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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, espe
by JauntTrooper 5y 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 5y agoYeah, 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 5y agoDepends 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 5y agoEven if I liked the job I would take it. Six months paid holiday would be too good to pass up.
- swyx 5y agodepends. 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 5y agoEh. 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 5y ago[deleted]
- jrochkind1 5y agoI believe the profit-sharing plan is new, announced as part of these "changes". > In addition, we recently introduced a 10% profit sharing plan If so, it's hard to say for sure how lucrative it would be either, especially if you aren't privy to the details of what they say they are offering. But if so, nobody's gotten it already, you'd have to stay to get it. https://world.hey.com/jason/changes-at-basecamp-7f32afc5 https://world.hey.com/jason/changes-at-basecamp-7f32afc5
- mr_ndrsn 5y agoProfit sharing was paid out for the first time in 2021-01.
- void_mint 5y agoGood to know. Thank you!
- baron816 5y agoYeah, let’s say your salary was $200k. They give you $100k immediately, you turn around and find another job after a month off at $190k—that means you’re making about $273k this year.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- francisofascii 5y agoIt depends on the terms, is it a lump sum? Or would the paychecks end when you get the new job?
- stock_toaster 5y agoSeverance (or "buy-out"), is typically (in my experience) a one time lump sum event.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- iainmerrick 5y agoWhy would they end? What business is it of theirs?
- rufus_foreman 5y ago$273k means you would be hitting the top marginal federal income tax rate and also the net investment income tax. If you are in a state with high state income tax rates, your additional $100k nets you $50k. Of which maybe $10k goes to replace the post-tax income you lost for the month you spent looking for a job. $40k in the bank is a nice bonus, but I wouldn't quit a job I liked for it.
- madeofpalk 5y agoAlso getting a new job is a pain. I don't like doing it. It reminds me of people flippantly declaring "just sue!" as if it's an easy or pleasant thing to do.
- NationalPark 5y agoI wonder if they're regretting the "no employee equity" policy now.
- ggreer 5y agoWhat? After two years, every Basecamp employee starts getting shares that pay dividends.[1] Their handbook also claims that employees will get 10% of the value of the company if it is ever sold or goes public (though they plan to never do so). https://basecamp.com/handbook/08-benefits-and-perks#employee-profit-sharing https://basecamp.com/handbook/08-benefits-and-perks#employee...
- NationalPark 5y agoExactly, it's a profit sharing program that encourages good year over year results, not something that rewards you with assets that may be worth a whole lot of money, but only in 10 years. I guess it comes down to numbers though. How much money was this profit sharing incentive giving to most employees? And how many users did they lose this week?
- robocat 5y ago"We ask that you think of any compensation from this program as not something to be counted upon, not something to be budgeted with, but as a true bonus. Year to year, profits and therefore the amount we’re able to share with employees may swing wildly or not be paid out at all." Does anyone add in randomness (dice?) to actually enforce the feeling that profits/bonuses can swing wildly? "This Program does not have any set expiration date, but the company reserves the right to amend it or cancel it at any time. You forfeit your shares in the profit sharing program if you resign or are terminated from Basecamp." So not equity. Profit sharing.
- yosito 5y agoI see this as a third of the employees were more interested in taking 6 months salary than in keeping work conversations professional. Those aren't really people you want on your team.
- dbt00 5y agohead of marketing, head of design, entire ios team. Probably people they wanted on the team. If you read this news as "employees (who yosito disagrees with) should shut the fuck up", perhaps you think this is good. If you read this as, "I joined this company as a place where my voice mattered and now I'm being told to STFU by a founder on a rage bender", it makes more sense why people are leaving.
- brightball 5y agoI followed the entire conversation and “a founder on a rage bender” is an extreme exaggeration. They asked the political conversions be kept out of work channels, but continued to encourage people to be active politically, active on social media and even active at work using other platforms. Framing the entire thing as some extremist plot to silence dissent is absurd. If someone wanted to come into work channels and constantly tell people about their religion, why they should convert and why other religions were wrong would you think it’s okay to for the business to ask to keep those conversations outside of the main work channels?
- JeremyBanks 5y agoThis sounds like you've only read DHH's description of events. Read the Platformer article for more context.
- brightball 5y agoIf you’re talking about this one, I just read it. https://www.platformer.news/p/-what-really-happened-at-basecamp https://www.platformer.news/p/-what-really-happened-at-basec... When I read that, I see business leaders who engaged for months then asked people to move on when they realized it was never going to go away. Searching the chat logs and posting in front of everybody was a jerk move for an executive, absolutely. Everything else seems entirely reasonable.
- jcims 5y agoPeople are also going to be tempted to not deal with the backlash of staying onboard despite a fairly generous buyout offer.
- notadoc 5y agoI suspect many people would leave many jobs if offered a comparable payout, particularly if their skills are valuable
- nprz 5y agoIs it a competitive job market? I've been interviewing SWE candidates at my current workplace for some time and it feels like the org is competing for developers more than developers are competing for jobs.
- FullyFunctional 5y agoI think that's what he meant - employers are competing for employees. I had one recruiter (who cold contacted me) admit that the SF Bay area job market is red hot and everyone is hiring like crazy.
- simfree 5y agoHere in Seattle, if you can't quickly solve Fizz buzz and Hacker Rank questions in an interview, most companies interview processes will reject you in short order. It doesn't seem to matter if your getting quality PRs approved into popular FOSS software, nor do most interview processes actually vet for technical capability or quality. My friends who work in tech right now (whether at Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Mercedes, etc) essentially set aside 6 to 18 months prior to job hunting to screw around practicing these questions.
- timClicks 5y agoI expect that was the intent. They wanted a smaller, more focused company and longed after a time when things were simpler. So they have decided to take the financial hit for convenience by providing an offer that they hoped people would take.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- sircastor 5y agoFour words come to my mind: “United States Healthcare System” Even with an amazing buyout like this, I feel like you have to be in that relatively narrow space of “no spouse, no kids, good health, pretty young” to be able to walk away from health insurance.
- ma2rten 5y agoThey can make use of COBRA and use some of that money to pay for that.
- jleyank 5y agoWell, when I ended up using cobra the cost was roughly 5x what I was paying while employed. This got worse as one aged, and put a noticeable dent in the household budget. If some of those that walked were <= 26, can't they use their parent's insurance due to ACA? For those with a working spouse, free money. For those working in, say, Canada, catastrophic insurance isn't something that involves the employer.
- x0x0 5y agocobra is free for them -- per the covid bill. through 30 sept
- re 5y agoCOBRA is only free under the relief bill for people who were involuntarily terminated. https://www.natlawreview.com/article/new-covid-19-relief-package-provides-free-cobra-premiums-starting-april-1-what https://www.natlawreview.com/article/new-covid-19-relief-pac...
- x0x0 5y agoconstructive termination counts as involuntary
- orangecat 5y agoWhile I agree that the US healthcare system is terrible, this shouldn't be much of a concern for people making software engineering salaries. One good thing the ACA did was make it reasonably convenient to exchange dollars for health insurance without the idiocy of your employer being a middleman, and you can't be denied or have rates jacked up for preexisting conditions.
- twobitshifter 5y agoFor the people who stay when one third of the team has left what’s your outlook? Pro: high possibility of promotion and a new position Con: way more responsibility and stress for managing a platform and rebuilding teams on the fly. I think they’ll need to offer some form of compensation to reward the people who stayed on, because their lives will likely get a lot harder in the short term.