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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 h

• 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.
    • dang 6y ago
      Please don't take HN threads into flamewar, especially not programming language flamewar, which is so shallow and never goes anywhere interesting. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  > The 6 months free money is hard for anyone entering a strong job market to pass up. Surely some of the employees left for ideological reasons, but 6 months of salary just for changing jobs is a difficult incentive to ignore. Anyone who was considering changing jobs would have a hard time saying no to 6 months of free pay. The publicity of this situation also makes them attractive targets for other companies looking to hire out of the situation.
  • StanislavPetrov 6y ago
    At least half the people I know would immediately give up their job for no other reason than 6 months of salary.
    • gls2ro 6y ago
      At the level of compensation from Basecamp (at least what they say) it would be very easy to do that in 1 year: just put aside 50% of salary each month and you will have full 6 months of salary or (as you already lived on 50%) you will have one year of half salary to take time off. Of course putting 50% aside is huge but I think 20% is achievable and will still create in one year a couple of months to live without a job. I find myself sometimes hearing people saying things like this “if my company will give me X salaries I will leave” but few will actually do it. I always push back saying how about in the next 6 months you put aside some money and take 1 month unpaid vacation. I listen the arguments why they will not do it and realise people say will leave job if compensated but mostly they dont walk the talk as there are other risks/loans/friends/promises that keeps them there.
      • d3nj4l 6y ago
        Except, here, you don't even have to save. You get to keep both the money you made over the past year and six more months of salary. Literally having your cake and eating it.
  • PaulRobinson 6y ago
    Why are you assuming many were considering changing jobs at a company that has long tenure and believed to have a great culture? If you read "Shape Up", you will realise there is a _lot_ of slack at Basecamp (I know, I've implemented it myself in one company), and a lot of space to think things through. Tons of autonomy. 6 months pay is not a good bargain for a great job. It's a superb bargain for a job that has suddenly become very uncomfortable.
• llamataboot 6y ago
  Then, I guess they are all lying on their social media accounts? I mean you can also leave and say nothing. I agree that it wasn't this one decision...but if you can make a generous severance offer and not only does your company implode but all your senior leadership leaves, then probably your internal culture isn't what you thought it was and/or something else stinks and/or they all felt that strongly about this one decision. But even then...if you are a senior person that has been somewhere for the better part of a decade, you have surely both made and seen bad decisions made before. If you think that there is trust and mutual understanding and collaborative work is possible, you work through those. (Not everyone in tech solely cares about money. And the ones that do siphon their way to certain gravitational points and/or do the jump ship every 2-3 years to negotiate a new salary and not a raise...)
• andkon 6y ago
  One of their iOS devs who left has been incredibly vocal about how he no longer felt like this was somewhere he could work because of this policy and its effects, so I think you're plainly wrong (or insisting that there's no way we could take a person at their word). https://twitter.com/georgeclaghorn https://twitter.com/georgeclaghorn It's a lot more likely that the 1/3rd that left both left because they were unhappy with the policy, and because they thought they could get jobs elsewhere. I would bet there are some people who stayed behind who didn't believe they could find a job this good soon but who also disagreed with the policy. Which, I get it. 6 months free money is not as much as you'd think; a new job hunt takes 3, even for talented, in-demand people.
  • Rapzid 6y ago
    Poster meant a full 1/3 left because yadda yadda. Not that the entire 1/3 left yadda yadda.
  • wlll 6y ago
    Minor point, he's a Ruby/Rails programmer, or was last time I saw him.
    • rst 6y ago
      Former member of the Rails core team, in fact, from which he has also resigned. https://twitter.com/georgeclaghorn/status/1388131010232074245 https://twitter.com/georgeclaghorn/status/138813101023207424...
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • madeofpalk 6y ago
    A number of their employees were very vocal from the moment the post went live. They expressed how disappointed they are. You can literally hear the despair in two employees voice in a 90s podcast episode where they announce its hiatus. Basecamp was a company built on reputation, and people joined on that and then the leaders just flushed that all away. Its not surprising that opinionated and outspoken people - the kind of people Basecamp courted - left.
• Semiapies 6y ago
  I've noticed a lot of rather wishful thinking here and on Twitter along the lines of that the people who left are all woke layabouts or whatever and that this is some genius management move. No explanation of how to reconcile these ideas with the fact that so many of these people who left were in leadership positions.
