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How Basecamp Blew Up

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Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#111

Post by seattle_spring »

pseudalopex wrote: post #106
seattle_spring wrote: post #103

Why is this getting so much attention? When I first saw the dozen or so headlines exclaiming 1/3 of the company quit I assumed it was a huge company. The place only has 60 employees!

The company is well known. The people in charge have written books about how to run companies. Hansson created Rails. Politics at work is a hot topic for HN now.

> Hansson created Rails

It sounds like the old adage, "the architecture of the company mimics the architecture of the software," applies very well here. In this case, the company's stance on politics scales about as well as Rails.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#112

Post by giglamesh »

indemnity wrote: post #11
nate wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When they DHH+Jason laid the 7 of us off from Highrise (the Basecamp CRM spin-off) no one even showed up online to say anything to us on our last day. Just the Head of Devops to turn off our access to things. (That guy at least apologized for no-one else being there) :/

Shit, that sucks. What a classless way to go.

Just the opposite really. In a classless society people will not be treated like commodities.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#113

Post by jensvdh »

seattle_spring wrote: post #111
pseudalopex wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company is well known. The people in charge have written books about how to run companies. Hansson created Rails. Politics at work is a hot topic for HN now.

> Hansson created Rails It sounds like the old adage, "the architecture of the company mimics the architecture of the software," applies very well here. In this case, the company's stance on politics scales about as well as Rails.

Shopify and Airbnb were able to become multi-billion dollar companies mostly by running on Rails before it became unsustainable. I'd say Rails scaled pretty well.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#114

Post by jariel »

markhahn wrote: post #91

Definitions are everything. Consider someone for whom "white supremacy" means "it is right and appropriate to act deliberately to create and preserve white dominance of other races". Versus someone for whom it means "privilege exists in many, though often subtle ways, and advantages white, male, older, cis, het people". It's a lot like how "defund police" means radically different things.

That's not quite the right example though.

CRT definitions of 'White Supremacy' are not about 'people acting deliberately' to support it.

CRT laments that 'regular people' doing 'regular things' act unconsciously to support oppressive systems, hence 'White Supremacy'.

Making a film about 'something' and hiring those people you know to make it, who by virtue of your social network might be 'mostly white' - would be an example of 'White Supremacy'.

Ergo - in their view, unless you are actively fighting to dismantle the concept of whiteness - you're supporting 'White Supremacy'.

I believe there is a kernel of truth in systematic, even unconsciously biased systems, however, I don't remotely agree with many of the assertions. Unfortunately, to disagree with their assertions makes you a 'bad person' in their view.

Have a read [1]. A thesis of 'self examination' i.e. a fairly progressive individual addressing their own 'white supremacy' due to their lack of active assertion of issues of equity etc..

http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2019/06/25/disman...

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#115

Post by klyrs »

Threeve303 wrote: post #13

This story is so strange. First of all, it has been considered unprofessional to talk about politics at work for as long as I can remember. It's odd how you would need a rule implemented about that. Is this just a generational thing? On the other hand, when did racial equality become an inherently political topic? Especially racial equality inside the workplace. This also doesn't mean that the Basecamp founders are r…

> On the other hand, when did racial equality become an inherently political topic? Especially racial equality inside the workplace.

When in the history of the US has racial inequality not been an inherently political topic? At its founding, the statement "all men are created equal" was highly contentious.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#116

Post by baggy_trough »

darkwizard42 wrote: post #99
mfer wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First, the executives absolutely clamped down hard on a discussion about workplace behavior. The current state of politics bled into this. There is a fair amount already written on it but the insinuation that laughing a names leads to genocide ended up in the picture. It wasn't about what was appropriate or not and then handling it. The discussion went far beyond that. > Second, they did an end run around the emplo…

Laughing at names did not lead to genocide and no one implied that. What someone did was share why it was important to treat this seriously and not let it slide... lest the offending behaviors continue to escalate. An example was shared from social science on a pyramid of normalization where such behavior eventually gets normalized. Classic and indisputable example might be Germany in WW2. It wasn’t like citizens wok…

It is hard to argue that showing the pyramid of hate doesn't imply that laughing at names leads to genocide. That's very much the overt message - it's not even an implication.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#117

Post by pseudalopex »

baggy_trough wrote: post #116
darkwizard42 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laughing at names did not lead to genocide and no one implied that. What someone did was share why it was important to treat this seriously and not let it slide... lest the offending behaviors continue to escalate. An example was shared from social science on a pyramid of normalization where such behavior eventually gets normalized. Classic and indisputable example might be Germany in WW2. It wasn’t like citizens wok…

It is hard to argue that showing the pyramid of hate doesn't imply that laughing at names leads to genocide. That's very much the overt message - it's not even an implication.

Saying E comes after B doesn't mean inevitably B leads to E. And it seems likely the employee wanted to make a point about the level the company was at or the next level up. Not the top of the pyramid.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#118

Post by bitwize »

I've worked at a lot of places where politics was discussed casually. In my experience, political discussions at work tend not to be such a bad thing, provided that assholes can keep their mouths shut and not sow acrimony. When I read about the blowup a few days ago, I thought Basecamp had a cryptofascist in there somewhere and when he opened his mouth, shit hit the fan. Sure enough, it was Singer.

I'm beginning to understand why Andy Wingo emphasized filtering out fash when doing your hiring: https://www.wingolog.org/archives/2017/09/04/the-hardest-thi...

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#119

Post by GVIrish »

mfer wrote: post #80
ashtonkem wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is badly missing the point. I think two very specific things happened here: First, the executives absolutely clamped down hard on a discussion about workplace behavior . I think their attempt to cast this as “political” is deeply cynical; discussing how people behave at work will always be in bounds, even if it touches up against issues that are politicized. The initial trigger here was a discussion abou…

> First, the executives absolutely clamped down hard on a discussion about workplace behavior. The current state of politics bled into this. There is a fair amount already written on it but the insinuation that laughing a names leads to genocide ended up in the picture. It wasn't about what was appropriate or not and then handling it. The discussion went far beyond that. > Second, they did an end run around the emplo…

> There is a fair amount already written on it but the insinuation that laughing a names leads to genocide ended up in the picture.

I think that's a misinterpretation of what that graphic is trying to convey. The point isn't that people and groups that exhibit behavior at the bottom of the pyramid are on the march to genocide. It's that there's a spectrum of bigotry and discrimination, and each level of it that is tolerated enables worse behavior. It doesn't mean every situation is going to get to the level of mass-killings.

Normalizing bigoted behavior encourages more bigoted behavior. The same way that normalizing managers who scream and yell at people often leads to others becoming more openly belligerent or otherwise creates a toxic workplace.

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