15 ms·

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,

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 5y 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 5y 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 5y ago
  Some times the way to make the company happier is to fire all the unhappy people.
  - ironmagma 5y ago
    The unhappy people didn’t get that way by virtue of their genetics.
    - luckylion 5y 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.
      - ironmagma 5y ago
        The trouble is, what made a senior group of people unhappy will also make a less senior group of people unhappy as they become more senior. Just like it’s good to be improving yourself personally, even though it takes a bit of effort and you can’t please everyone, so too should companies be trying to improve themselves. This is because there are such things as both a high-functioning company and a low-functioning company, and the difference isn’t that one wants to build product more than the other.
        luckylion 5y ago
        > This is because there are such things as both a high-functioning company and a low-functioning company, and the difference isn’t that one wants to build product more than the other. I'm not sure about that. In my experience, it's about priorities, and some people find e.g. political activism more important than building products. When they have to decide between "more activism" or "more products", they value activism higher. I don't think it's a junior/senior thing, and not everybody will end up where they feel like they + the company have "grown apart". In this case, from afar, it looks like most in the company (including the founders) where pretty political, but some employees got more radicalized and the founders (who essentially set the company direction) did not. It's a kind of schism, but it's best for everyone involved to let it happen. I find that kind of generous buy-out a very good way to do it. Some have suggested that it's some kind of demonstration of power, but I don't see that: in a power play, they would've fired the problematic employees (and having worked with activist employees, I'm confident that everyone knew who they were), not given them a large bonus for leaving. They've extended the bonus to everyone (which is great as well, you're not rewarding the bad apples, to so speak), and I wouldn't be surprised if some took the offer purely because of the money.
  - pydry 5y ago
    Those unhappy people had friends who were probably on the edge. Firing them is a good way to tip them over it.
- Hamuko 5y ago
  If not outright dumb, it at least seems pretty ill-informed. Surely no one would intentionally craft a policy to nuke a third of the company? Did they do any research into it before announcing it?
- mortehu 5y ago
  This is confounded by the fact that they were also offered money to leave. I suspect the results would have been different if they paid 6 months of salary to the ones who stayed instead.
  - thu2111 5y ago
    Yeah. That's pretty hard for me to understand. Why did they make that offer? Paying people to quit without any kind of bounds on how many may take the offer seems like a crazy business decision. They made a decision. They announced it to their staff. Anyone not on board would have been fired anyway, so where's the need for the payout? IIRC Coinbase made the same offer and it just seems like the kind of weakness that led to their problems in the first place. A company pays employees to do work, not to not do work.
- toolz 5y ago
  the decision may or may not be dumb, but appealing to the popularity of a decision is never logically sound. There have been incredibly unethical things done throughout history with far more than 1/3 approval.
  - weeblewobble 5y ago
    I think it's pretty sound in this case. A policy change that causes 1/3 of your company to resign in protest is definitionally dumb (unless you're a believer in the "I meant to do that" school of thought being suggested elsewhere in this thread).
- tshaddox 5y ago
  Or you have too many employees and you can’t think of a better way to get rid of people. Either way, it’s not a good look for company leadership.
dagw 5y ago
it sounds like there was a real, meaningful mismatch in priorities. Or it was just a good deal. Do we know what the "buy-out" deal was? I mean I like my job and the company I work for well enough, but if they offered a decent enough deal and I'll happily walk away tomorrow and not look back.
- bombtrack 5y ago
  DHH stated it in his "Let it all out" follow up post. > 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
  - goatinaboat 5y ago
    I read that entire blog post just now and I am still none the wiser as to what happened
    - Wolfr_ 5y ago
      The founders went into a political discussion with someone on the other side of the political spectrum and got tired of it - then instituted a no-politics-and-society-discussion policy when the whole success of Basecamp is taking a societal , opionated view on software and what work should be.
      - kyawzazaw 5y ago
        This summary doesn't include the fact that it was trigged by a discovery of a decades-long of customers employees thought had "funny" names.
mendelmaleh 5y ago
If two thirds were willing to stay even with such a good severance package, it sounds like most agree with the decision...
- echlebek 5y ago
  Not everyone can leave their job at the drop of a hat, even with a big severance package. You don't know their motivations or plans.
  - mempko 5y ago
    Exactly. Health insurance in US will tie people down even if they want to leave. For example.
    - cblconfederate 5y ago
      aren't they remote?
      - CydeWeys 5y ago
        Most of them are still in the US.
    - marcinzm 5y ago
      Not really. You just pay for COBRA. Your 6 months severance will cover that rather nicely. Granted it might be cheaper to just get private insurance nowadays.
      - gedaxiang 5y ago
        Granted that the severance will cover it, but COBRA is not cheap (you pay the same your employer + you payed)
      - mempko 5y ago
        Yes, but what about all the jobs that don't pay severance?
threatofrain 5y ago
Even so that's a lot of institutional turnover. Only a company with heavy seasonal patterns should be accustomed to that many people leaving.
_jal 5y ago
Any employer that abruptly told me I needed to watch what I said at work would lose me, too. I'm not saying I demand the ability to be rude and awful, or go on political tirades, or anything even vaguely like that. But I spend more time talking to people I work with than any other set of people. Telling me I have to avoid entire categories of normal conversation is itself authoritarian politicization of the workplace, and I'd happily tell him to go fuck himself, too.
- toolz 5y ago
  and neither you nor your employer would be in the wrong. There's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting no limits w.r.t. political talk in the workplace but people like myself very much prefer a workplace where I don't have to bite my tongue 24/7 simply because my political views aren't popular in the tech industry.
  - ido 5y ago
    prefer a workplace where I don't have to bite my tongue 24/7 simply because my political views aren't popular It's not that cut and dry; There's a difference between disagreeing about what is the optimal rate of taxes on labor and capital, if marijuana should be legalized, how much public money should be spent on infrastructure and so on vs say if trans people deserve acceptance & healthcare, gay people should be able to marry, women allowed to get abortions, or that ethnic and religious minorities shouldn't have to assimilate the values of the majority group. If the discussion is about the person you are talking to getting to enjoy the same basic rights everyone else does (or even just exist) that's not just any political discussion and it affects them very personally and directly. As they say, "your liberty to swing your fist ends where my nose begins".
    - nailer 5y ago
      > if trans people deserve acceptance & healthcare, gay people should be able to marry, women allowed to get abortions, or that ethnic and religious minorities shouldn't have to assimilate the values of the majority group. You think this. Others don't. Your values are not universal. If you want to advocate for your positions, arguing on a company slack while being paid to do something else isn't the time.
asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
Maybe I'm just not a world class manager, but I feel like even if there were that kind of mismatch in priorities, it's hard to see getting rid of 30% of people at once being intended. Unless these people were all net negative contributors . . . although that hardly seems likely since they weren't selected on any performance-based metric, and the list seems to include some fairly high up people. It seems like a real stretch to read this as anything other than a bit of a self-own. Even if you wanted to get rid of all these people eventually you'd probably want to do that more gradually.