  • alistairSH 6y ago
    I dunno. I could find a job in a few days or weeks. But, finding a job I want to do for many years probably takes a significant portion of that 6 month period. Now, if I was already half-way out the door? Or also felt strongly about the no-politics stuff? You bet I'm taking the money and not looking back.
    • reboog711 6y ago
      It usually takes me years to find a job I want. That is why I'm always looking.
    • Semiapies 6y ago
      I believe you. But I also assume you're not dead weight your employer would be better off without. However, dead weight is what a lot of commentators online claim to think the departed employees were--and that Basecamp cleverly rid itself of them today--without any real evidence for these bold ideas.
      • fastball 6y ago
        You're combining like three different narratives together.
    • lazyasciiart 6y ago
      If any significant percentage of a tiny company like this was halfway out the door, that's also a sign of management failure.
      • 6y ago
• swyx 6y ago
  heres the list of folks who have publicly announced their departure: https://workflowy.com/s/basecamp-resignation/qrBBdTQydmTKLu0y https://workflowy.com/s/basecamp-resignation/qrBBdTQydmTKLu0... probably has more context to each in their threads
  • bdowling 6y ago
    I read the first tweet in each of those resignations. Out of 19 resignations, most give no reason for quitting. Five or so tweets cite "recent changes and new policies" as the reason. That reason is so vague that it may refer to the new policy of paying 6 months severance to employees who want to quit. edit: Excellent point below that the severance agreements probably included a non-disparagement clause, which would restrict what those who took the deal would feel safe disclosing publicly.
    • bsder 6y ago
      While everybody is latching onto "Hurrr... Durrr... Wokeness." apparently there were also some cutbacks to benefits and allowances and stuff. Most devs read the tea leaves from that kind of thing as as a bellweather for time to GTFO. My guess is that some of this has been building and the 6 months of severance simply put it into high gear.
      • bdowling 6y ago
        > apparently there were also some cutbacks to benefits and allowances and stuff. They cut a fitness benefit, wellness allowance, farmer's market share, and continuing education allowances. However, they paid each employee the value of the benefit for the year and they created a 10% profit sharing plan. https://world.hey.com/jason/changes-at-basecamp-7f32afc5 https://world.hey.com/jason/changes-at-basecamp-7f32afc5 It's unclear how much money the 10% profit sharing is worth, except that now it's 50% better for the 2/3 of remaining employees. (edit: Yes, this is an oversimplification.)
        • Rapzid 6y ago
• Cyberdog 6y ago
  Do you think people in charge of hiring, particularly outside of the SV bubble, are going to be eager to pick someone up who left their last job because they couldn't agree to stop bitching about politics on the company dime? I don't see how demonstrating the inability to follow basic company rules in the interest of productivity improves their career prospects. Even inside the SV bubble, things aren't that warped, are they?
  • eplanit 6y ago
    > ... someone up who left their last job because they couldn't agree to stop bitching about politics on the company dime? I don't see how demonstrating the inability to follow basic company rules in the interest of productivity improves their career prospects. Exactly. These didn't use to have to be rules -- it was simply part of Professionalism and social courtesy. That wasn't that long ago, it seems.
    • andrewingram 6y ago
      It's not 0%, but I spend a negligible amount of company time talking about political issues. I also don't have a particular desire to. Nonetheless, if something of a political nature did come up, either as a distraction that was affecting my colleagues (e.g. they're part of a minoritized group, or empathetic to one, and something is going on), or something the company was doing was at odds with my own political values; I would hope the company would accommodate the need for _some_ level of discussion. An outright ban ala Coinbase, and now Basecamp, would send an extremely troubling message - and would prompt me to begin the motions of seeking employment elsewhere. A generous severance package would make it a much easier decision.
    • 8note 6y ago
      I'd say it'sa new union topic. Employers need to start worrying about what political opinions they are lobbying for, and what their employees want them to be lobbying for. Corporate lobbying is going to stop just being for the owners
      • 6y ago
• Dah00n 6y ago
  >1 / 3 left because it would increase their wealth or give them the summer covid took away last year. Citation needed. Did you talk to all of them? I have only seen people say the opposite.
• Kye 6y ago
  Quite a few who left said the policy was the reason when they posted about leaving on Twitter.
