“About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today” • Hacker News Board

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#471

Post by narrator » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 11:37 PM UTC

throwawaysea wrote: post #43

I really hope more companies declare their workplaces to be politics free. I am completely tired of the long march through the institutions ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_long_march_through_the_ins... ) that has culminated in corporations being weaponized for one-sided progressive political agendas. These departures really just give away the biases of the tech industry at large. As for Basecamp's leaders - I thi…

If you're into understanding Gramsci's thought and the long march through the institutions and its influence on modern American life, you might enjoy this essay from Stanford's Hoover Institute written 20 years ago, when all this was just getting started: https://www.hoover.org/research/why-there-culture-war

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#472

Post by taftster » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 11:39 PM UTC

eugeniub wrote: post #470

taftster wrote: post #460

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…

Basecamp isn't a typical company, it has an outsized influence on work culture, development trends, etc. Its CTO is the creator of Ruby on Rails with nearly half a million Twitter followers. One of the people resigning, George Claghorn, also resigned from the Rails core team.

Fair point, I think. It's a very impactful company, for sure. But again, the hyperbole around "1/3 of employees" is just too much for me to take seriously. That's 15-20 people? Not that interesting of a story, even for the influence of Basecamp.

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#473

Post by coldtea » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 11:39 PM UTC

mempko wrote: post #414

coldtea wrote: post #280

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…

The only ones who made a 'power play' were DHH and Jason. They made it clear they don't want employee input, criticism.

They don't need to make any power play, they founded and own the company. The power is theirs.

>They made it clear they don't want employee input, criticism.

No, they just made clear they don't employees diverting the discussion to BS arguments such as that "a list of funny names" is in any way similar to endorsing genocide. If that's the kind of "ideas" people would bring in, then they prefered to keep it to work talk. Who wouldn't?

It's like many people today were pampered children throwing tantrums, and don't know the basics of logic, what's relevant and what's not, how to not slippery-slope things to death, how to deal with their "feelings", and so on.

Or, that would be the case, if it was legit rage, but a lot of it is fashion, hypocrisy and power-plays.

On top of that there are people jealous at DHH and co, who can't stand their success and advocacy, and will rejoice at the first chance to turn them into scapegoats.

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#474

Post by lolbert » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 11:39 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #463

[deleted]

if you want to know what its like ask your coworkers

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#475

Post by predaking » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 11:39 PM UTC

bdowling wrote: post #333

swyx wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

heres the list of folks who have publicly announced their departure: https://workflowy.com/s/basecamp-resignation/qrBBdTQydmTKLu0... probably has more context to each in their threads

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…

It's pretty common in a situation like this to also carry a no disparagement clause along with the severance. That's also why you see a lot of "today is my last day at Basecamp" with no other "because I disagreed with the policies", etc.

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#476

Post by rachelbythebay » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 11:40 PM UTC

fortran77 wrote: post #231

John Warnock once said at an Adobe company meeting "when an employee leaves a company it's like taking your hand out of a bucket of water -- it doesn't leave a hole." This was in response to a similarly contentious issue -- moving from Mountain View to San Jose. People said they were going to quit. John Warnock said, in effect, "good riddance." And the company started growing very rapidly after that move. (This doesn…

Employees as "resources" I've heard of, but employees as displacement or maybe even ballast? Damn! That's a new one by me.

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#477

Post by LegitShady » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 11:40 PM UTC

danjac wrote: post #377

tashoecraft wrote: post #241

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…

The thing is, it's not that Basecamp is apolitical. Politics is fine if it's the founders doing the politics. DHH has been very vocal in the last few months in public tirades against Apple, government lobbying, etc. While he has every right to his views, he's also the public face of Basecamp. So it comes across as a teeny bit hypocritical to issue a no-politics diktat on his workforce. The real problem with Basecamp…

>DHH has been very vocal in the last few months in public tirades against Apple, government lobbying, etc. While he has every right to his views, he's also the public face of Basecamp. So it comes across as a teeny bit hypocritical to issue a no-politics diktat on his workforce.

Being vocal about apple's business practices isn't necessarily political. It sounds more about business to me.

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#478

Post by cafed00d » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 11:41 PM UTC

ipaddr wrote: post #152

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…

> 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.

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#479

Post by grey-area » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 11:41 PM UTC

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 employees asserted power over them in the workplace, and decided to assert their own power in turn over what they view as their personal fiefdom and retract some of the freedoms they had so graciously granted their workers, because those ungrateful workers actually expected them to live up to their words about openness and owning mistakes. At least 1/3 of the staff, when confronted with their true relations with their management, then decided to quit.

I did find it amusing they announced this new policy of no personal/political stuff at work on his personal blog on hey.com, not on a company blog, and DHH continues to rant on twitter about a very political and public fight with Apple, one he chose to enter on behalf of the company.

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#480

Post by predaking » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 11:42 PM UTC

Cyberdog wrote: post #312

ipaddr wrote: post #152

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…

I think "couldn't agree to stop bitching about politics on the company dime" is really minimizing the leadership vaccuum that caused this in the first place.

As someone who hires I'd have zero issue with a talented person who also felt passionately about not working with people who enable racism or toxic environments. That's part of how you build good companies.