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How Basecamp Blew Up

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Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#221

Post by XorNot »

moduspol wrote: post #156
XorNot wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you just missed that whole section which starts with - unprompted - the Head of Strategy deciding to go on a long rant about their own political views in a company meeting? Like it really doesn't matter what led to that meeting, because I've not seen a version of events where somehow that becomes not a disaster on your "so anyway we announced a policy about you in a blog post where we insulted a whole lot of you r…

Those things all came after. The only justification for the DE&I committee is this list. The only other evidence of white supremacy is (lol) one guy saying he doesn't think it's there in the company. Usually there'll be at least a claim of someone using the N-word, or employees of different races being treated unfairly. We can't even get that! This list existed, and was not handled well by management, and that's enou…

You don't think senior management choosing to use an all hands where their new "no politics" rule - and then using the opportunity to unprompted then go on about their own politics, might make people reconsider who's "no politics" is about to be protected?

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#222

Post by Igelau »

mellosouls wrote: post #83

In the April discussion about the list of customer names, Singer posted to say that attempting to link the list to genocide was “absurd.” On the Friday call, he went further. “I strongly disagree we live in a white supremacist culture,” 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…

Psychological safety for me, but not for thee.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#223

Post by musicale »

Tainnor wrote: post #124

Honestly, in this story everyone looks like a big child. I would maybe be more sympathetic to DHH if it wasn't the guy who was so opinionated he pushed through Rails features that everyone else disliked or co-wrote several books on company culture that are glorified ads for basecamp (although "it doesn't have to be crazy at work" is still a thought-provoking read, at least in part). I can only imagine that he might b…

> "it doesn't have to be crazy at work"

but it is anyway, usually

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#224

Post by prawn »

threeseed wrote: post #167
gowld wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's weird to criticize someone who wrote several books like "it doesn't have to be crazy at work" as "ads for basecamp" and then proceeded to run basecamp (his workplace) as a not-crazy environment. What else would you expect?

The idea that it is "his" workplace belongs in the Mad Men era of business. If you want to attract and keep talent you need to listen to their views and involve in them defining the values of the company.

Is it possible that they were doing exactly that in trying to focus the staff on work itself? I'd guess I lean politically with the founders and their departing staff, and I don't love the "silent majority" that gets spoken of, but DHH talked about having people approach him who were uncomfortable with having a workplace they felt was politicised.

As a personal example, I work in a shared office space. If a vocal tenant talks loudly about politics, even if it's something I agree with, I cringe and worry that it creates a less welcoming space for anyone in the room that doesn't agree with the points. Seems reasonable that they should expect an office where they can work without feeling on edge.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#225

Post by SrslyJosh »

nate wrote: post #8
DiNovi wrote: post #6

so they: - Announced a new company policy publicly before telling the staff - Deleted internal threads that would go against their narrative of why they did so - Had a conservative senior employee go off about politics on the call discussing the new no politics policy. - refused to reprimand said employee on the call - had one founder take this extremely sensitive call from his bed with his camera off and on mute. -…

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) :/

Ugh, that's definitely a relevant data point.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#226

Post by BobbyJo »

gowld wrote: post #171
jokethrowaway wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem lies in the assumption that we live in a society which is systemically racist. The people not dismantling the system are not white supremacists, they just don't believe we have systemic racism. I'm definitely not a white supremacist (I'm not even white) and I can't find a single instance of systemic racism. Sure, I met a bunch of racist individuals, but that doesn't prove systemic racism.

> I can't find a single instance of systemic racism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws systemic: > relating to a system, especially as opposed to a particular part. How many racist people are needed before it's not a particular part"?

I think the context for this conversation is 'now'.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#227

Post by nikolay »

I can't believe why this is so abuzz as it's their company, their rules - as long as they don't violate laws at any level, they can do whatever makes them happy at their own company! Employees get paid to do certain job, they don't do this for free. Basecamp is a business, it's not a charity or an activist collective - unless the owners want it that way! Employment is at will and can be terminated on either side at any time - not questions asked and no reasons given. Shaming your employer who provided for you for years and allowed you to build your career and resume and who is giving you a great severance package that they don't have to give you and still be unhappy is pretty silly! Take the package and find a job, which makes you happy at an employer who is okay that you're gonna spend most of your paid time discussing politics and societal issues!

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#228

Post by SrslyJosh »

Igelau wrote: post #211
S_A_P wrote: post #131

I think what we are seeing is the Gen X folks becoming the "old guys" to the latest generation and having the same struggles boomers had with Gen X.

Hmm... So do you reckon this is just something that happens with age? Or has each generation inadvertantly provided an ideological framework for the next one to strangle it with?

> has each generation inadvertantly provided an ideological framework for the next one to strangle it with?

LOL, that's a hilarious way of putting it, but I think it's more about whether people keep learning and growing as they age or decide that they already know everything they need to.

If you stop learning and growing, you're going to be left behind by the people who don't.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#229

Post by moduspol »

XorNot wrote: post #221
moduspol wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those things all came after. The only justification for the DE&I committee is this list. The only other evidence of white supremacy is (lol) one guy saying he doesn't think it's there in the company. Usually there'll be at least a claim of someone using the N-word, or employees of different races being treated unfairly. We can't even get that! This list existed, and was not handled well by management, and that's enou…

You don't think senior management choosing to use an all hands where their new "no politics" rule - and then using the opportunity to unprompted then go on about their own politics, might make people reconsider who's "no politics" is about to be protected?

Undoubtedly.

Still a far cry from evidence of white supremacy at the company.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#230

Post by seattle_spring »

Tainnor wrote: post #141
jensvdh wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

While true, I also remember watching a presentation about Shopify where they explained how they spent a whole year migrating to a newer Rails version. Now, Shopify clearly has the capacity to pull this off. But a smaller company that initially bet on Rails and is now facing a mountain of tech debt might not. To be fair: it is possible to write Rails applications in a way that you don't couple every aspect of your app…

Airbnb has also been vocal about the multi year slog to dig themselves out of their Rails hole.
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