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How Basecamp Blew Up

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Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#601

Post by jolux »

gustavo-fring wrote: post #598
jolux wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You turned this into a political flame war for no reason at all. The head of this thread doesn’t say anything about Republicans or Democrats. People didn’t leave because Ryan Singer was acting Republican, they left because he was acting racist. No reason to conflate the two if you believe they’re unrelated.

This is not a flame war, rather an analysis of what happened. Is that not possible? We really at the point that trying to discuss this objectively is seen as a threat of "war"? Who is Singer? Is this thread not an example of the misunderstanding we are talking about? You think I'm acting in bad faith, but really I just want to talk about this, because we don't solve it unless we try.

Ryan Singer is the higher-up mentioned who said in the middle of an all-hands that trying to fix Basecamp’s racial insensitivity problem would end up targeting him as a white man.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#602

Post by throwawayy01 »

MattRix wrote: post #336
dsnr wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Third, they secretly deleted over a decade's worth of company chat history shortly before making the disastrous blog post. Why? I can think of a reason. To protect employees who are not part of the woke mob from being “canceled” by the woke mob.

any time I find someone like you complaining about “getting cancelled” or “cancel culture”, I just replace “cancel” with “consequences”, since that’s what it really is. They wanted to protect employees from the consequences of their words and actions.

McCarthy wasn't canceling them, he was simply holding them responsible so they could face the "consequences of their words and actions".

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#603

Post by gustavo-fring »

js2 wrote: post #593
gustavo-fring wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and the first Jews and African-Americans that gained positions in government gained them as Republicans. Prior to the Southern strategy, the democratic party was the party of Jim Crow and lynchings and backwards ass race hatred. But they, like people, changed. It really says nothing about the potential of the parties today. If you are so ideological that you can't see that calling people you just met racists is a…

Except that the GOP is still cynically appealing to racism. The parties in their modern form began after their realignment with the civil rights movement. They haven't fundamentally changed since the sixties. Yes, I agree it doesn't persuade anyone to call them names. I don't excuse that behavior. But again, it isn't wrong to say that the GOP uses racism to this day to win votes.

Yes, political parties use racism and the language of demagogues to win votes. We learned that 2000 years ago. The trick is getting that there's no "party" attribute that determines that.

Do you believe that the Democratic party doesn't use racist rhetoric? I don't even want to make this an us vs them whataboutism.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#604

Post by [deleted] »

qtt wrote: post #588
js2 wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Republican party has cynically been using race for fifty years to split the working class vote. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy So for someone to say they aren't Republican because they aren't racist is hyperbolic, but it isn't wrong. What is Scary Gary?

If you read that Wikipedia page, under the Scholarly debates section, the existence of a "Southern Strategy" at all is debated. Nixon never claimed to have a Southern Strategy - he was focused on a national strategy that included the South. Notably, in his 1972 election, he carried 49 states - indicating that he did indeed have an inclusive national strategy. The more likely explanation to contemporary GOP success is…

[deleted]

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#605

Post by ylem »

paxys wrote: post #539
throthro111 wrote: post #160

I feel bad for everyone involved. This story made me realize that working at Basecamp is not something I would want to do in the future, primarily because DHH and Fried are so egotistic. However, it also makes me face the reality that I would not want to work with many of the people that resigned. Resigning over a random employee refusing to say that "white supremacy exists" is absurd. I imagine myself working at som…

A key point not being talked about enough is that the employees quit after being offered 6 months salary as severance, no questions asked. Heck a large chunk of the workforce of the best run company in the world would take up that offer. I imagine few of them actually cared too much about this whole saga.

I guess I'm weird. If I were offered 6 months of severance to quit a job at a successful company where I enjoyed the work and my coworkers, why would I take the offer? I've turned down offers that paid over 30% more because I like where I am. I don't think it's so uncommon.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#606

Post by gustavo-fring »

jolux wrote: post #601
gustavo-fring wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a flame war, rather an analysis of what happened. Is that not possible? We really at the point that trying to discuss this objectively is seen as a threat of "war"? Who is Singer? Is this thread not an example of the misunderstanding we are talking about? You think I'm acting in bad faith, but really I just want to talk about this, because we don't solve it unless we try.

Ryan Singer is the higher-up mentioned who said in the middle of an all-hands that trying to fix Basecamp’s racial insensitivity problem would end up targeting him as a white man.

Yes and the discussion is about how we do conflate the two, sometimes correctly and sometimes incorrectly.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#607

Post by simondotau »

philosopher1234 wrote: post #570
sol_invictus wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quite the opposite - it's a fool's errand harboring fragile employees who are willing to make such a show about a email containing juvenile name calling. You cannot build a solid baseline on an employee who can implode any second on the most miniscule issue. This will hurt Basecamp in the immediate term but over time they will be better off.

This comes off as though you didn't even read the comment you're replying to. I don't see how you can, in good faith, frame their point as "the most miniscule issue".

Within the context of Basecamp internal company chat, demands that employees must prove they're not A Bad Person by repeating an particular string of words (as though that would prove anything anyway) is an incredibly minuscule issue indeed.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#608

Post by antoniuschan99 »

The fact that 1/3 of the company resigned is a huge red flag.

Add to the fact that Fried and Hansson are supposed to be thought leaders in (alternative) Silicon Valley Company Management and Philosophy.

That’s a whole lot of “severance” to pay out.

Regardless of what happens to the company, their reputation as Leaders/Managers will take a hit.

The fact that Hansson “peaced out” and left Fried to Moderate the meeting at such a critical time doesn’t bode well either.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#609

Post by philosopher1234 »

simondotau wrote: post #607
philosopher1234 wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comes off as though you didn't even read the comment you're replying to. I don't see how you can, in good faith, frame their point as "the most miniscule issue".

Within the context of Basecamp internal company chat, demands that employees must prove they're not A Bad Person by repeating an particular string of words (as though that would prove anything anyway) is an incredibly minuscule issue indeed.

How is this related to the GP comment?

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#610

Post by _pmf_ »

newacct583 wrote: post #520
duxup wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can understand being hurt and more about the funny names list. But I think things have gotten out of hand when at an all hands meeting people are debating topics like: "we live in a white supremacist culture" Or demands from one employee to another at all hands meetings to denounce white supremacy. I doubt many companies could handle that right... and I'm sure many people would come away more hurt.

We don't know the context, but as to your second item... when did denouncing white supremacy become something controversial? I know what you're really saying, which is that people on the right feel persecuted by being implicitly accused of being racists. And... y'know, that's fair. Probably 90% of the time in arguments like this that's an unfounded accusation made in bad faith just to score points. But still... the t…

> when did denouncing white supremacy become something controversial

White people existing is not "white supremacy".

White people existing in positions of power is also not "white supremacy".

"White supremacy" is an ideology that declares the White race as genetically superior. (Yes, I know the left tries to shift this as it sees convenient.)

Claiming that Basecamp has a problem with "white supremacy" would be a blatant lie.

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