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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”

#631

Post by gifnamething »

rmk wrote: post #405

The old-fashioned dictum, "don't talk politics and religion at work" is very much worth following. I hope plain old professionalism comes back into fashion --- we can all use a return to norms that have existed for a very long time, and for very good reason. Free political and religious association can proceed unhindered outside the office, while the sanctity of work and common courtesy is preserved at the workplace.

I recall that old-fashioned society wasn't so great if you weren't DHH's demographic.

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

#632

Post by lupire »

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…

The company banned talking politics on the work server, not talking politics on personal accounts, even on the company dime.

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

#633

Post by nomdep »

detaro wrote: post #506
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.

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…

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

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

#634

Post by heartbreak »

Trasmatta wrote: post #123
baron816 wrote: post #90

The proposed changes are wholly reasonable, and definitely not that different from 99% of the companies out there. The real problem is that they’ve spent years hiring for a type of person where this sort of thing is anathema.

Yeah, DHH is very outspoken politically, and fairly progressive. Of course there was going to be a selection bias where they hired similar people. This shouldn't have come as a surprise to them, and they should have realized the backlash. Shockingly bad foresight.

I don’t know about progressive, but he’s definitely something.

Here’s his last in-person RailsConf keynote: https://youtu.be/VBwWbFpkltg

He’s promoting anarcho-communism in a RailsConf keynote.

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

#635

Post by predaking »

For me, here's a common thread going through everything that's happened to Basecamp in the last several days and in laser focus today.

Today 1/3rd of the employees left Basecamp.

Also today: DHH is back to tweeting and fighting with Apple like nothing of note happened and it's just another day.

The original situation that sparked everything was brought about largely by dismissive and irresponsible leadership that disrespected and devalued the feelings of the other people the leader served.

Today's reaction is more of the same. To project to the public - whether pretending or legitimate - that 1/3rd of the company leaving barely registers with you? It's that same devaluing and disrespect, just shown off in a different form.

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

#636

Post by madeofpalk »

motives wrote: post #356
mhneu wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” -Elie Wiesel Choosing to not discuss politics is fine. But if you do that, you’re making a choice: you’re choosing to take the side of those who prefer political decisions to be made by a small elite, without feedback from people like us. You’re choosing not to weigh in.

I don't usually like engaging in political discourse online, as its very rarely fruitful, but I'd just like to encourage you to study some philosophy before making statements like these whereby you treat your own opinion as absolute fact (or at least your phrasing comes off that way to me). The nature of inaction on these issues is not necessarily inherently immoral, and I would personally argue its supererogation ra…

There was never any assertion that not participating is immoral, but that it is itself choice.

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

#637

Post by nomdep »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #571
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…

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 l…

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

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

#638

Post by gkop »

christophilus wrote: post #515
baron816 wrote: post #181

What I think is lost in the conversation here is that people don’t really have organizations they can go to to advocate their political positions. People have their families, their jobs, and maybe a couple of friends and that’s about it. They need an outlet to push the ideas and causes they care about. The workplace is one of the few places where they can feel like they’re having an impact, but that’s not really appr…

When I see a Jehovah’s Witness coming up to my door, I pretend to not be home. I’d really hate to be forced to have that same feeling at work, but be unable to escape it. If you can’t do your job without evangelizing your coworkers in some form or fashion, maybe you should reconsider your career choices.

Please don't equate human rights activism to a religious movement.

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

#639

Post by soarfourmore »

madeofpalk wrote: post #493
andkon wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 It's a lot more likely that the 1/3rd that left both left because they were unhappy with the policy, and because they…

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 k…

Despair over not talking about politics on work channels? Are they absolutely consumed with politics that they can’t focus on actual work tasks? I have worked with someone who insists on inserting a political topic or headline into every meeting and it’s distracting and exhausting

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

#640

Post by devoutsalsa »

542458 wrote: post #275
Wolfr_ wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if 1/3 of your company leaves there is short-term morale loss for the ones that remain. But the loss of internal IP will be devastating. Especially if you are not big on docs and have that “just be smart and ship” approach that Basecamp has. Basecamp has a real problem hand here... they probably never expected this.

From what I’m seeing basically the entire iOS team is gone, and that app is nontrivial. It’s going to be a nightmare to get new developers up to speed without any of the existing expertise around.

Just because an employee leaves doesn’t mean you can’t hire them back as a consultant. Although that may not happen in this case.
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