dbt00 5y 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 5y 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 5y ago
Some times the way to make the company happier is to fire all the unhappy people.
- ironmagma 5y ago
  The unhappy people didn’t get that way by virtue of their genetics.
  - luckylion 5y 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.
    - ironmagma 5y ago
      The trouble is, what made a senior group of people unhappy will also make a less senior group of people unhappy as they become more senior. Just like it’s good to be improving yourself personally, even though it takes a bit of effort and you can’t please everyone, so too should companies be trying to improve themselves. This is because there are such things as both a high-functioning company and a low-functioning company, and the difference isn’t that one wants to build product more than the other.
      - luckylion 5y ago
        > This is because there are such things as both a high-functioning company and a low-functioning company, and the difference isn’t that one wants to build product more than the other. I'm not sure about that. In my experience, it's about priorities, and some people find e.g. political activism more important than building products. When they have to decide between "more activism" or "more products", they value activism higher. I don't think it's a junior/senior thing, and not everybody will end up where they feel like they + the company have "grown apart". In this case, from afar, it looks like most in the company (including the founders) where pretty political, but some employees got more radicalized and the founders (who essentially set the company direction) did not. It's a kind of schism, but it's best for everyone involved to let it happen. I find that kind of generous buy-out a very good way to do it. Some have suggested that it's some kind of demonstration of power, but I don't see that: in a power play, they would've fired the problematic employees (and having worked with activist employees, I'm confident that everyone knew who they were), not given them a large bonus for leaving. They've extended the bonus to everyone (which is great as well, you're not rewarding the bad apples, to so speak), and I wouldn't be surprised if some took the offer purely because of the money.
- pydry 5y ago
  Those unhappy people had friends who were probably on the edge. Firing them is a good way to tip them over it.
Hamuko 5y ago
If not outright dumb, it at least seems pretty ill-informed. Surely no one would intentionally craft a policy to nuke a third of the company? Did they do any research into it before announcing it?
mortehu 5y ago
This is confounded by the fact that they were also offered money to leave. I suspect the results would have been different if they paid 6 months of salary to the ones who stayed instead.
- thu2111 5y ago
  Yeah. That's pretty hard for me to understand. Why did they make that offer? Paying people to quit without any kind of bounds on how many may take the offer seems like a crazy business decision. They made a decision. They announced it to their staff. Anyone not on board would have been fired anyway, so where's the need for the payout? IIRC Coinbase made the same offer and it just seems like the kind of weakness that led to their problems in the first place. A company pays employees to do work, not to not do work.
toolz 5y ago
the decision may or may not be dumb, but appealing to the popularity of a decision is never logically sound. There have been incredibly unethical things done throughout history with far more than 1/3 approval.
- weeblewobble 5y ago
  I think it's pretty sound in this case. A policy change that causes 1/3 of your company to resign in protest is definitionally dumb (unless you're a believer in the "I meant to do that" school of thought being suggested elsewhere in this thread).
tshaddox 5y ago
Or you have too many employees and you can’t think of a better way to get rid of people. Either way, it’s not a good look for company leadership.

