23 ms·

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 em

• 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".
  • digitaltrees 6y ago
    So employees should be able to do raunchy stand up comedy about farts and sex then? Some topics are unprofessional in a work environment. Politics has become one of them.
    • jakelazaroff 6y ago
      So what counts as political? Let’s take a recent polarizing topic: whether trans people should use the bathroom corresponding to their gender identity. Which bathroom do trans employees use? How can Basecamp possibly avoid that issue?
      • DashAnimal 6y ago
        Couldn't Basecamp just have designated bathrooms, choose one way or the other, employees follow company guidelines and HR for dealing with complaints? Would employees discussing this internally finally solve the bathroom war and bring everyone to one side?
      • digitaltrees 6y ago
        Political speech is anything related to normative discussion of public or social policy especially as it relates to government action. Simple.
        • deleted 6y ago
          [deleted]
        • jakelazaroff 6y ago
          Okay, so let’s tweak the example a bit so it involves literal speech. Say an employee asks a coworker to refer to them with a specific set of pronouns, and the coworker refuses. Who is bringing politics into the workplace? People are upset about the policy because it gives cover to treat people’s identities (such as using they/them pronouns) as forbidden political speech.
• madeofpalk 6y ago
  It cannot be understated just how great the two leaders think they are. For the entirety of their career they've been literally telling everyone else they're running their company the wrong way. They thought this was just another instance of them having a stroke of thoughtleadership brilliance and everyone else is wrong.
  • digitaltrees 6y ago
    No. They have just presented an alternative so others have a point of validation if they want to not be on a hyper path to unicorn billions.
    • jessaustin 6y ago
      They have also done that, but unfortunately their more recent actions will totally obscure that fine example for the foreseeable future.
• digitaltrees 6y ago
  I disagree. It’s about professionalism. Flame wars at work create a hostile environment where quiet voices are silenced. It’s the same reason HN bans political flame wars.
  • detaro 6y ago
    But you might remember the disaster as HN as an experiment tried to get rid of those by banning all politics topics... Of course not 100% identical, but some analogues hold. Going against flamewars is quite different than banning topics wholesale - and if you are a "quiet voice", are you going to dare touch anything potentially political now? And if it's about professionalism, you probably shouldn't communicate your policy change to your employees through the personal blog of an executive...
    • nomdep 6y ago
      lobste.rs is going very well banning any off-topic subject like politics. Might be because is invite-only or because the rule was enforced from the beginning
  • joshribakoff 6y ago
    It’s possible to ban flame wars instead of politics. Dealing with differences of opinions (or lack thereof of this skill) is what causes flame wars. Politics is not the only thing people disagree on. Should they also ban discussion of potentially contentious improvements to the codebase? Edit: reading some of the comments below, it does also say they banned discussion of certain past decisions. It’s not just politics. Interesting.
    • hintymad 6y ago
      > It’s possible to ban flame wars instead of politics. I find this statement idealistic in the US, as so many issues, political or not, are turned into good-vs-evil moral confrontation. Universal care is taking freedom from citizens. Taking vaccine is big pharma's conspiracy. Wearing masks is eroding civil rights. The left is not better. J.K Rowling is already a Nazi. Any Trump supporter should be hunted and punished. Questioning Faucci is anti-science. Questioning Biden is supporting Trump. Asking a person not to graffiti on my house means losing my job for opposing the right movement. And how much hate did Bari Weiss get from her staff for an editorial decision?
• klelatti 6y ago
  > Treating people right is fundamental to how we do business. We treat our customers as we’d want to be treated, we treat each other like family ... [1] Absolutely spot on. I think they had an implicit contract with their team which they broke in a fundamental way. Notable that DHH's twitter hasn't seen any expression of regret or thanks to the people who have worked hard to build Basecamp and now feel they have to go. [1] https://basecamp.com/about https://basecamp.com/about
  • spion 6y ago
    DHH is incapable of expressing regret in general.
    • klelatti 6y ago
      Maybe the whole "we're the small guy being oppressed by Apple" thing has slightly clouded his judgement.
      • spion 6y ago
        No, its just the way he is and has always been. Its really sad. He misunderstood a comment about a pyramid and instead of investigating a bit more about the meaning he decided to assert managerial power. When he finally gets to the point where he realizes his mistake, I wonder how he'll spin it (subconciously) into a rant about how awesome he is that he realized his mistake.
