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Changes at Basecamp

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Re: Changes at Basecamp

#591

Post by zwily »

astrange wrote: post #433
drusepth wrote: post #139

I wasn't expecting to like these changes after seeing a ton of tweets from rubyists I respect criticizing them, but after reading them... I love them all. Companies becoming vocal political entities over the past few years has been mind-blowing and I'm glad to see companies starting to reel it back and get back to, well, being companies. They make products; they don't need to have opinions on unrelated things. IMO pe…

> Seems like they handled the paternalistic benefits well also by just providing direct compensation instead. This one's odd to me, because I thought the point of non-cash benefits was that it was much cheaper than giving out cash because the employer has more bargaining power than you.

Basecamp isn’t a huge company. The bargaining power probably wasn’t that significant.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#592

Post by bob33212 »

I think a lot of people have trouble empathizing with owner's perspective.

What if a tree fell and knocked out power to your house. And the power company showed up to fix the power lines.

Would it be OK for the workers to take a break from their work and discuss gender equality if they found out that a female executive was just hired at their company and she was paid 8% less than the man she replaced. If so, how long could they discuss the issue? 10 minutes? 1 week? At what point would you ask them to fix the power and then discuss the gender equality issue after?

And if you do set a time limit does that mean that you don't care about gender equality?

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#593

Post by faitswulff »

kiawe_fire wrote: post #242
drewbug01 wrote: post #81

Issues that directly impact me and mine at my workplace are considered “political” by those of more conservative mindsets. That’s the really ugly flip side of this, and I know it’s been said elsewhere but: conservative politics in the US make some people’s entire existence political, full stop. So you do a lot more than just cut out “distracting” conversations this way. You uninvited certain people entirely, and in d…

> conservative politics in the UD make some people’s entire existence political, full stop Funny, as a conservative minority in a straight white liberal company, my entire existence isn’t just political, it’s apparently a moral imperative that I be reminded on a daily basis that people like myself not only shouldn’t have a voice, we shouldn’t be allowed to exist in society at all. Full stop. It’s made quite clear tha…

Your potential... embarrassment? at being outed as a conservative is nowhere near as threatening as being outed as a gay or trans person.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#594

Post by JustResign »

jononomo wrote: post #550
madeofpalk wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say reasonably. Products benefit from broad points of view. Companies should avoid making soap dispensers that don't work on black skin because they didn't hire black people. The cliche is that tech companies are aiming to change the world. Software has real impacts on humans. Maybe the group of people "changing the world" should be a bit more diverse than just Dudes.

"products benefit from a broad point of view" lol

Let's not let Hacker News be a place where we misquote someone with a low-effort reply :)

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#595

Post by shados »

brown9-2 wrote: post #543
markmark wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basecamp's post specifically called this out as a problem.

Then I think their problem is not “politics” but being unable to deal with individual employees who are being unreasonable and uncivil.

That's easy to say until you see how it actually happens. Basecamp would likely still be in the news, just instead of being about banning politics talks, it would be because they're somehow preventing their employees from supporting some cause or another.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#596

Post by ryanbrunner »

sdf131 wrote: post #374
pg_bot wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://m.signalvnoise.com/how-we-pay-people-at-basecamp/

Without RSUs/stock options, it's misleading. They might be paying a competitive _base_ salary but stock is frequently > 50% of Senior employees compensation package

Stock wouldn't make a lot of sense for Basecamp though, unless they started paying dividends or something. They aren't public and have no indication that they ever have any desire to be public, and the ownership of the company is small enough that I'd be very surprised if any ownership stake didn't come with a lot of conditions on how that ownership could be transfered. As a liquid asset, Basecamp stock probably isn't particularly valuable.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#597

Post by shados »

cyode wrote: post #180
brown9-2 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And god forbid you're NOT part of that channel, because then you're the "one person who doesn't care" or some such is this a serious thing actually happening to anyone?

+1 exactly what I was wondering. And if it is, what’s stopping a company from defining the culture as, “It’s ok if you want to talk about this at work, and it’s also ok if you don’t want to.”

Because the people who don't want to will then have to eat lunch alone at their desk talking to no one. They're a tiny company.

But yes, there were likely other solutions to try before this one, including but not limited to: not blogging about whatever solution they picked.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#598

Post by DarkByte8 »

cyode wrote: post #180
brown9-2 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And god forbid you're NOT part of that channel, because then you're the "one person who doesn't care" or some such is this a serious thing actually happening to anyone?

+1 exactly what I was wondering. And if it is, what’s stopping a company from defining the culture as, “It’s ok if you want to talk about this at work, and it’s also ok if you don’t want to.”

Then the activists will say that the company is problematic because they know about the discussion and don't take a stance on the issue.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#599

Post by shados »

gtyras2mrs wrote: post #505
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at a company that had to institute a similar policy for more or less this reason: The people pushing certain political agendas wanted to force everyone else to pick a side on certain political issues. When the conversations get to a point where even opting out is perceived as the "wrong answer", things get ugly.

Even on the same side, there's quite a few shouting matches that quickly spirals out when idealists "call out" pragmatists who compromise on a few things. Not sure how appropriate it would be from a US context, but say Bernie-bros and Clinton / Biden supporters.

That's the biggest thing imo. Twitter is filled right now with this idea that it was probably an ultra conservative person ruffling people's feather and they were tired of the arguments between transphobic and lgbtq people or something.

I don't work at Basecamp, but I find that unlikely: they'd likely have fired the transphobic person (or at least I hope they would have). They didn't say they wouldn't do politics, just that they didn't want politics discussed over company infrastructure.

But even if the room was all on the same side of the political pendulum, things still get pretty ugly.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#600

Post by lupire »

astrange wrote: post #433
drusepth wrote: post #139

I wasn't expecting to like these changes after seeing a ton of tweets from rubyists I respect criticizing them, but after reading them... I love them all. Companies becoming vocal political entities over the past few years has been mind-blowing and I'm glad to see companies starting to reel it back and get back to, well, being companies. They make products; they don't need to have opinions on unrelated things. IMO pe…

> Seems like they handled the paternalistic benefits well also by just providing direct compensation instead. This one's odd to me, because I thought the point of non-cash benefits was that it was much cheaper than giving out cash because the employer has more bargaining power than you.

Dropping group-rate benefits is a sort of a pay cut, but only if employees were using the benefit enough. You'd have to do the math to see how it shakes out.
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