  • FFRefresh 6y ago
    The social incentives are certainly aligned for that to be the case. A couple scenarios: 1) Employee A leaves Basecamp and says "I'm leaving for the severance package, not the policy change", and actually takes the severance 2) Employee B leaves Basecamp and says "I'm leaving because of the policy change, not the severance", but actually takes the severance package. Employee B will both get the social virtue points of standing up for something AND collecting on the nice severance package. Employee A may experience social blowback if they explicitly stated they weren't incensed by the policy change. I would expect to see more Employee B's than Employee A's publicly.
    • 8note 6y ago
      I'd expect to see more of A than B. Taking money that is offered is well respected across pretty well all political groups, especially those that are in charge of hiring Taking money isn't controversial with anyone other than extreme Marxists.
• jrochkind1 6y ago
  I think it would depend on how much I liked my job. My sense is that DHH is just a terrible boss. Note the "changes" [1] are not just "no politics" but also "no more committees" (of any kind at all; that is, no authority or responsibility except individually along line-of-report hieararchy), no more 360 degree reviews (no way to formally give feedback to your boss), and no more bringing up past decisions you disagreed with (!). Basically, no more employee input in anything, and a new focus on "insubordination" (they're not using this word, but these policy changes are like -- do your job, don't tell us what your opinion is about anything else in the company especially if you don't like something). They also introduced a 10% profit-sharing plan though, which could be real money? I don't think the people leaving -- some of whom had been there for years -- are doing it for money. I think that's not usually why people leave a place, especially when leaving without another job lined up. I don't think it's really about the "no politics at work" policy either. I think it's probably mostly about not trusting or respecting or feeling respected by the boss. [1] https://world.hey.com/jason/changes-at-basecamp-7f32afc5 https://world.hey.com/jason/changes-at-basecamp-7f32afc5
  • mrandish 6y ago
    > My sense is that DHH is just a terrible boss. Interesting. I've read everything posted officially about this by the two founders as it unfolded and I've been super impressed by how well-considered these new policies are. As someone with several decades of experience as an employee, manager and then founder in both large and smaller orgs, I felt these changes were in the best interests of all stakeholders. With the myriad potentially conflicting sensibilities in today's workplace the only fair and sustainable approach is to focus on the work and the customers. As an employee, these policies would make me feel more respected and safe. I guess the fact that you see it as a sign of a "terrible boss" and I see it as a sign of enlightened leadership is an indication how divided perspectives on workplace etiquette currently are.
    • jrochkind1 6y ago
      By saying "these changes" plural you don't only mean the "no talking about politics" policy I guess; are you also talking about "No more committees" (of any kind; only reporting-line authority), "No more 360 reviews", and "No more lingering or dwelling on past decisions" (sounds like a rule on questioning decision-making to me)?
• cafed00d 6y ago
  > The 6 months free money is hard for anyone entering a strong job market to pass up. Money is a funny business. I'm convinced that anyone who's a skilled software engineer makes more money than they ever imagined after 5-6 years of working at a regular tech company. All the RSU upside, bonuses yada yada. Folks who worked at Basecamp are top-notch programmers with close to a decade or more of experience. I'm certain that their motivation to work is driven in large part by craftsmanship, taste etc. Not to mention that social aspect of work -- building rapport with peers you consider intelligent/admirable; consistent record of work; crunch-time camaraderie, all of those things make up for their worth in 6 months of free money. 6 months isn't that long. Like someone else on this thread said, getting a new job, interviewing, building up trust in new team takes time. I'm convinced that social policy at Basecamp, more than 6 months of money, influenced many people to leave. Particularly people with a lot of capital; cultural, intellectual or even financial. Personally, I'm glad. I want to live in a world where people take responsibility everywhere and not shy away from topics meant to drive morality/politics forward.
  • syshum 6y ago
    >>I want to live in a world where people take responsibility everywhere and not shy away from topics meant to drive morality/politics forward. This is a problem given that politics is not universally agreed upon and if we can not work together with different politics then we can not have a pluralist society, which increasingly seems impossible as both "sides" of this debate want to sort people with differing politics as "immoral"
    • refurb 6y ago
      Precisely. If a pro-life person brought their “whole self” to work and started promoting pro-life views and calling it “a matter of morality”, these same folks would put an end to that really quick. It has zero to do morality or “being responsible” or “making the world a better place”. It’s about pushing one particular political viewpoint with the end goal of grabbing power to benefit their group.
  • jkhdigital 6y ago
    The Bolsheviks were just as surely motivated by idealism for a more just society.