        • heartbreak 6y ago
          I wonder how much of this could have been avoided if he hadn’t confused the pyramid of hate with a flow chart.
          • lupire 6y ago
            The pyramid of hate is horrible PowerPoint-atyle information presentation; we should take a lesson from that.
• jollybean 6y ago
  I think this is an unfair representation and you are straw-manning the situation at least somewhat. The company doesn't think that 'name calling' is appropriate, rather, they don't believe that this activity is the beginnings of some kind of 'race war' and object to language such as 'leads to genocide' as hyperbolic. "unhappy that their employees asserted power over them in the workplace," Yes, if your staff are exerting that kind power, that's in most cases an unhealthy thing, unless there is considerably legitimacy in the assertion of that power. The 'argument' is over the legitimacy. "over what they view as their personal fiefdom" This is not the appropriate language: it's their company, and their responsibility. It's not a 'personal fiefdom'. "expected them to live up to their words about openness and owning mistakes." They did. The company doesn't support the right of individuals to 'make fun of people's names'. It's unreasonable to believe that excessive fear-mongering such as language regarding 'leads to genocide' should be accepted at face value. "t least 1/3 of the staff, when confronted with their true relations with their management, then decided to quit." This is clearly not true, because 1/3 of most Americans literally today, might opt to take 6 months of severance in order to leave their jobs. I probably would. The companies language may have been lacking in self awareness and possibly tone-deaf, but none of their policies are unreasonable. I think it was handled poorly, but just because it was, doesn't absolve the antagonists as having perfect legitimacy. I think from a policy perspective, things are fine, but from a 'populism' perspective, no so much. It does make me question a little bit either side, as though I'd want a lot more information to determine how bad things are either way.
  • digitaltrees 6y ago
    Thank you for a thoughtful nuanced response. I think your perspective that questioning hyperbolic rhetoric is not the same as tacit support for the underlying issue is really important. It is critical to maintain perspective in discussion and avoid vilification of a counter party.
    • corinroyal 6y ago
      The "hyperbolic rhetoric" was when the founder compared sharing the Pyramid of Hate with accusing coworkers of genocide.
• acjohnson55 6y ago
  This pretty much nails it. The "politics" angle has been revealed to be a red herring by the subsequent accounts of everyone involved. The same contentious discussions would have happened had this policy already existed! I guess you could say the policy gives the founders a ban hammer to swing to end discussions they don't like. Separated from their justification, the 6 policies represent an assertion that Basecamp leadership are the sole arbiters of all things Basecamp. I don't think that's an awful thing in itself, but the way it was announced was clearly felt to be completely demoralizing for employees who assumed their judgment on the direction of the company was valued. And the result seems likely to be catastrophic. Basecamp has had their pick of the litter for talent for years. Sure, they'll hire new folks who are aligned with their new way of running the company, but you don't go back to being a beacon of the industry when you lose 1/3 of your staff in a week over an ego trip.
  • nomdep 6y ago
    1/3 of the staff that believes in things like that the “It doesn’t have to be crazy at work” title is ableist (see the Jane Yang post). Even when refers to a situation and not to a person. How radicalized you have to be to lose your capacity for critical thinking like that? If anything, Basecamp is a much better place to work now, without them
    • seppin 6y ago
      > toxic people. I continue to be amazed how strong the options of people who have no real insight into any of this continue to be.
    • ummonk 6y ago
      People don’t have to all agree with the Jane Yang post to hate the new policy and decide to leave.
      • nomdep 6y ago
        She mentions that it was one of the complaints that were ignored
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• austhrow743 6y ago
  >At least 1/3 of the staff, when confronted with their true relations with their management, then decided to quit. At least 1/3 of staff, when offered either 3 or 6 months of salary just for switching employers, accepted it. I feel like you'd get similar rates, potentially higher, at any employer recent incident or not. If you have the career power to quickly slot in to an equivalent job elsewhere, you just cut years off of your retirement date. I don't think any "its really about" take can ignore that.
