[andkon]

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 thought they could get jobs elsewhere. I would bet there are some people who stayed behind who didn't believe they could find a job this good soon but who also disagreed with the policy. Which, I get it.

6 months free money is not as much as you'd think; a new job hunt takes 3, even for talented, in-demand people.

[madeofpalk]

A number of their employees were very vocal from the moment the post went live. They expressed how disappointed they are. You can literally hear the despair in two employees voice in a 90s podcast episode where they announce its hiatus.

Basecamp was a company built on reputation, and people joined on that and then the leaders just flushed that all away. Its not surprising that opinionated and outspoken people - the kind of people Basecamp courted - left.

[soarfourmore]

Despair over not talking about politics on work channels? Are they absolutely consumed with politics that they can’t focus on actual work tasks? I have worked with someone who insists on inserting a political topic or headline into every meeting and it’s distracting and exhausting

[bytelines]

'not talking about politics' is a straw man for the actual issue. They have a list of funny names, got called out on it, and didn't like that. "politics" implies "we dont like Amy Klobuchar" or whatever, but it wasn't that.

It was about "what do we tolerate", "who do we welcome", "who are we as a company"? They didn't like their employees defining this for them, because it forced them to think things they didn't want to think about.

[bartread]

> They have a list of funny names, got called out on it, and didn't like that.

On the contrary, as far as I can tell (i.e., based on information released by founders and employees), they didn't object at all to being called out on it. Everybody at Basecamp, the founders included, thought the list was wrong and inappropriate.

What they did object to was the discussion being escalated to genocide and that there appear to have been employees who refused to climb down from that.

It does become impossible to have a constructive discussion, particularly about sensitive or controversial matters, when some people involved want to escalate to the most extreme position imaginable. It tends to mute other viewpoints.

This used to be well understood on the internet, and is the reason Godwin's Law is explicitly stated (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law#:~:text=Godwin'....).

[iovrthoughtthis]

that isn’t really a problem with politics though is it?

it feels like a problem with the discussions participants listening and speaking skills.

if someone immediately jumps to a negative extreme then its likely they feel quite emotionally distressed about the topic. if you notice someone is emotionally charged about a topic (either yourself or a participant) then we should seek to discover the shadow conversation that is being had. what is the true source of the emotional distress.

instead we see it as weakness and press harder.

removing politics won’t solve that.

[bartread]

I don't disagree with you, but I can also see how that could become a huge problem in a workplace.

It can be pretty frustrating when people debate in this fashion about work-related matters. E.g., nowadays I find it particularly tiresome when people frame technical discussions (such as one database platform or front-end technology versus another) in moral terms. It's incredibly unhelpful.

It has the potential to be even more disruptive for non-work matters (though the original "Best names ever" discussion was very much work-related).

Still, whilst I'm not especially critical of the position DHH and JF have taken - though initially I found myself back and forth on it - I do of course wonder if a more nuanced resolution that alienated fewer people (I don't mean on twitter and other social media, which is mostly just noise: I mean at Basecamp) could have been found than something that feels like blanket ban, even though it's not really.

Perhaps they tried - I don't know.

[runarberg]

If that is the case, banning politics feels like the nuclear option. And regardless of the the intent I think the consequences will yield the result parent notes.

Other companies are able to handle peer conversations without making such a broad and vague category as politics taboo. Like you can enforce a code of conduct and treat speech of genocide as being in violation and issue a citation for a minor offense and terminate repeated or hard offenders. You can also enforce stricter speech standards on open channels and announcements while allowing workers to have free conversation in their own opt-in echo chambers.

Nuking all political dialogs just feels like a bad HR policy.

[bartread]

> You can also enforce stricter speech standards on open channels and announcements while allowing workers to have free conversation in their own opt-in echo chambers.

I think this is what the policy amounts to though, right? They're banning political discussion on their shared work Basecamp, but not anywhere else, and are even encouraging it in other private and opt-in channels, as well as employees' personal blogs, social media, etc.

[efuquen]

> On the contrary, as far as I can tell (i.e., based on information released by founders and employees), they didn't object at all to being called out on it.

> What they did object to was the discussion being escalated to genocide and that there appear to have been employees who refused to climb down from that.

The topic brought up was the Pyramid of Hate, and I'm going to presume linking the list of names to one of the base levels of bias. DHH is the one who escalates that point to say, well this must be a fireable offense since it is on this pyramid with genocide on the top, which is really completely ignoring the point of the pyramid and not at all what employees probably said. An employee actually tries to explain this, that "dehumanizing behavior begins with very small actions". DHH ignores the point and completely unprofessionally and unethically (imagine the CEO of your company doing this) publicly shares some old chat log of the employee participating in making fun of the names, as if this employee wouldn't be aware of that and probably regretful of it.

So yes, an employee tried to explain what might be wrong with DHH's thinking and yes he did not like it at all and responded inappropriately and he was the one who wanted to "escalate to the most extreme position imaginable."

