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

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

#931

Post by JPKab » Sat, May 01, 2021, 4:00 PM UTC

spyckie2 wrote: post #642

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…

Yes, people are reacting to the policy. But it's definitely that the policy is a reaction to something as well. Probably, the founders believed that the toxicity of the internal culture had reached a point where it was extremely detrimental to the workplace. And, knowing DHH, it was probably not only a financial decision but a lifestyle one. He may have realized that the advocates that actively discussed and promoted…

The Jehovah's Witness comment was so on point.

I grew up with a single father, who was prone to religious fanaticism. Plenty of fundamentalist, culty churches.

When I was a teen, my father met a radical vegan animal rights activist, started dating, and suddenly swapped out religious fanaticism for radical left-wing activism.

The smells in my house changed, and the people looked different, but fundamentally they were the same: Awful, zero original thinking, dogmatic, controlling, self-righteous, and, yeah I'm going to say it, failures in life if measured financially or in career status.

The cars in my driveway shifted from rusty, beat up, old Ford's/Chevys to rusty, beat up Subarus/Civics.

I hate tribal thinking, and the aggressive conformists who flock to it.

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

#932

Post by tweetle_beetle » Sat, May 01, 2021, 4:01 PM UTC

dbattaglia wrote: post #918

In fall 2008 I moved from Long Island to New Hampshire (for family reasons) and found a job in a small niche B2B shop doing C# Windows apps. On my first day of work, I notice the receptionist desk has a stack of McCain/Palin 2008 bumper stickers. The next couple of months were filled with employees talking non-stop about the election, from their deeply conservative point of view. Being quite progressive left-leaning…

I think you're right, but I also think that in reality it is very difficult to draw a line between personal political discussions and company policy decisions in the modern world.

Yes it's always boring when someone in the workplace makes bold political statements that no one asked for, but what happens when the company you work for outsources jobs abroad, is making questionable HR decisions, etc. I'm not sure it's right to say that any discussion about anything political is banned when a company policy that affects an employee can be political in nature.

Creating a positive and productive culture is hard. I don't have all the answers, but bans seem like a very blunt instrument.

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

#933

Post by jiveturkey » Sat, May 01, 2021, 4:01 PM UTC

hate to say this, but who cares? it’s a 60 person company with an ok product, not some herald of the industry. are we going back to the days of valleywag? this is social media distortion and amplification. a valuable discussion should be had around that instead.

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

#934

Post by iainctduncan » Sat, May 01, 2021, 4:05 PM UTC

spyckie2 wrote: post #642

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…

Yes, people are reacting to the policy. But it's definitely that the policy is a reaction to something as well. Probably, the founders believed that the toxicity of the internal culture had reached a point where it was extremely detrimental to the workplace. And, knowing DHH, it was probably not only a financial decision but a lifestyle one. He may have realized that the advocates that actively discussed and promoted…

nailed it. Seems to me they played it perfectly. Problems are out, company hits the reset button, and it's really hard for anyone to say these people were treated badly with a voluntarily accepted giant payout. Let's not forget that to regular people, these folks just left with one to two years salary with no obligations. That's winning the damn lottery to people who don't work in our overpaid industry.

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

#935

Post by refurb » Sat, May 01, 2021, 4:08 PM UTC

syshum wrote: post #486

cafed00d wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>>I want to live in a world where people take responsibility everywhere and not shy away from topics meant to drive morality/politics forward. This is a problem given that politics is not universally agreed upon and if we can not work together with different politics then we can not have a pluralist society, which increasingly seems impossible as both "sides" of this debate want to sort people with differing politics…

Precisely. If a pro-life person brought their “whole self” to work and started promoting pro-life views and calling it “a matter of morality”, these same folks would put an end to that really quick.

It has zero to do morality or “being responsible” or “making the world a better place”. It’s about pushing one particular political viewpoint with the end goal of grabbing power to benefit their group.

