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“About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

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Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#71

Post by goatinaboat »

bombtrack wrote: post #26
dagw wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it sounds like there was a real, meaningful mismatch in priorities. Or it was just a good deal. Do we know what the "buy-out" deal was? I mean I like my job and the company I work for well enough, but if they offered a decent enough deal and I'll happily walk away tomorrow and not look back.

DHH stated it in his "Let it all out" follow up post. > Yesterday, we offered everyone at Basecamp an option of a severance package worth up to six months salary for those who've been with the company over three years, and three months salary for those at the company less than that. No hard feelings, no questions asked. For those who cannot see a future at Basecamp under this new direction, we'll help them in every w…

I read that entire blog post just now and I am still none the wiser as to what happened

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#72

Post by dbt00 »

yosito wrote: post #60
JauntTrooper wrote: post #28

They offered a severance of 6 months salary if you've worked there for 3+ years... I would be tempted by that offer regardless of any other circumstances, especially in today's competitive jobs market.

I see this as a third of the employees were more interested in taking 6 months salary than in keeping work conversations professional. Those aren't really people you want on your team.

head of marketing, head of design, entire ios team. Probably people they wanted on the team.

If you read this news as "employees (who yosito disagrees with) should shut the fuck up", perhaps you think this is good. If you read this as, "I joined this company as a place where my voice mattered and now I'm being told to STFU by a founder on a rage bender", it makes more sense why people are leaving.

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#74

Post by threatofrain »

TigeriusKirk wrote: post #10

If a third of the people were willing to leave the company over a decision, it sounds like there was a real, meaningful mismatch in priorities. Which is fine, but it's for the best for everyone to end that mismatch.

Even so that's a lot of institutional turnover. Only a company with heavy seasonal patterns should be accustomed to that many people leaving.

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#75

Post by throwawaysea »

minimaxir wrote: post #63
Hamuko wrote: post #50

Didn't Coinbase do something similar and only have 5% take the buyout option? How is this so different from what Coinbase did?

Two theories I've seen: 1) Coinbase's corporate culture is more libertarian (where an argument on "don't focus on politics" may go across more reasonably) while Basecamp's entire corporate brand is based on power for employees. 2) Coinbase was about to IPO and thus taking a buyout is harder to justify financially, while Basecamp equity is essentially worthless.

Does Basecamp provide equity? And if so how does that equity turn into something liquid for employees - do they get a share of profits based on that equity?

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#76

Post by ggreer »

NationalPark wrote: post #36
JauntTrooper wrote: post #28

They offered a severance of 6 months salary if you've worked there for 3+ years... I would be tempted by that offer regardless of any other circumstances, especially in today's competitive jobs market.

I wonder if they're regretting the "no employee equity" policy now.

What? After two years, every Basecamp employee starts getting shares that pay dividends.[1] Their handbook also claims that employees will get 10% of the value of the company if it is ever sold or goes public (though they plan to never do so).

https://basecamp.com/handbook/08-benefits-and-perks#employee...

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#77

Post by danuker »

btilly wrote: post #56

WTF Twitter? I clicked on the story. Clicked the back button. And Twitter had a big giant popup on THIS page suggesting that I install the twitter app. That had no obvious way to be removed. I have no idea how they did that. But I really hope that the advertising spam industry doesn't start abusing this to place invasive ads all over other people's pages.

I also hate this; it happens more often with mobile.

Here: https://archive.is/UJrNo

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#79

Post by version_five »

Putting aside the other aspects of this story, I think a buyout offer, possibly even a "standing offer" is an interesting practice to consider at companies. I worked somewhere where there was a large, low morale group of employees that I think were just there because of money concerns + fomo if the company ever went anywhere. At the time I thought a buyout offer would have been a great way to separate the people who wanted to be there from those that were just putting in time.

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#80

Post by DVassallo »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #49
Trasmatta wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's awfully ironic, given how Basecamp has built their entire brand off of good management, and running a non-toxic workplace. Regardless of what people think of the specifics of the policy, it's a good case study in how not to do something like this. Releasing a blog post that results in 1/3rd+ of your employees resigning is bad management.

1/3rd of your employees so far . Would like to see how many stick around having to operate in an environment where a third of your coworkers just walked (based on past experiences when this occurred due to layoffs).

This is not a layoff. This seems to be a situation where the 1/3rd minority was annoying the 2/3rd majority.
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