Changes at Basecamp

If I donate to Candidate X, I'm taking her economic and her social policies at the same time.

In practice, this means that many large companies have to choose between issues they support. Microsoft may want lower taxes from Republicans, but they also want easier immigration and gay rights from Democrats.

If a company takes only an economic perspective, they may end up doing something morally repugnant to their workforce or customers, which turns a social issue into an economic one.

That’s annoying.

Basecamp pays SV salaries to all employees regardless of location.

https://m.signalvnoise.com/how-we-pay-people-at-basecamp/

>2. No more paternalistic benefits. For years we've offered a fitness benefit, a wellness allowance, a farmer's market share, and continuing education allowances. They felt good at the time, but we've had a change of heart. It's none of our business what you do outside of work, and it's not Basecamp's place to encourage certain behaviors — regardless of good intention. By providing funds for certain things, we're getting too deep into nudging people's personal, individual choices.

The authors were not referring to benefits in general, but to a specific subset of them that seem to fit your definition well.

EDIT: I see this is being downvoted. It's a genuine good faith question, and if you've downvoted, I'd love to know what you see as unconstructive about this comment. I'm sure the HN community would not be so petty as to downvote it out of pure ideology.

"if your not christian you shouldn't work here"

This is a false dichotomy.

It is analogous to people who say "love it or leave it" with regards to patriotism for a country.

In my experience, when I hear a person say "if you don't like X about what Y does, find a new Y", I also find evidence that they often lack the ability to observe without judgement. Because of this, they may lack compassion.

Would you say the same thing to someone who doesn't have much leverage to find a better job?

I wonder, would you tell them "to just deal with it"? Or would you simply admit that there are many paths to addressing issues?

There are people in the world that are rule-followers to a fault.

1. Say your partner has a life threatening emergency and you must drive them to the hospital. Do you run a stop sign if there is no cross traffic? Rule followers might say no. However, a higher standard of ethics might say that saving a life is more important.

2. Say your company has a policy that says "don't talk about your concerns about the company on the message board". Let's say you have concerns and have raised them via "proper" channels but the result in unsatisfactory. Do you raise them more generally? Rule followers might say no. Wise people weigh the issue and consider the pros and cons.

The world is about actions and consequences. In my view, that is what the rules tell you. The rules don't always simplistically define ethics. Rules, like any formal system, are not adequate substitutes for guiding principles and conscience.

If you were not a evangelical Christian, you quickly realized you would not be happy working there

Someone else (and me too) had the same question

> - Talking about unions, or pay equity (Might be illegal to ban either)

Would be illegal, strawman.

> - "Hey Jodie, my partner and I are marching in a Gay pride parade this weekend, wanna come?" (Is that political at Basecamp?)is- this is something they'd have to decide, however it should be framed as "we're going to <political event> this weekend, want to join?". On the other hand, if they're incorporated in a place where being gay and gay marriage is fully legal, I don't think gay pride can be considered political any more than independence day, in which case, of course it would be allowed. Someone responding by saying "ugh, gay people make me sick", OTOH, should be censored under this rule.

> - Some ex-military employees form an informal group to welcome and mentor new employees coming out of the military. (Is that political?)

- not political, however, if someone responds by saying "ugh, I hate the military, you guys are terrible", that would be political and they should be warned to simmer down (I say this as someone who does dislike the military - but I don't think that gives me the right to say nasty things to people who have escaped and are trying to move on).

> - One of our new clients is a controversial group/business/etc, what should we do?

This is a business decision and should be discussed in that context. It probably shouldn't get discussed in the casual slack channel regardless of this rule.

Try examining this post again but in good faith rather than trying to poke petty holes in it - by which I mean, assume that they are trying to reduce division in their company instead of assuming their end goal is censorship.

If course, maybe it will turn out to be a bad thing in the end. But I don't think we'll reach that conclusion by listing minor problems with it.

No actual union will encourage or allow union business on company forums, for example. If you want to talk to Jodie about marching in a parade, give her a call or message her offline.

I’ve worked for employers where it is illegal to discuss politics with their systems. Honestly, it made for a great work environment... I don’t need to know or care whether you’re a Baptist minister, a drag queen or both in your spare time. I just need to work with you.

How about Jodie says, "No thanks"

"Aw, why not?"

"Not really my thing"

"What, do you have a problem with gay people?"

I mean I see that as likely as any outcome from that conversation starter.

Veteran here. Yes it is. It's identity politics, especially in hyper liberal areas. I'll express some thoughts I have around this.