• amznthrwaway 6y ago
  It saddens me that the top comment here is asserting that all of these people, who were quite vocal on their social media channels, are lying. I understand that this website is frequented by white supremacists and voting occurs thusly, but it says something about what a toxic community HN has curated that your baseless falsification is the top comment right now. Shame on you for your fact-free posturing. Shame on @dang for creating a toxic environment where a dumb speculation from a racist asshole is the top comment. I understand that you think it’s fine that it is, and you don’t care... but I still hope maybe someday you’ll become a decent person.
• dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Interestingly the employees who left have the best career prospects. The people who can most afford to not put up with <whatever> are always those with the best career prospects. If you aren’t certain that you can get a job somewhere else that matches even the newly-worse conditions of your present job within the cushion provided by the offered buyout, then a buyout isn’t attractive.
  • jollybean 6y ago
    Except there's nothing to 'put up with' other than policy which is going to be effectively the same almost anywhere, or possibly worse. If you try to form an 'issue group' at an arbitrary company, to take on the executive team, and make demands with excessive intellectualizations that 'making fun of names' lead to 'genocide' - you're not going to get offered severance, you're going to get fired immediately. The kind of leverage that people here on HN seem to think they have is a little bit bizarre. People deserve to be treated with dignity, of course, people should not be making fun of people's names, it was stopped, and for the most part, that should have been it. Antagonizing almost any further is going to be seen as lacking in legitimacy and probably not acting good faith. I think 90% of companies would be 'much less open' than Basecamp even with their new policies, 9.5% would be about the same. The rest, a grab-bag of different views, mostly at smaller companies. The bigger the company, the more the actions will be based purely around legality, caution, and the companies will to maintain some semblance of positive image.
    • katbyte 6y ago
      The policy is only one part of it. No more 360 peer reviews. Allowing a diversity group then eliminating it. Announcing it all with a blogpost. And more. It’s putting up with terrible leadership that seems to want to keep their heads buried in the ground and not have to deal with anything.
      • jollybean 6y ago
        Most companies don't have 360 reviews or diversity groups, that's normal policy. It seems odd because they reversed their decision, but that is also reasonable. It's not terrible leadership, I think it's just poorly communicated.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
  > Interestingly the employees who left have the best career prospects Maybe 5 years ago. Now it seems that a lot of tech companies see outspoken/activist employees as a liability, even if they are accomplished.
• DiNovi 6y ago
  Just weird to me that people think like this. The obvious issue is poor management and nothing else
• spyckie2 6y ago
  Yes, people are reacting to the policy. But it's definitely that the policy is a reaction to something as well. Probably, the founders believed that the toxicity of the internal culture had reached a point where it was extremely detrimental to the workplace. And, knowing DHH, it was probably not only a financial decision but a lifestyle one. He may have realized that the advocates that actively discussed and promoted political issues within the org was making his life and others in the company miserable. Would you allow a Jehovah's Witness to be a significant part of your life if they proselytize you every day? I definitely wouldn't. Some of these activists probably think that's their right to do so; so let them walk. I'd be really surprised if this surprised the executive team. This seems to be a super intentional and very professionally executed cultural shift / purge. Professional, because you give them freaking 6 months of severance and you don't call them out or force them out. If that isn't recognized as goodwill, you're blinded by your political disagreements to seeing how nice of a treatment that is. The people leaving probably grew with the company, and contributed a lot to the company, so giving them 6 months of severance is recognizing that. But it's also telling them, hey we are making a cultural shift in our identity, and if that identity is no longer you, sorry, we'll treat you really well as you find a place that supports your identity. This reeks of professionalism and GOOD management to me.
  • overgard 6y ago
    Yeah, honestly this seems like addition by subtraction. The last thing I would want at work is to navigate around ultra-sensitive trigger-warning micro-aggression seeking activists. Not that all the people leaving were that, but it sure sounds like a lot were. At work I just want professionalism and respectful behavior, along with people that have moderately thick skin and don't seek to find offense everywhere.
    • busterarm 6y ago
      Given how Basecamp is known to pay, they're going to attract a significant amount of top talent that is already aligned with the new culture.
    • dannyr 6y ago
• joshuamorton 6y ago
  Worth adding that the eng team has an even higher rate of departures. Cross-referencing basecamp.com/humans.txt with the list of people who left shows that nearly 2/3 of the Engineering team left, bring them from 15 to 6 (including DHH). That can't bode well for the company.