dagw 5y ago

it sounds like there was a real, meaningful mismatch in priorities. Or it was just a good deal. Do we know what the "buy-out" deal was? I mean I like my job and the company I work for well enough, but if they offered a decent enough deal and I'll happily walk away tomorrow and not look back.

bombtrack 5y ago
DHH stated it in his "Let it all out" follow up post. > 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
- goatinaboat 5y ago
  I read that entire blog post just now and I am still none the wiser as to what happened
  - Wolfr_ 5y ago
    The founders went into a political discussion with someone on the other side of the political spectrum and got tired of it - then instituted a no-politics-and-society-discussion policy when the whole success of Basecamp is taking a societal , opionated view on software and what work should be.
    - kyawzazaw 5y ago
      This summary doesn't include the fact that it was trigged by a discovery of a decades-long of customers employees thought had "funny" names.

mendelmaleh 5y ago

If two thirds were willing to stay even with such a good severance package, it sounds like most agree with the decision...

echlebek 5y ago
Not everyone can leave their job at the drop of a hat, even with a big severance package. You don't know their motivations or plans.
- mempko 5y ago
  Exactly. Health insurance in US will tie people down even if they want to leave. For example.
  - cblconfederate 5y ago
    aren't they remote?
    - CydeWeys 5y ago
      Most of them are still in the US.
  - marcinzm 5y ago
    Not really. You just pay for COBRA. Your 6 months severance will cover that rather nicely. Granted it might be cheaper to just get private insurance nowadays.
    - gedaxiang 5y ago
      Granted that the severance will cover it, but COBRA is not cheap (you pay the same your employer + you payed)
    - mempko 5y ago
      Yes, but what about all the jobs that don't pay severance?

threatofrain 5y ago

Even so that's a lot of institutional turnover. Only a company with heavy seasonal patterns should be accustomed to that many people leaving.

_jal 5y ago

Any employer that abruptly told me I needed to watch what I said at work would lose me, too. I'm not saying I demand the ability to be rude and awful, or go on political tirades, or anything even vaguely like that. But I spend more time talking to people I work with than any other set of people. Telling me I have to avoid entire categories of normal conversation is itself authoritarian politicization of the workplace, and I'd happily tell him to go fuck himself, too.

toolz 5y ago
and neither you nor your employer would be in the wrong. There's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting no limits w.r.t. political talk in the workplace but people like myself very much prefer a workplace where I don't have to bite my tongue 24/7 simply because my political views aren't popular in the tech industry.
- ido 5y ago
  prefer a workplace where I don't have to bite my tongue 24/7 simply because my political views aren't popular It's not that cut and dry; There's a difference between disagreeing about what is the optimal rate of taxes on labor and capital, if marijuana should be legalized, how much public money should be spent on infrastructure and so on vs say if trans people deserve acceptance & healthcare, gay people should be able to marry, women allowed to get abortions, or that ethnic and religious minorities shouldn't have to assimilate the values of the majority group. If the discussion is about the person you are talking to getting to enjoy the same basic rights everyone else does (or even just exist) that's not just any political discussion and it affects them very personally and directly. As they say, "your liberty to swing your fist ends where my nose begins".
  - nailer 5y ago
    > if trans people deserve acceptance & healthcare, gay people should be able to marry, women allowed to get abortions, or that ethnic and religious minorities shouldn't have to assimilate the values of the majority group. You think this. Others don't. Your values are not universal. If you want to advocate for your positions, arguing on a company slack while being paid to do something else isn't the time.

asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago

Maybe I'm just not a world class manager, but I feel like even if there were that kind of mismatch in priorities, it's hard to see getting rid of 30% of people at once being intended. Unless these people were all net negative contributors . . . although that hardly seems likely since they weren't selected on any performance-based metric, and the list seems to include some fairly high up people. It seems like a real stretch to read this as anything other than a bit of a self-own. Even if you wanted to get rid of all these people eventually you'd probably want to do that more gradually.