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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”

#751

Post by digitaltrees »

faeriechangling wrote: post #689
digitaltrees wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. It’s about professionalism. Flame wars at work create a hostile environment where quiet voices are silenced. It’s the same reason HN bans political flame wars.

Deplatforming loud voices under implicit threat of termination doesn't reduce "silencing". I have never ever bought the "we have to silence people so people can have free speech" line of argument, which I've mostly seen over the last 5 years being used to justify banning conservatives from college campuses. Quiet voices are deciding to silence themselves voluntarily, they aren't victims we need to protect by silencin…

I would not ban conservative voices from college campuses. The work place, however, is not a college. I would prohibit any inflammatory speech that was serving to divide and distract the team. We share more in common that we disagree on. In a team setting we need to be United and aligned full stop. If you’re in the army and heading into battle you don’t debate philosophy, art or sports you focus on the mission and unit cohesion.

In college you debate and explore ideas. Different contexts. Different purposes. Different rules.

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

#752

Post by bastawhiz »

wlll wrote: post #532
grumblestumble wrote: post #89

A lot of the conversation from the "no politics at work" crowd here is centered around "these folks were wasting company time and losing productivity protesting this". That entirely misses the point. The loss of productivity around this issue is entirely on the leadership team. They let this fester - they were complicit in allowing this dumb-ass list to be circulated around the company for years, and when it became a…

I left 5 years ago, so I'm remembering this as well as I can. > they were complicit in allowing this dumb-ass list to be circulated around the company for years, and when it became an issue, they refused to take any action on it. That's not really what happened, and is a part of this story that hasn't entirely been made clear. The list was, if I remember correctly, about 10 to 20 names long and was tucked away in the…

DHH's own blog post seems to contradict your account.

https://world.hey.com/dhh/let-it-all-out-78485e8e

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

#753

Post by jkhdigital »

andkon wrote: post #262
ipaddr wrote: post #152

Interestingly the employees who left have the best career prospects. Entire iOS team, head of marketing and head of product team. The 6 months free money is hard for anyone entering a strong job market to pass up. A lot of comments seem to think 1/3 left because of the no politics policy. 1 / 3 left because it would increase their wealth or give them the summer covid took away last year. How many people would leave y…

One of their iOS devs who left has been incredibly vocal about how he no longer felt like this was somewhere he could work because of this policy and its effects, so I think you're plainly wrong (or insisting that there's no way we could take a person at their word). https://twitter.com/georgeclaghorn It's a lot more likely that the 1/3rd that left both left because they were unhappy with the policy, and because they…

> there's no way we could take a person at their word

What people say on Twitter is hardly courtroom testimony. It is evidence, sure, but I wouldn't give it a whole lot of weight. Probably even less weight for being "incredibly vocal".

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

#754

Post by gnzoidberg »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #451

People are gonna wanna make this about politics, but my sense is that it's really just about the owners of basecamp are crappy tyrants to work for, that's about it. I don't think it's really even about the specific policy. Note that the "changes" [1] also include "no more committees" (ie, no more feedback/authority/responsibilty except through the line-of-report hieararchy), "no bringing up past decisions you disagre…

Eh. How many of those left because of a huge buyout on a job seekers' market, and on top of that they get to posture and virtue signal?

Nothing to see here. Good on DHH.

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

#755

Post by jkhdigital »

cafed00d wrote: post #478
ipaddr wrote: post #152

Interestingly the employees who left have the best career prospects. Entire iOS team, head of marketing and head of product team. The 6 months free money is hard for anyone entering a strong job market to pass up. A lot of comments seem to think 1/3 left because of the no politics policy. 1 / 3 left because it would increase their wealth or give them the summer covid took away last year. How many people would leave y…

> The 6 months free money is hard for anyone entering a strong job market to pass up. Money is a funny business. I'm convinced that anyone who's a skilled software engineer makes more money than they ever imagined after 5-6 years of working at a regular tech company. All the RSU upside, bonuses yada yada. Folks who worked at Basecamp are top-notch programmers with close to a decade or more of experience. I'm certain…

The Bolsheviks were just as surely motivated by idealism for a more just society.

