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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”

#901

Post by commandlinefan »

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…

> where the mere mention of something inocuious can get you fired so you end up never talking about anything.

That’s more true of a highly politicized workplace if you have the “wrong” opinions.

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

#902

Post by sagichmal »

spyckie2 wrote: post #642
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…

Yes, people are reacting to the policy. But it's definitely that the policy is a reaction to something as well. Probably, the founders believed that the toxicity of the internal culture had reached a point where it was extremely detrimental to the workplace. And, knowing DHH, it was probably not only a financial decision but a lifestyle one. He may have realized that the advocates that actively discussed and promoted…

> Probably, the founders believed that the toxicity of the internal culture had reached a point

There are precisely one set of actors behaving toxically in this whole fiasco, and it's the founders.

> I'd be really surprised if this surprised the executive team. This seems to be a super intentional and very professionally executed cultural shift / purge.

Hahaha, what? In which universe are you inhabiting? No piece of evidence supports this theory. All the evidence clearly points at this being a hasty and unplanned reaction to a hasty and unplanned emotional outburst at an employee by a founder.

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

#903

Post by norswap »

DiNovi wrote: post #659
norswap wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The outrage crowd always prefers easy targets over good targets.

Again I don’t get this. 1/3 of basecamp left. They arw basecamp. Basecamp are the people who are leaving! Lol

The outrage crowd is not the leaving basecampers but all the people spitting acid on the company online.

1) They were heavily incentivized for leaving. If you even considered a carreer move, the 6 month severance is your call to action.

2) I don't know that them leaving is so bad. They disagree, they leave (with generous compensation), not a huge issue in my book. Everybody is being treated fairly here, it seems. But for some reason, people have to insist that basecamp is evil, while to me it looks like they're going above and beyond the call of duty to treat their employees right.

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

#904

Post by burningtomato »

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…

How much do you think the people who have been working there for 5 or 10+ years are making per month?

And they can literally land in the company they want to work at in a week.

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

#905

Post by wreath »

gifnamething wrote: post #580
coldtea wrote: post #331

It's sad that the target for those employees' "political disruption" is Basecamp. One of the arguably nicest companies to work in, which treats employees well, has a sane work/life balance and advocates so, pays well, embraces remote work, gives back to open source (RoR, etc.), and has good products, with no shady anti-consumer practices, that people actually like and pay for (as opposed to somewhere where they sell…

Management took a stance against the employees. Management cancelled their employees, removing their platform to talk about internal politics. Framing this as 'these people' vs Basecamp is ludicrous. It's 1/3 or more of Basecamp vs. Basecamp's management. Important people in important roles, entire teams. They are this company. Or were.

> removing their platform to talk about internal politics.

And they are not entitled for it. They were encourage to do it elsewhere on their own dime and time, not the company's. Do these employees not know what are they hired for exactly?

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

#906

Post by wreath »

shostack wrote: post #748
georgeburdell wrote: post #422

I laud them for standing up for their ideals. That said, as a conservative, I don't ever "bring my whole self to work", even if my employer says to, because (a) I know my personal views are not welcome in the Bay Area, and (b) I think it's concerning that many companies are trying to become more than just a place to work on interesting stuff and get paid for your work. They must now make political views known that al…

I'm curious, what conservative views do you hold that you think would make you so incompatible?

Even freedom of speech became associated with "right wing" political views..

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

#907

Post by Cyberdog »

lupire wrote: post #632
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…

The company banned talking politics on the work server, not talking politics on personal accounts, even on the company dime.

I'd presume that heavy usage of personal accounts on company time would have already been frowned upon purely for productivity reasons.

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

#909

Post by suction »

pantulis wrote: post #239
pantulis wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of them are also world-class Ruby developers. They seem to be mostly north americans (i could be wrong).

I should have written: all of them are world-class developers, otherwise they would not be having a job there.

Ruby isn't exactly a "hot" language from a hiring point of view anymore.

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

#910

Post by pydry »

ldiracdelta wrote: post #55
dbt00 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If more than a third of your employees think that a single policy change is enough for them to leave, then maybe your policy change is dumb.

Some times the way to make the company happier is to fire all the unhappy people.

Those unhappy people had friends who were probably on the edge.

Firing them is a good way to tip them over it.

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