Here is the full-text from the article that described what happened:

"But Hansson went further, taking exception to the use of the pyramid of hate in a workplace discussion. He told me today that attempting to link the list of customer names to potential genocide represented a case of “catastrophizing” — one that made it impossible for any good-faith discussions to follow. Presumably, any employees who are found contributing to genocidal attitudes should be fired on the spot — and yet nobody involved seemed to think that contributing to or viewing the list was a fireable offense. If that’s the case, Hansson said, then the pyramid of hate had no place in the discussion. To him, it escalated employees’ emotions past the point of being productive.

Hansson wanted to acknowledge the situation as a failure and move on. But when employees who had been involved in the list wanted to continue talking about it, he grew exasperated. “You are the person you are complaining about,” he thought.

Employees took a different view. In a response to Hansson’s post, one employee noted that the way we treat names — especially foreign names — is deeply connected to social and racial hierarchies. Just a few weeks earlier, eight people had been killed in a shooting spree in Atlanta. Six of the victims were women of Asian descent, and their names had sometimes been mangled in press reports. (The Asian American Journalists Association responded by issuing a pronunciation guide.) The point was that dehumanizing behavior begins with very small actions, and it did not seem like too much to ask Basecamp’s founders to acknowledge that.

Hansson’s response to this employee took aback many of the workers I spoke with. He dug through old chat logs to find a time when the employee in question participated in a discussion about a customer with a funny-sounding name. Hansson posted the message — visible to the entire company — and dismissed the substance of the employee’s complaint."

[bytelines]

I haven't seen the employees "escalation to genocide", but as I understand it, it was an employee sharing the ADL pyramid of hate -- that such attitudes such as stereotypes were foundational to further hate.

[kortilla]

Yes, the ADL pyramid is a modern Godwin’s law. You only bring it out to state that “making fun of someone is the foundation of genocide”.

[user-the-name]

> as far as I can tell

The thing is, that is not very far at all. You were not involved in the situation at all.

[bartread]

Well, obviously I can only comment based on information that's been released publicly by DHH, JF, and their employees (both current and former). What would you prefer we all evaluated the situation based on?

Some employees have been critical on social media of the policy changes. None of them has suggested that DHH or JF thought it was OK that the names list existed. Again, all available evidence suggests that nobody who is still at Basecamp or who was there formerly, including the founders, thinks the names list is OK.

What exactly are you questioning here?

Because you evidently don't know any more than I do yet, based on that same body of information, you seem willing to insinuate a much shakier conclusion though you lack the courage to state it explicitly (because I think you know that it's not backed up by any evidence). You're not adding anything to the discussion other than noise.

[henryaj]

> They have a list of funny names, got called out on it, and didn't like that

Not at all true - they dealt with it extensively internally, agreed it shouldn't have happened, etc. But folks kept analogizing the list of funny name to genocide.

[roytries]

Is this a quote that comes from somewhere? I see multiple people talking about this 'analogizing a list of funny names to genocide'.

I think its been properly debunked multiple times in the comments here to say its untrue. Just wondering where it comes from that people keep commenting it so strongly.

[Udik]

People making such a fuss over a list of funny names? Yes, that's office fun you wouldn't want your customers to know about, which I guess makes it a bit unprofessional. But still it's absolutely innocent fun. Whoever makes it into an existential political issue has lost it, seriously.

[predaking]

> But still it's absolutely innocent fun.

Not if you're one of the injured parties.

[rimliu]

Funny-names list survivors, let's not offend them with the improper nomenclature.

[andyxor]

Truly these are first world problems

[bytelines]

Making fun of ethnic names isn't 'innocent fun' when your company purports to be diverse, equal, and inclusive.

If you don't believe me, well, DHH himself agrees with this: it's a problem when you acknowledge the pyramid of hate, as he does.

What's at issue is that he acknowledges all of this, then refuses to recognize any wrongdoing, dresses down employees in public, and claims that "political talk" -- about the company, about whether these practices are correct, about whether this is an inclusive and equal place -- is banned.

[ikt]

> Making fun of ethnic names

They're not necessarily ethnic, some people just have funny names:

https://theawesomedaily.com/50-funny-names-that-are-so-unfor...

https://www.newidea.com.au/funny-names

In your opinion just how genocidal are these articles on the pyramid of hate?

[Udik]

I'm not sure where you read all this. In his post [1] DHH says:

1) that the list was a mistake and that they've learned and moved on.

2) that "I was dismayed to see the argument advanced in text and graphics on [Employee 1’s] post that this list should be considered part of a regime that eventually could lead to genocide. That's just not an appropriate or proportionate comparison to draw"

3) that "the vast majority" of the names in the list were in fact of Anglo-Saxon or white background.

So he acknowledges, apologises and de-escalates. And points out that there is nothing racial about the list. What should he have done more, or differently?

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

[aspaceman]

Despair over the controversy of an internal “funny names” list turned into an external PR move.

[PaulRobinson]

That's not what happened, nor is it why people were upset by the founders' actions.

