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

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

#591

Post by systemvoltage »

gifnamething wrote: post #580
coldtea wrote: post #331

It's sad that the target for those employees' "political disruption" is Basecamp. One of the arguably nicest companies to work in, which treats employees well, has a sane work/life balance and advocates so, pays well, embraces remote work, gives back to open source (RoR, etc.), and has good products, with no shady anti-consumer practices, that people actually like and pay for (as opposed to somewhere where they sell…

Management took a stance against the employees. Management cancelled their employees, removing their platform to talk about internal politics. Framing this as 'these people' vs Basecamp is ludicrous. It's 1/3 or more of Basecamp vs. Basecamp's management. Important people in important roles, entire teams. They are this company. Or were.

> Management cancelled their employees, removing their platform to talk about internal politics

Good. What exactly is the problem here?

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

#592

Post by acdha »

ewb wrote: post #246
yosito wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I mean that's a false choice, plenty will be keeping work conversations professional elsewhere while also having 6 months salary. I don't know if a full third of a company leaving at once can really be explained away as people they didn't really want on the team.

When it’s enough people to make a decent sized company, senior management owns it either way: if they didn’t screw up now, they spent years hiring the wrong people and not doing anything about it.

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

#593

Post by superultra »

digitaltrees wrote: post #499
grey-area wrote: post #479

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 actual…

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.

It’s ironic that “professionalism” is so malleable. We’re talking about misuse of customer data in a borderline racist way, and when employees did their job and raised red flags, the founder dug through search logs in a petty attempt to embarrass an employee - in front of the company.

Tell me again how this is “about professionalism.”

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

#594

Post by lettergram »

grey-area wrote: post #530
digitaltrees wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think most would agree more professionalism would be nice, in fact getting rid of a list of funny customer names (as employees suggested) would be more professional, not less. But again, that's not really what the core disagreement is here - that's not IMO why people are quitting - it sounds like most of the company agrees that is a good idea. They are quitting because the founders decided to assert their power nak…

Maybe the company did negotiate. Most of the company stayed. I know I’d rather work for basecamp now, because they agreed to knock out the BS at work.

> you'll lose your best employees as they decide they don't really want you to decide everything about their waking hours without consulting you.

the company is actually saying they want to not talk about anything outside of work. They don’t want you consulting them, they want you doing your job during work hours. That’s a pretty reasonable trade for money.

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

#595

Post by gifnamething »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #105

I have a different take on this, different than most comments here: I think that the founders/owners knew what they were doing based on reading their book and lightly following them. I have never been a customer. I know that I am just guessing, but they might have been making the lifestyle decision that they wanted a smaller and more focused company that was more joyful to manage/run. Also, I have some sympathy for a…

The list made people uncomfortable. How would you deal with that?

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

#596

Post by gifnamething »

dragonwriter wrote: post #584
gifnamething wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Management took a stance against the employees. Management cancelled their employees, removing their platform to talk about internal politics. Framing this as 'these people' vs Basecamp is ludicrous. It's 1/3 or more of Basecamp vs. Basecamp's management. Important people in important roles, entire teams. They are this company. Or were.

“Basecamp”. Bandcamp is…a different thing.

Thanks

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

#597

Post by bewareandaware »

predaking wrote: post #483
grey-area wrote: post #479

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 actual…

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.

Easier said than done. If it was me I would certainly think three times before quitting over this.

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

#598

Post by uh_uh »

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 agree that their behaviour hurts their career prospects. But I'm not sure if they agree. Many might think that the public at large is on their side and what they did looks good from the outside. This might be objectively false, but this belief would nevertheless encourage them to take the 6 months free money and leave.

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

#599

Post by hparadiz »

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…

This is a weird take. The tech industry is all politics all the time. Even if all you're doing is discussing policy changes as it relates to the business. Even if literally everyone at the company agrees and is on the same political side you'll still occasionally discuss things like municipal broadband or the Affordable Care Act. By banning politics it creates a hush hush atmosphere where the mere mention of something inocuious can get you fired so you end up never talking about anything.

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

#600

Post by bradleyjg »

joshribakoff wrote: post #518
digitaltrees wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

> Should they also ban discussion of potentially contentious improvements to the codebase?

Sometimes, yes. For example, if your company is riven by endless flame wars over tabs vs spaces or where curly braces go, it can make a lot of sense to publish a style guide and cut off further discussion.

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