I’ve worked with people who were passionate about each of those issues (maybe not all at once). None of them encouraged or participated in the dehumanizing of other people and all found that kind of behavior towards others to be abhorrent. I can tell you that if they were confronted with a list making fun of people's names in this manner said list would not have survived with any one of them being at the company, let alone all of them. =)
I would note as a follow up to this re: leadership and culture; 30 people left Basecamp today. DHH is hanging out on social media like it’s no big deal, back to talking about Apple. You know what’s consistent between the start of this incident and today’s behavior? The derisive and dismissal treatment of people that have been a part of his company for many years.
From the reporting I've seen, the issue here is not that these are the kinds of people with strong opinions that are fun to bounce ideas off of, these are the kind of people with strong opinions who if you disagree with will escalate the situation to intolerable levels such as refusing to accept a perfectly sincere apology and then equating it with genocide. This isn't the fun debate crowd, it's "the conflict is abuse" crowd.
I love a good debate with someone who disagrees with me in good faith, but that other sort of person is just exhausting and counterproductive to debate anything with.
It is not my intention here to cast judgement on people belonging to either side of the political spectrum. Just wanted to make sure that no double standards are applied in OP's hiring practises.
I would note as a follow up to this re: leadership and culture; 30 people left Basecamp today. DHH is hanging out on social media like it’s no big deal, back to talking about Apple. You know what’s consistent between the start of this incident and today’s behavior? The derisive and dismissal treatment of people that have been a part of his company for many years.