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Inside the all-hands meeting that led to a third of Basecamp employees quitting

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Re: Inside the all-hands meeting that led to a third of Basecamp employees quitting

#2
“I strongly disagree we live in a white supremacist culture,” [Ryan] Singer said. “I don’t believe in a lot of the framing around implicit bias. I think a lot of this is actually racist.”

He continued: “Very often, if you express a dissenting view, you get called a Nazi. … I have not felt this is open territory for discussion. If we were to try to get into it as a group discussion it would be very painful and divisive.”

Ooof. I predict Singer's next public pronouncements will be about "the evils of cancel culture" and he'll end up on Fox News or OANN.

Re: Inside the all-hands meeting that led to a third of Basecamp employees quitting

#4
"Fried ... began the meeting by apologizing for announcing the policy changes by a public blog post rather than first telling all employees"

The fact that no one internally was given a heads up about the post shows you how much respect the leadership team has for their employees.

Re: Inside the all-hands meeting that led to a third of Basecamp employees quitting

#5

“I strongly disagree we live in a white supremacist culture,” [Ryan] Singer said. “I don’t believe in a lot of the framing around implicit bias. I think a lot of this is actually racist.” He continued: “Very often, if you express a dissenting view, you get called a Nazi. … I have not felt this is open territory for discussion. If we were to try to get into it as a group discussion it would be very painful and divisiv…

> If we were to try to get into it as a group discussion it would be very painful and divisive.

This really sounded to me as "if I were allowed to tell you my true feelings about all this, a lot of you would be angry," or "oh, if it's open-season on white men, let me tell you I can dish it on the rest of you... lucky for you I'm not allowed to."

Re: Inside the all-hands meeting that led to a third of Basecamp employees quitting

#6

“I strongly disagree we live in a white supremacist culture,” [Ryan] Singer said. “I don’t believe in a lot of the framing around implicit bias. I think a lot of this is actually racist.” He continued: “Very often, if you express a dissenting view, you get called a Nazi. … I have not felt this is open territory for discussion. If we were to try to get into it as a group discussion it would be very painful and divisiv…

So if someone disagrees that we live in a white supremacist culture, they should just sit mute and not challenge that claim?

Re: Inside the all-hands meeting that led to a third of Basecamp employees quitting

#7
Were they entirely unprepared for this meeting?

"I condemn white supremacy" should not have been difficult words to say. It does not require careful phrasing. Particularly right now, so shortly after famously Trump refused to say it in the debate, and then weeks later we had the attack on the capitol.

Re: Inside the all-hands meeting that led to a third of Basecamp employees quitting

#8

“I strongly disagree we live in a white supremacist culture,” [Ryan] Singer said. “I don’t believe in a lot of the framing around implicit bias. I think a lot of this is actually racist.” He continued: “Very often, if you express a dissenting view, you get called a Nazi. … I have not felt this is open territory for discussion. If we were to try to get into it as a group discussion it would be very painful and divisiv…

So if someone disagrees that we live in a white supremacist culture, they should just sit mute and not challenge that claim?

Yes. If you believe the earth is flat, it’s best to avoid the subject.

Re: Inside the all-hands meeting that led to a third of Basecamp employees quitting

#9

“I strongly disagree we live in a white supremacist culture,” [Ryan] Singer said. “I don’t believe in a lot of the framing around implicit bias. I think a lot of this is actually racist.” He continued: “Very often, if you express a dissenting view, you get called a Nazi. … I have not felt this is open territory for discussion. If we were to try to get into it as a group discussion it would be very painful and divisiv…

So if someone disagrees that we live in a white supremacist culture, they should just sit mute and not challenge that claim?

well you're using a throwaway, so please, lets hear your challenge

Re: Inside the all-hands meeting that led to a third of Basecamp employees quitting

#10
Such a great example showing how useless the idea of “banning politics at work” is.

If the employee groups’ request to delete the list of “funny” names was political, then creating and updating that list in the first place must also have been political.

I guess it’s “politics” only when the founders disagree with it.

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