[ugh123]

How was Basecamp's reputation built on social justice issues and fanning flames on internal message boards? I thought their rep was based on good product development

[roenxi]

> 6 months free money is not as much as you'd think; a new job hunt takes 3, even for talented, in-demand people.

That still looks like 3 months free money. That is a considerable offer no matter a person's politics.

Occam's razor is most of the people who left did so because they didn't like management, because that is the normal reason people leave jobs. However, it is very noticeable that if someone was looking for a reason to leave for any unrelated reason, this was the perfect opportunity.

[shkkmo]

Occam's Razor is not an appropriate tool to make the point you are trying to make.

[colordrops]

Not sure why you are getting down voted. Occam's Razor is heavily abused and misused in the majority of cases, treating it like some axiomatic mathematical principle and misapplying it to human behavior.

[aranchelk]

Yeah, this is exactly right:

1) Employees left for ideological reasons.

2) Employees left out of self interest.

There are reasons I believe it’s predominantly 1, but neither explanation is more convoluted. Misuse of an excellent thinking tool.

[dragonwriter]

Those aren’t actually alternative explanation; values define self interest, they aren’t orthogonal to it.

[lupire]

Tweet: "I’m planning on taking some time for myself before looking for new opportunities"

Seems like someone enjoying a break, and glad to have timed it to get a huge severance package.

Remember, it's not 6months pay to sit in prison, it's 6monrhs pay to do anything they want, including a hobby project, child rearing, a busoner idea, education... plus a few hours a week of job searching.

[PaulRobinson]

Or it's somebody who is so upset and shocked to the core about what has just happened that they need time to grieve for the best job of their lives becoming intolerable very quickly.

[sokoloff]

That’s not my experience watching friends go through the full cycle. The tech employment market for talented programmers appears to be the hottest I’ve ever seen and I worked through the late 90s tech boom where literal used car salespeople were being hired into tech only to be back selling cars by summer of 2000.

[tomerv]

Talented people will also have higher standards (want large compensation package, or interesting work, or something else), and figuring out whether a job opening is up to that standard takes time. The result is that even for developers in high demand it takes a lot of time to find a new job.

[lelanthran]

> 6 months free money is not as much as you'd think; a new job hunt takes 3, even for talented, in-demand people.

If you're a developer, that's enough runway to launch a side-business. After all, job-searching is hardly time-consuming (it takes so little time that people do it while already employed in a full-time position).

Yeah, some folk will sit at home binge-watching netflix for 6 months. I can all but guarantee you that I will have a product at the end of six months if I was unemployed for six months.

At the end of the time I'll have a new job and a product (whether the product actually makes money or not is irrelevant. Getting a product to sell is the first step).

[zrail]

> Getting a product to sell is the first step

Super tangent on the thread but if you want a product that people are interested in you might think about using a process like Nathan Barry's Authority or 30x500. Not that those are the best or only ways to make a product, of course, but they're at least a direction to take to figure out what people want, need, and buy.

[lelanthran]

Thanks, I'll look it up.

[antihero]

> a new job hunt takes 3

Where is this? At Senior level in London it can take days once you're good and ready.

[ponzao]

That was my experience as well in London and very similar here in Helsinki, Finland.

[Oddskar]

You would magically find a suitable job in days?

I personally have a lot higher requirements for a new position than "a job that pays more than my current one". E.g. working on something that is worth doing, together with great people.

This takes a lot longer than "days" to find.

[goatinaboat]

Where is this? At Senior level in London it can take days once you're good and ready.

Basecamp is fully remote isn't it? So it could be anywhere.

[bogota]

I’m not seeing that at all. I have seeing 90% of people let go at my previous job (sample size of 50) pick up jobs within a month. A few obviously had a harder time but the market right now doesn’t seem to be hard at all.

[favorited]

The person you linked to said they are taking time off before looking for new opportunities, so they don't seem concerned about not having enough time to find something new.

[wlll]

Minor point, he's a Ruby/Rails programmer, or was last time I saw him.

[rst]

Former member of the Rails core team, in fact, from which he has also resigned. https://twitter.com/georgeclaghorn/status/138813101023207424...

[smsm42]

> a new job hunt takes 3, even for talented, in-demand people.

That sounds really long. It never took me more than 2 months from an initial contact to an offer (whether accepted or not) and sometimes less. I've seen people hired in less than a month - in fact, I've seen many times people hired before they left the previous job. Of course, it's just my personal anecdata but 3 months sounds really long. Any hard data to back it up?

[kortilla]

Well if they didn’t do it for they money maybe they could have publicly donate it all to charity. Otherwise it just looks like they did it for the cash.

[ugh123]

I'm reading through his tweets and don't see much interesting on the subject. I may have missed it tho. Can you point me to a thread where hes vocal on it?

[burningtomato]

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.

[jkhdigital]

> 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".

[Rapzid]

Poster meant a full 1/3 left because yadda yadda. Not that the entire 1/3 left yadda yadda.