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

#936

Post by iainctduncan » Sat, May 01, 2021, 4:11 PM UTC

deagle50 wrote: post #896

spyckie2 wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, people are reacting to the policy. But it's definitely that the policy is a reaction to something as well. Probably, the founders believed that the toxicity of the internal culture had reached a point where it was extremely detrimental to the workplace. And, knowing DHH, it was probably not only a financial decision but a lifestyle one. He may have realized that the advocates that actively discussed and promoted…

It reaks of fu money to me. Not everyone can afford this kind of move.

Sure, but that's what you get for running a successfully bootstrapped company. You get to do whatever you want with it. DHH and Jason could have been, no doubt about it, much wealthier had they gone the typical funding route, but would not have had this kind of control. It's their lifestyle business, they get to pick their lifestyle. They who control 51% call the shots. Personally, I'd way rather work somewhere like that where a founder you know has that power than some investors you've never met. (Been there... woke up one morning and found out the company was for sale and we were to pick redundancies and slash until it sold, it sucked. )

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

#937

Post by klelatti » Sat, May 01, 2021, 4:16 PM UTC

spyckie2 wrote: post #642

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…

Yes, people are reacting to the policy. But it's definitely that the policy is a reaction to something as well. Probably, the founders believed that the toxicity of the internal culture had reached a point where it was extremely detrimental to the workplace. And, knowing DHH, it was probably not only a financial decision but a lifestyle one. He may have realized that the advocates that actively discussed and promoted…

Remarkable how when 1/3 of the company resigns in one go - many of whom have great and longstanding professional reputations with no history of political activism and including head of marketing, design, customer support, iOS etc. - following fundamental changes they read about in a blog post, it's because _they_ were all intolerable, proselytizing activists who all had to go for the good of the company.

Absolutely nothing to do with the two leaders who spend a good chunk of time on social media telling the rest of the world how to run their business in the most in your face way possible.

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

#938

Post by iainctduncan » Sat, May 01, 2021, 4:16 PM UTC

Six months runway of a senior basecamp salary for no points has gotta be the best funding deal IN THE WORLD. like 10 times better than any incubator deal. Is it any surprise a bunch of people took it and left? I expect a not-insignificant number are happily starting their next ventures, regardless of their politics. My current job is probably the only one I've ever had that I would not have taken six months pay to leave.

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

#939

Post by prh8 » Sat, May 01, 2021, 4:20 PM UTC

klelatti wrote: post #937

spyckie2 wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, people are reacting to the policy. But it's definitely that the policy is a reaction to something as well. Probably, the founders believed that the toxicity of the internal culture had reached a point where it was extremely detrimental to the workplace. And, knowing DHH, it was probably not only a financial decision but a lifestyle one. He may have realized that the advocates that actively discussed and promoted…

Remarkable how when 1/3 of the company resigns in one go - many of whom have great and longstanding professional reputations with no history of political activism and including head of marketing, design, customer support, iOS etc. - following fundamental changes they read about in a blog post, it's because _they_ were all intolerable, proselytizing activists who all had to go for the good of the company. Absolutely n…

It's interesting, all the discussion in the immediate aftermath was along your lines of thinking, and then later, everybody else came in to talk and took the side of the company without understanding what had actually occurred. They latch onto the word "politics" and decide it was the 1/3 who were toxic.

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

#940

Post by [deleted] » Sat, May 01, 2021, 4:20 PM UTC

mfer wrote: post #435

distribot wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really a buyers market rn. Maybe this ideological position will specifically attract people who feel alienated by SV culture, maybe not. But there's no way that losing a large fraction of your engineering team is anything but a disaster.

Loosing that many people is going to cause a hard time there. I wouldn't call it SV culture. I think it's more the culture of people who are trying to use companies to promote their political ideals. I grew up and first worked in a region where your employer was not your everything. People worked (often times with a diverse set of people) and then outside of work were part of other groups for their interests and ideo…

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