How Basecamp Blew Up • Hacker News Board

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#371

Post by throw394827 » Wed, May 05, 2021, 2:31 AM UTC

moduspol wrote: post #213

threeseed wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Resigning over a random employee refusing to say that "white supremacy exists" is absurd It's not a random employee though. It's someone who is part of the Senior Leadership Team. If you deny that it exists then how can you be trusted to do something if an issue does comes up ?

The buck stops somewhere. I get that it's super easy to just claim white supremacy is everywhere, but implicitly the claim is that someone put it there and is perpetuating it. At a company of 58 people, you're pointing at a very small group of people as the ones responsible for all of this supposed white supremacy. Unless everyone swallows the Kool-Aid and apologizes for being so racist, someone in leadership will ev…

Our CEO had to do this last year.

Due to rising costs, the company decided to outsource some production. The end product was just as good in quality and much cheaper, even after shipping and import taxes.

A few employees were concerned about outsourcing to that specific country and started to discuss and petition the senior executives.

The CEO clamped down hard and said it was a business decision and if anyone didn't like it, they could leave. No politics.

In the end, those employees are still here, but the quality of their work has definitely suffered.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#372

Post by shkkmo » Wed, May 05, 2021, 2:31 AM UTC

nemothekid wrote: post #362

didgeoridoo wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to help clarify but I’m having trouble parsing your question. Can you please rephrase?

> An equally valid hypothesis is that harmlessly blowing off low-level steam prevents the atrocities higher up in the “pyramid”. On what basis are you making your claim that allowing people to openly make offensive jokes prevents higher level atrocities?

He isn't making the claim, he is saying both claims are equally valid hypotheses (before you test against reality.)

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#373

Post by edoceo » Wed, May 05, 2021, 2:31 AM UTC

willcipriano wrote: post #329

thrownaway564 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

their explanation: it's "gendered and not inclusive"

My daughter will be a hacker if she wants to follow in her old mans footsteps. Please don't take that away from her.

mines only 6, shes defeated some child locks and found a "cheat" in one of her kid games on the iPad and presses every button on every machine she sees. Hack the planet kiddo!!

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#374

Post by didgeoridoo » Wed, May 05, 2021, 2:32 AM UTC

nemothekid wrote: post #362

didgeoridoo wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to help clarify but I’m having trouble parsing your question. Can you please rephrase?

> An equally valid hypothesis is that harmlessly blowing off low-level steam prevents the atrocities higher up in the “pyramid”. On what basis are you making your claim that allowing people to openly make offensive jokes prevents higher level atrocities?

Oh I see, sorry. I’m not making that claim. I’m saying that there is equal evidence (none, as far as I know) for that claim as there is for the claim that certain jokes are somehow the structural foundation of genocide. Neither should be given much credence without evidence.

The null hypothesis is that jokes neither promote nor prevent genocide, and I see no reason to reject it.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#375

Post by [deleted] » Wed, May 05, 2021, 2:32 AM UTC

bitwize wrote: post #118

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 u…

[deleted]

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#376

Post by [deleted] » Wed, May 05, 2021, 2:32 AM UTC

baggy_trough wrote: post #234

ncallaway wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is hard to argue that showing the pyramid of hate doesn't imply that laughing at names leads to genocide. I don't find it challenging to make that argument at all. "Laughing at names leads to genocide" to me implies that laughing at names is a necessary and sufficient condition to a genocide. The pyramid of hate, to me, implies that laughing at names is a necessary but not sufficient condition of genocide. There…

That would be a good argument if the statement was that "laughing at names leads inevitably to genocide."

[deleted]

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#377

Post by edoceo » Wed, May 05, 2021, 2:33 AM UTC

thrownaway564 wrote: post #186

moduspol wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We also may be reading a lot into how large this committee was. If I were at a company of ~58 people, and ~20 of them were forming a DE&I committee to evaluate the company's vendor relationships, speakers, etc., I'd be tempted to join just to get the potential target off of my back. They're not going to fire 1/3 of the workforce, after all.

Our group has hours of meetings every week. One coworker was PIPd and he immediately joined the group. Less work and off pip now!

a true hacker :)

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#378

Post by x3n0ph3n3 » Wed, May 05, 2021, 2:33 AM UTC

chris11 wrote: post #268

x3n0ph3n3 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the person you replied to, but this was a direct quote: > “The fact that you can be a white male, and come to this meeting and call people racist and say ‘white supremacy doesn't exist’ when it's blatant at this company is white privilege,” the employee said. “The fact that he wasn’t corrected and was in fact thanked — it makes me sick.” Isn't this employee declaring that "white supremacy" is "blatant at this com…

I don't know what was said at the meeting. But Singer did start making comments about white supremacy in America at a meeting about banning political discussion at Basecamp. I could see how it looked like his opinions were given more respect than others. If he made statements about white supremacy not existing at basecamp, then that was a horrible defense to accusations of white privilege at Basecamp. Shutting down d…

> I don't know what was said at the meeting. But Singer did start making comments about white supremacy in America at a meeting about banning political discussion at Basecamp

I'm sorry, but do you or do you not know what was said at the meeting? Those two statements contradict each other, unless you're talking about two different meetings.

I quoted something provided by an employee who was there, at the meeting that this article is about.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#379

Post by gedy » Wed, May 05, 2021, 2:34 AM UTC

thrownaway564 wrote: post #181

Tainnor wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. But this is (was) a 60-person company. That's about the size of the company I'm currently working at. In other words, you should know everyone and interact with a sizeable chunk of these people somewhat regularly. It strikes me as very odd that you would suddenly so fundamentally distrust your co-workers with whom you share so much. But I'm also not in the US and maybe this is just the current climate over the…

The culture here is getting bad. We have an "inclusion council" that hands out these diktats. The word ban list (not blacklist!) is approaching 100 words including husband, housekeeping, normal, hacker and meritocracy. Worse part is we're a security company edit: "here" is okta, not basecamp

"Husband" is banned? That's mental - I'd consider that a hostile work environment.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#380

Post by mumblemumble » Wed, May 05, 2021, 2:34 AM UTC

moduspol wrote: post #213

threeseed wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Resigning over a random employee refusing to say that "white supremacy exists" is absurd It's not a random employee though. It's someone who is part of the Senior Leadership Team. If you deny that it exists then how can you be trusted to do something if an issue does comes up ?

The buck stops somewhere. I get that it's super easy to just claim white supremacy is everywhere, but implicitly the claim is that someone put it there and is perpetuating it. At a company of 58 people, you're pointing at a very small group of people as the ones responsible for all of this supposed white supremacy. Unless everyone swallows the Kool-Aid and apologizes for being so racist, someone in leadership will ev…

Alternatively, you exhibit the kind of people skills that should be a baseline qualification for a senior leader. You don't draw lines in the sand, you don't internally frame this as an them-vs-me thing, you certainly don't try to give your staff condescending mini-lectures about basic topics in social criticism such as how framing works. Brinksmanship isn't going to lead anywhere good, and someone has to take the first step toward de-escalation. While anyone can theoretically be that person, if you're the ostensible adult in the room, then it's your actual job to put aside your sense of honor and be that someone. So you take a deep breath, and get to work: try to be a mediator, understand where these frustrations came from, and figure out what you can do to alleviate them.

Alternatively, if you can't feasibly mediate, because it's basically all your employees airing grievances at you, then you screwed your job up long ago, and it's time to cop to that. The longer you put off eating crow, the more crow you're eventually going to have to eat.