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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”

#881

Post by avocade »

Thought they had an economic meltdown when I first speed-read the headline.

But this is _way_ more interesting than that; a culture shakeup — and since Basecamp are usually trailblazers in so many areas, I’m sure we’ll see many more orgs doing similar realignments in the months and years to come.

Knowing Jason and (having also met) DHH, I know they usually do things (esp the significant things) with the utmost consideration. So I’d be shocked if this wasn’t a long time in the making.

And I won’t have to wonder about the topic of their next book any longer.

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

#882

Post by chiefalchemist »

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…

That's the problem, isn't it? Those who are most able, are the most likely to leave. It happens time and again, and again.

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

#883

Post by christophilus »

NathanKP wrote: post #671
christophilus wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You are halfway there, but now think a bit further. Imagine if you were working at a job, but you are stuck with immature coworkers that are making fun of aspects of your culture, making fun of names that are similar to your own name, or similar to names of your friends and family. You can't escape these immature people because you need to work the job with them in order to make money. So you deal with it for a while…

It sounds like you think I’m defending the dumb list. I’m not. To me, it sounds like the Basecamp leadership did mostly the right thing. They said, this list shouldn’t exist, we expect better in the future. But also, we’re sick and tired of people making extreme assumptions about people’s motivations and making this list tantamount to a KKK membership. The list was dumb. Calling the list the work of hateful racists was also probably dumb.

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

#884

Post by BeFlatXIII »

DiNovi wrote: post #659
norswap wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The outrage crowd always prefers easy targets over good targets.

Again I don’t get this. 1/3 of basecamp left. They arw basecamp. Basecamp are the people who are leaving! Lol

Then what of the ⅔ who stayed?

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

#885

Post by darkerside »

predaking wrote: post #480
Cyberdog wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As a self considered centrist, I would have an issue if they couldn't discuss these issues in a dispassionate way at work. That might be wrong, but IMO (within reason) we are there to work and create value. We will make mistakes along the way, and some of those will be perceived as a step towards racism and toxicity. If we can't accept that it's a spectrum and not a binary, that reasonable people can have different opinions, and that once a decision is made we should move on together, I think I actually would have trouble working with such a person (and have in the past).

This sounds like I agree with what the founders did here. I don't at all. But I understand why they did it, and I don't disagree with their intentions.

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

#886

Post by arp242 »

NathanKP wrote: post #671
christophilus wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You are halfway there, but now think a bit further. Imagine if you were working at a job, but you are stuck with immature coworkers that are making fun of aspects of your culture, making fun of names that are similar to your own name, or similar to names of your friends and family. You can't escape these immature people because you need to work the job with them in order to make money. So you deal with it for a while…

From the looks of it, everyone quickly agreed that this list was inappropriate and it was shut down promptly. The drama didn't start over that, but exaggerated claims people made such as "this is the road to genocide", as well as connecting this list to some mass-shooting, as well as some lingering conflicts such as whether or not the title "it doesn't have to be crazy at work" – a book published by basecamp – is ableist or not.

People act like "haha, this name sounds funny because it's similar to the English word [...]" is a huge deal and existential threat. It's ... not really. It's just inappropriate for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that making fun of your customers for any reason is not a good idea. People seem to have lost perspective here.

DHH tried to inject some nuance, and paid the price it seems :-/ All this incident has accomplished is turning off people, in spite of clearly being sympathetic to it to the important bits of social justice.

The social justice movement is eating itself from the inside out with stuff like this.

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

#887

Post by patja »

throwawaypolicy wrote: post #106
version_five wrote: post #79

Putting aside the other aspects of this story, I think a buyout offer, possibly even a "standing offer" is an interesting practice to consider at companies. I worked somewhere where there was a large, low morale group of employees that I think were just there because of money concerns + fomo if the company ever went anywhere. At the time I thought a buyout offer would have been a great way to separate the people who…

And on the flip side, compensation plans that encourage people to stay to arbitrary dates are probably a mistake. That's where I'm at today. There's a lot of money resting on my staying at a company for a year. I don't feel like I've been working effectively with the culture or team, and I'm pretty sure both me and the employer would be better served by my leaving, except the financial incentive, sunk cost, and avoid…

Same thing happens with relocation expenses. Many employers make you pay them back if you leave within a year. That's normally quite a sum, and can be even bigger if the employer paid closing costs or otherwise made a new hire whole for selling a home in order to move.

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

#888

Post by wlll »

bastawhiz wrote: post #752
wlll wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I left 5 years ago, so I'm remembering this as well as I can. > 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. That's not really what happened, and is a part of this story that hasn't entirely been made clear. The list was, if I remember correctly, about 10 to 20 names long and was tucked away in the…

DHH's own blog post seems to contradict your account. https://world.hey.com/dhh/let-it-all-out-78485e8e

How so?

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

#890

Post by grphtrdr »

majani wrote: post #798
pochamago wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think for the people who are so passionate they can't imagine not engaging with politics at work should look for careers in NGOs. I don't feel any disdain for activists, I just don't really want to work with them, and I think we'd both be happier if they were engaged in work that had first order effects on their beliefs instead of second or third

Or a job in actual politics

lol come on, that makes too much sense.
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