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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”

#951

Post by waheoo »

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…

I wouldn't be so sure, we're enacting a no hire rule on Basecamp employees over this.

Too much of a liability.

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

#952

Post by dragonwriter »

waheoo wrote: post #951
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…

I wouldn't be so sure, we're enacting a no hire rule on Basecamp employees over this. Too much of a liability.

> we're enacting

Who is “we”?

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

#953

Post by hodgesrm »

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 interesting question, which I don't see addressed in the comments, is how to avoid the Basecamp situation in the first place.

Just to pick one thread of many to pull on, any management team that actively encourages intra-mural political discussion should think through possible consequences. It's difficult to take such rights away, as Google's experience has shown multiple times. [1]

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/technology/google-culture...

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

#954

Post by sneak »

georgeburdell wrote: post #422

I laud them for standing up for their ideals. That said, as a conservative, I don't ever "bring my whole self to work", even if my employer says to, because (a) I know my personal views are not welcome in the Bay Area, and (b) I think it's concerning that many companies are trying to become more than just a place to work on interesting stuff and get paid for your work. They must now make political views known that al…

I'm not conservative and have only a small fraction of conservative-adjacent viewpoints and opinions, and I am not welcome in certain Bay Area companies (backchannel fact, not speculation) due to having a little cokebottle sliver of Venn diagram overlap with (some of some) conservatives' personal opinions.

All of this is precisely 0% to do with the work, mind you. It's entirely philosophical viewpoint discrimination.

It's a real thing that's happening there.

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

#955

Post by tlear »

rusty-rust wrote: post #836
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…

Many of the comments in this thread appear to be missing the context of what has happening at Basecamp. From the Verge; > While Basecamp does not publish diversity statistics, it is still, like most tech companies, majority white and male, employees said. But the idea of worker-led efforts on diversity issues got a frosty reception from the founders last year, employees told me. They were allowed to work on the proje…

Impressive I would have quite maybe a month into this debacle.

Did they manage to setup a tribunal and a committee of public safety?

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

#956

Post by gizmo385 »

majani wrote: post #893
shostack wrote: post #748

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, what conservative views do you hold that you think would make you so incompatible?

Not OP, but small government principles, religious morals and being in favor of the government's defense functions are conservative views that are definitely not welcome in most parts of the Bay.

> religious morals

Mind expanding on this? I'm quite liberal and don't personally care what you base your morals on, so long as they don't result in, for example, you denying the lived experience of LGBT people in this country.

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

#957

Post by einarfd »

Quarrelsome wrote: post #651
throw14082020 wrote: post #433

I spent a lot of time reading about this... TLDR: Basecamp had a list of funny names which originated a long time ago. You can imagine that certain ethnicities have names which sound funnier than a common name, so these names go on the list. Some people think its racist, others don't. These people who don't think its racist still admit its rude/ unprofessional though, just not racist . Anyway, there was too much poli…

FWIW, DHH stated that only a handful of names were Asian. The vast majority of names on the list were English or Nordic. :|

So they have an asshole list of "funny" names. When they get caught they argue that most of the people they are racists towards are white, So it's fine? White people can definitely be racist towards other white people, you can easily find examples of that in Europe, so that is definitely a thing. As an ethnic Norwegian, I'm not impressed over doing the list in it self, and then doubling down on the racism towards us by pretending it isn't. That makes it way worse.

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

#958

Post by chipgap98 »

tweetle_beetle wrote: post #932
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 r…

Yeah I think you are making the important parts. The issues don't sounds like there were long winded debates about left wing and right wing ideologies.

If someone is being racist am I not allowed to bring acknowledge that because it is political?

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

#959

Post by Kye »

bongobingo wrote: post #894

I am sure many of these people will land on their feet, but I would absolutely not hire someone who quit their last position because they were told to stop talking about politics at work. Is there any place where you can exist, in 2021, without having political viewpoints crammed down your throat? Some people just want to work. If you want to change the world go do it outside of business hours.

>> "Is there any place where you can exist, in 2021, without having political viewpoints crammed down your throat?"

Depends on who you are. Some people have never had a refuge from others politicizing their existence.

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

#960

Post by ascorbic »

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…

What lots of people seem to be missing here is that this wasn't that sort of political discussion at all. It wasn't about Trump/Biden, or even policy issues. It was purely about internal actions of employees and leadership. There's a world of difference between presidential campaign posters behind reception, and discussions about the handling of a list of customers' names. The problem with jumping to blanket "no politics" rules is that it prevents any nuance. https://www.platformer.news/p/-what-really-happened-at-basec...
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