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

#756

Post by slmingol »

grey-area wrote: post #479

I don't think this is really about making fun of people's names, or holocaust references. It's about power. The managers at basecamp were unhappy that their employees asserted power over them in the workplace, and decided to assert their own power in turn over what they view as their personal fiefdom and retract some of the freedoms they had so graciously granted their workers, because those ungrateful workers actual…

Feels pretty much like that to me as well.

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

#757

Post by rsj_hn »

sircastor wrote: post #432
rsj_hn wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I think is lost in the conversation here is that people don’t really have organizations they can go to to advocate their political positions. Why should workplaces serve as political-outlet therapy locations because people can't think of other organizations to use for this purpose? There are, in fact, countless numbers of political organizations and groups in the U.S. and you are free to start your own if you…

I think this is a side effect of American obsession with work. We really build our identities and lives around our jobs, and our corporations want and expect is to be there all the time.

Yes, I think you are right. Americans work long hours, they spend far too much time at work, and many view work as something that should give them personal fulfillment. Combine that with a right-to-work situaion and a lot of people are investing too much into what is basically a profit-maximizing enterprise instead of a charity or social group.

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

#758

Post by digitaltrees »

birdyrooster wrote: post #664
digitaltrees wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. It’s about professionalism. Flame wars at work create a hostile environment where quiet voices are silenced. It’s the same reason HN bans political flame wars.

  Edit: I was too aggressive, have rephrased in grandchild comment.

PS. I did think your original response was super funny and laughed pretty hard.

For posterity, birdy told me to go back to smoking my digitaltrees.

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

#759

Post by ZephyrBlu »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #451

People are gonna wanna make this about politics, but my sense is that it's really just about the owners of basecamp are crappy tyrants to work for, that's about it. I don't think it's really even about the specific policy. Note that the "changes" [1] also include "no more committees" (ie, no more feedback/authority/responsibilty except through the line-of-report hieararchy), "no bringing up past decisions you disagre…

I find this to be a very odd take.

I believe no committees is because Jason and DHH don't think they're productive.

Not bringing up past decisions you disagree with makes sense to me. What's the point in re-judging the past?

The reason DHH mentioned for 360 reviews was that they didn't contain any real criticism because you're critiquing your co-workers (I'm paraphrasing), and that makes perfect sense to me. I wouldn't want to criticize my co-workers unless I had a very strong relationship with them.

None of these changes feel like DHH and Jason being tyrants and stamping out employee insubordination.

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

#760

Post by swat535 »

hparadiz wrote: post #599
Cyberdog wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think people in charge of hiring, particularly outside of the SV bubble, are going to be eager to pick someone up who left their last job because they couldn't agree to stop bitching about politics on the company dime? I don't see how demonstrating the inability to follow basic company rules in the interest of productivity improves their career prospects. Even inside the SV bubble, things aren't that warped, a…

This is a weird take. The tech industry is all politics all the time. Even if all you're doing is discussing policy changes as it relates to the business. Even if literally everyone at the company agrees and is on the same political side you'll still occasionally discuss things like municipal broadband or the Affordable Care Act. By banning politics it creates a hush hush atmosphere where the mere mention of somethin…

> The tech industry is all politics all the time

.. This is a comical generalization of an entire industry which spans beyond US..

I have worked in plenty on companies (big and small) where politics was simply left outside of business and everyone was fine with simply discussing the actual system design, infrastructure and data models.

Employees were simply not permitted to attempt to convert others to Christianity or initiate flame wars regarding abortion laws.

There is a time and a place for politics and a business setting is just not it.

I think this is a great move by Basecamp and I hope more companies follow. At a minimum, their stance is now crystal clear and there will be high cohesion between employees and management.

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