those folks include one of the Rails core contributors, the Head of Design, and the Head of Marketing, either: A) you’re mistaken in your read B) you’re not mistaken, and Basecamp made some massive hiring and staffing flaws including but not limited to who they put in leadership positions I’m not saying which is which, just pointing out the limited possibilities.
• crazydoggers 6y ago
  This is definitely a younger generation issue. The idea that the workplace should be a platform for activism just make no sense. It’s one thing to require your company to have certain ethical standards, that they follow the law, that they don’t descriminate, that they don’t have a culture of sexual harassment, etc. But this is not about that (base camp already seems to be a positive work environment). So to assume you can use the companies resources for your own activism just comes across as entitled. It’s a disconnect with the other 99% of the workforce.. many of which are forced to pee in bottles to make their paychecks. The bubble of privilege these employees live in, and their blindness to it makes them look bad. From the companies perspective, in a healthy democracy we are going to disagree. And there’s a time and a place for those disagreements. And the company can’t start to wade into those arguments. I can only imagine what trying to manage employees with differing viewpoints is like if they feel like they can both bring those views front and center to the office. So I know I would be unlikely to hire these employees unless the did some growing up.
• jiveturkey 6y ago
  hate to say this, but who cares? it’s a 60 person company with an ok product, not some herald of the industry. are we going back to the days of valleywag? this is social media distortion and amplification. a valuable discussion should be had around that instead.
• iainctduncan 6y ago
  Six months runway of a senior basecamp salary for no points has gotta be the best funding deal IN THE WORLD. like 10 times better than any incubator deal. Is it any surprise a bunch of people took it and left? I expect a not-insignificant number are happily starting their next ventures, regardless of their politics. My current job is probably the only one I've ever had that I would not have taken six months pay to leave.
• darthrupert 6y ago
  Basecamp has long been a sort of pipedream workplace for me, and nothing I'm seeing here changes that. So I must wonder: are they hiring backend/architecture/management/IT folks right now?
• kyleblarson 6y ago
  How to get rid of all your intolerant, activist employees in 1 easy move.
• not-american 6y ago
  Shedding these employees will be good for Basecamp in the long run. Businesses should prioritize meritocracy over succumbing to the EDI disease.
• jmcguckin 6y ago
  Sounds like Basecamp just got rid of all the slackers/drones... I can see a typical job interview for one of those employees: ‘And why did you leave your last job?’ ‘They wouldn’t let me waste half the day arguing politics’
• shagie 6y ago
  My take on this (and other problems with political speech and upset about perks) is a gradual encroachment of the workplace into the Third Place ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place ). Back with the DotCom boom, there was an attempt to make the workplace a "club" - a place to hang out. Beer bashes, pool, foosball, ping pong tables... all of that. Yea, I'll grant its nice to relax to... but if you're staying late to play foosball with a coworker, that's the encroachment. It may have made us more productive - gotten a few more hours a week of work in or kept some of the more vagabond-esque engineers around for a few more months. But it also made the workplace a place to be rather than the third place and in doing so, also took some of the other things that the third place was too... but the workplace does the third place poorly... and it can't do it well. The third place needs to be a neutral ground with no ties to those who are there. The coffee shop book club doesn't force anyone to be there. But the workplace, you need to be there for a pay check. If the book club gets bad, you can leave - not so with the workplace. The third place needs to be level - with no status beyond "regular". The workplace has managers and leads and HR... it has CEOs and founders and a legal department. While the workplace are sometimes saying "we are a community" - we know in our orgchearts that HR is there to protect the company, not organize book clubs and beer tastings. This has become even more of an issue with the pandemic-wfh. The traditional third places are closed, or have limits on how many people can be there at once - and you've got to be 6' away from the other people. So we've got virtual third places. Some of the slack channels that I'm on have lit up over the past year. And so, those companies that have encroached the most in the past are seeing it even more now. Where before the water cooler discussions of five minutes of politics are now immortalized in slack channels and message boards. Where people who would like to go to the coffee shop and pontificate about the wrongs of the workplace and politics are now forced to do it on message boards and slack channels. Those companies that have gone further into the third places but don't have the ability to moderate the tone or power differentials are seeing it more. Those companies where the power gradient from most distant worker to the CEO is the steepest are even more likely to see it. Larger orgs, with offices, can more easily move people who discuss and disrupt with politics further apart. Those smaller ones that are all remote? where everyone is on the same slack channel? Where the most distant employee to the CEO is only one or two managers apart? Yea... they're more likely to have trouble when the third place norms get too established in the company. I'm not at all surprised to see this.
• aigoo 6y ago
  Sounds like Basecamp will finally be hiring!
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• GoodJokes 6y ago
  ITT: really really really insecure white dudes. You all spill more ink on "activists" than your shitty ass bosses that dehumanize you and exploit you on a daily basis.
• sswam 6y ago
  Imagine asking your employees to avoid taking politics, concentrate mainly on their work, and conduct themselves professionally while at work. What an outrageous thing to ask of your extremely privileged and well-remunerated software developers and other staff. The founders included themselves in this also. There are 3 things you don't talk about in polite company, traditionally: politics, religion and money; and doubly so at work, and in writing. The Basecamp founders are incredibly wise when it comes to operating a business, and it would take more than this present nonsense to shake my respect for them.
• Srisha 6y ago
  I'm getting this to 2021 comments