461–470 of 1001 posts
I guess it's important to note the scale here. About a third of Basecamp employees is ~15-20 people?
Sure, but they have outsize influence in US tech circles because of the CEO's books about org management. The company also has a philosophical opposition to venture capital and the incentives it creates. Such as the common focus on DAUs, MAUs and IPOs instead of sustainable profitablility.
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.
I 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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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. The list is not the issue here. In an ideal world, the list would be seen as an innocent inside joke, and be totally n…
In an ideal world you don’t work at a company that maintains a list of customer names to laugh it. And if you did and someone pointed out how it can become problematic to have foreign names in the list and they tell you why, you don’t self-immolate. Pretending this list and subsequent lack of discipline isn’t about the founders vanity is very ignorant
In an ideal world, that would be the very bottom of bad things in the world, well below "annoying ringtones".
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.
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Our experience when we issued our "No Politics / No Religion" policy at work was very positive. The few people who had an issue with it, subsequently quit or were terminated, and many of their co-workers actually thanked us afterwards for it. We didn't have to pay them to leave. One tried to use the company social media accounts to advance her politics, so we fired her, and the other person became frustrated that she…
Placating "activists" in the work place may initially seem like the new norm in corporate responsibility, but it is actually a self-destructive spiral, as there are ever-changing foci for woke outrage. The risk of these same employees turning on the company is extremely high in the long term. A big problem in 2021, going back some years, is that the internet makes it easy for anyone to put out their slate and call th…
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 y…
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, a…
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.
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 Microso…