  • busterarm 6y ago
    Given how much higher Basecamp pays than almost the entire rest of the industry, it's extremely likely that most of these staffers will be taking a significant pay cut. Remember, Basecamp pays the 90th percentile of San Francisco rates + profit sharing kickbacks for a company that's fully remote. Regardless of position.
    • angry_octet 6y ago
      As I understand it, no stock though. There is no potential that you would, via Hey, be able to cash out. (And frankly, I can't see the technical or user appeal of Hey, it seems very bleh. I'd rather work on Signal any day.)
      • busterarm 6y ago
        Why would you want stock in a company that has no intention of being sold? Especially when they're making up the difference in cold hard cash that you can use to buy whatever other rocketship you think is out there. If you're looking to cash in on a unicorn, you are almost always better off working somewhere else that will pay you the most in cash and using that cash to make your unicorn bets.
        • angry_octet 6y ago
          Well exactly. No IPO, no buyout on the horizon. Stocks would be a less valuable compensation than cash. But the allure of partaking in massive success in a revolutionary startup is pretty significant. Less so if you have a steady salary perhaps, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a few of these people use the safety net of savings and a solid technical rep to try some riskier innovation. I really can't believe I'm explaining startup allure on HN.
• throwarayes 6y ago
  Agree. If only for: > Hansson’s response to this employee [that apologized for participating in the list] 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. (From The Verge article[1]) In summation an employee participated in the list and wanted BaseCamp to change its ways on diversity. DHH took to publicly bullying this person and shutting down discussion. 1 - https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/27/22406673/basecamp-political-speech-policy-controversy https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/27/22406673/basecamp-politic...
  • kristiandupont 6y ago
    I agree that this is bad. However, I have to say that if I had stated "Yes, I'm embarrassed that we didn't put a stop to this list far earlier." and then some employee kept objecting, referring to the pyramid of hate and genocide and all that and I knew that said person had participated in the making fun of names themselves, I would be tempted to call that out as well. That does not make it right and it certainly shouldn't have happened publicly but I don't think it reveals quite the character flaw that some seem to think it does.
• wanderer2323 6y ago
  The managers at basecamp discovered that their employees formed an inquisition that was whipping itself into frenzy looking for the heretics to burn at the first opportunity found. Unfortunately when lancing that boil they also lost some people who decided that 6 months pay at the hottest market in years is too good to pass up.
• ashtonkem 6y ago
  He’s now complaining about cancel culture on Twitter, which is extremely political.
  • solipsism 6y ago
    Not defending the founders, they sound like tools. But it's not hypocritical to be political on your personal social media but apolitical at work.
    • guax 6y ago
      I think is hypocritical to think you can never "be political" at work. Work is where politics are the most prevalent and important in your life, work agreements, rules, benefits, compensation, processes. All political. It seems they're not banning external politics, they're banning internal dissidence.
  • tomjen3 6y ago
    He explicitly said that they were welcome to use some other platform, just not the company one.
• slmingol 6y ago
  Feels pretty much like that to me as well.
• overgard 6y ago
  I think that is a pretty bold statement. In my experience, while some openness and reflection in a company is healthy, when a team or a company gets too meta and spends a lot of time talking about their own interpersonal feelings and relationships, it can overall create a really uncomfortable vibe where everyone feels as if their behavior is constantly being judged. I can see how they might want to reduce that without it being a flex of power. I can also see how some employees might see it as a flex. I think calling it feudal really goes too far.
• gigatexal 6y ago
  The Casey Newton verge article goes into how they disbanded a Diversity and Inclusion committee. How boneheaded does DHH have to be to think that was a good idea? Your employees want to feel accepted and safe. Like it or not the demographic of work is changing and people are becoming more accepting and are wishing their workplaces do the same.
• seer 6y ago
  What I think I’ll take from this is how a lot of organizational policies have simple human emotional reasons behind them. Reading the official company stances, they all look like reasonable, well meaning changes. But then 1/3 of your organization quits? There must be more to this! And in fact its just a normal human squabble, with broken promises, public dressing downs, power assertions. It can kind of put into perspective a lot of big policies in general. That almost certainly what we know today as pillars of reasoned thought, has originated by some basic human desires, and what we’re reading is only their rationalizations. I mean it’s obvious of course, but this here is a _really_ good clear cut example of it.