  • phendrenad2 6y ago
    Then again, maybe we'll see the reverse of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%27s_law and they'll be 5 sprints ahead.
• ashtonkem 6y ago
  I bet that most who quit for non-monetary reasons probably quit less because of the policy, but more because they lost faith in leadership. This whole episode was extremely ugly, and unnecessarily public. If I worked at Basecamp I’d probably just not trust DHH and Jason to not make my life worse for no clear reason.
• lifeformed 6y ago
  I mean it doesn't have to be one reason. Like all big decisions, there's lots of factors involved, some weighed more heavily than others. Maybe for one person, money is worth 10 points, policy worth 5, and a new job prospect is worth 3.
• smsm42 6y ago
  I love my job, but if I'd be offered my half-year salary right now to leave, I'd at least seriously think about it. It's a fat chunk of money. I'm not saying I'd take it, but I'd at least spend a couple of days thinking about it.
• bennysomething 6y ago
  I'm not sure I'd want to hire someone who left their previous company because they felt they had the right to brow beat other staff with their political opinions.
  • anonyxyz 6y ago
    What if they left because the company was imploding and 1/3 of their colleagues were leaving?
• rusty-rust 6y ago
  Many of the comments in this thread appear to be missing the context of what has happening at Basecamp. From the Verge; > While Basecamp does not publish diversity statistics, it is still, like most tech companies, majority white and male, employees said. But the idea of worker-led efforts on diversity issues got a frosty reception from the founders last year, employees told me. They were allowed to work on the project, but did not feel as if the founders were particularly invested in the outcome. > Nonetheless, the DE&I ( Diversity and inclusion) 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.theverge.com/2021/4/27/22406673/basecamp-political-speech-policy-controversy https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/27/22406673/basecamp-politic...
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • adolph 6y ago
    It would be really creepy to have a workplace committee examining how I socialize.
    • lozenge 6y ago
      HN guidelines are to steelman what you are responding to. So, assume "examine how employees socialise" means "consider events where people go beyond who their usual contacts are, to enable more mentoring". Rather than, "spying on me and building a graph of contacts".
      • adolph 6y ago
        I suppose you are right and there is a range of implementations a committee comprised of a third of the workforce could use to "examine how employees socialize." Maybe its unfair to react simply to the text and not do the work of broader interpretation. In terms of the guidelines, I am not a guideline lawyer as perhaps you are. When I think of the strongest plausible interpretation I often turn to Occam and accept the plain language meaning. For example, if a goal of the committee were to encourage mentoring, then the article could have said that. In terms of strongest plausible interpretation of what I wrote, I did not write "spying on me and building a graph of contacts." I'm a person who is appreciative of privacy and would be annoyed by a group of colleagues who decided to "examine" me in any way. As I think about it now I can feel a wave of revulsion and annoyance toward a posse of busybodies who must not have enough actual work to do that they have time to "examine" me. Maybe you like being examined; me I still think people who volunteer to do that are creepy. Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. [...] Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• PaulRobinson 6y ago
  It astounds me that you think people are entirely motivated by money and that social policy will have no bearing on those who have the best career prospects. Companies and their cultures are not equivalent. Many of those people will have joined Basecamp because of the culture and the mission. They will have joined for reasons other than money. Many of them could have got jobs at FAANGs but didn't because they believed this culture was a better fit for them. You have no data on why people left, you only have guesses you're trying to turn into data. Many of the replies to your comment are equally of the hand wavey "see, social policy isn't the thing here" type, when social policy is absolutely 100% the thing here. I've never seen such a disappointing thread on HN as this one.
• ascorbic 6y ago
  The people who are counted in that are all ones who have publicly said that it's because of the company changes. Most of these are long-standing loyal employees who have no incentive to say this. If it was just about the money they could just as easily keep quiet and take the cash. In fact, for all we know lots of people did just that.
• chiefalchemist 6y ago
  That's the problem, isn't it? Those who are most able, are the most likely to leave. It happens time and again, and again.
• waheoo 6y ago
  I wouldn't be so sure, we're enacting a no hire rule on Basecamp employees over this. Too much of a liability.
  • dragonwriter 6y ago
    > we're enacting Who is “we”?
  • predaking 6y ago
    You're enacting a no hire rule for 30 people specifically?
• sswam 6y ago
  It's unsurprising that people with better career prospects are less attached to their current jobs.