Some veterans, especially campaign veterans which are a protected class, will struggle when being introduced to the workforce. When I got out, shortly after a year long stint in Afghanistan and subsequently more combat training, I was given a class called SEPS & TAPS. TAPS is an acronym here, but let me remind you foremost of what "taps" is.

Taps is the bugle song played every night at base. When taps plays you are under military order to stand at attention and salute the flag. Taps is a reminder of those who lost or sacrificed their lives that day. It is a daily reminder that your choices are often dangerous ones much less ones that don't just involve your life. For that minute, you are relegated to appreciating their sacrifices in utter silence.

In my course (SEPS & TAPS) the first power point we received covered a page filled with telemetry data about Marines you didn't want to be. The drunk, the drug user, the domestic abuser, the college drop out, the person with anger problems. I wish I had screenshot this slide because words cannot capture how uphill that battle would seem. When I finally did get out, I realized why all these shocking statistics make sense. I've heard people talk about "hero worship" and I'm from the South where veterans have a decent reputation. Where Southerners probably do give a lot of credence to the military because most of the military is generational servitude from the Midwest and the South, likely due to a perceived lack of opportunity in many areas. Hero worship is little more than lip service to veterans though. The real substantive outcome of me getting out was watching all my friends lives reset, facing a lack of opportunity (again), and more bills, pressures, and externalities like school all while trying to return to being a normal human being. It was immense and for a time my life would fall apart in one way while bounding forward in another. It felt like I was literally Flubber, and it was killing me.

If you've followed my posts on this forum life is okay now. But I can see why veterans may need a group at work where they can be veterans or talk about issues. What I don't agree with is if these groups tried to influence the work force. I wouldn't agree with them sending out lecturing messages about veterans or memorial day, even if they're right. I wouldn't be comfortable with them making statements for the veteran community. I wouldn't be okay if they set hiring parameters on top of what is required by law.

I also understand there are people who hate veterans. Some people at work I actively ensure that I don't bring up being a veteran, that I'm particularly good at marksmanship, that I've been to Afghanistan (or any sub-experiences thereafter). No amount of advocacy that a veterans group can do will change that person's mind. I cannot overcome people who equate military service with fascism, nationalism, or even the train of thought that leads people to believe all or most veterans are conservative. I can't fix a broken mind like that; only personal experiences that challenge the thinkers opinions will, which means likely, one day, some veteran will be on the other end of that. Maybe someone like me who can listen to a dissenting view that feels dehumanizing, but maybe not. That's just the way personal growth goes; thinkers don't really plan on who or how their minds will eventually be changed. I accept that reality as a fact of life. I embrace it to some degree and actively work to avoid it in another.

So, is that group political? Yes, but there are things they can choose to do that are decidedly more political and that is where you'll get disagreeance from me as a member of said group.

"Reminding people not to talk about politics and then moving on" doesn't really seem like a "punishment".

huh? their lives (and livelihoods) sometimes are at stake...

But it would also mean people who belittle or demean others because of their gender. Or people who belittle, demean, and bully people with less experience.

One of PayPal’s founders once bragged that they declined to hire an engineer because they said they liked to “shoot hoops,” and PayPal was not a company where people liked to “shoot hoops.”

All of that would be “cancelling” people too, by your definition, and it’s all just as worthy of discussion.

Hard cancellation is when you get others to gang up on them and go to HR to try to get them fired. Afterwards, you publicise whatever got them fired offline in the hopes that they become 'radioactive' to employers and so that they and their family fall on hard times.

I'm a little confused as to why people don't understand what "cancel" means in this context. Isn't it quite a popular topic nowadays? Is it possible that they're claiming ignorance, because they want to argue against the meaningfulness of the term?

> cooperatives tend to last longer and are less susceptible to perverse incentives and other problems of organizational governance than more traditionally managed organizations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

No, its not, it avsolutely is not.

> You can be a big activist outside of work, no one is saying you can't be.

Limiting the scope of activism always serves to protect the status quo. The fact that the imposed limit is itself limited does not make it neutral.

See what happens if you spend more than any trivial time on the job doing something else other than what you were hired for!

Opposing the explicit carve out of 25% of a recruiting pipeline specifically for HBCU candidates, for example, does not imply one is racist.

Discussing career related political activism at work - such as unionization, or fair pay, because it actively affects you in the workplace - is fine to me.

However, woke politics, like gender equality, abortion, or some other trending topic that is unrelated to your workplace, should be discouraged. Things like that are more akin to religion - it's private, and should be kept off the workplace. Do it in your own private time, with people who also want to do it in their private time.

Should a woman only be hired because they're a woman, even if they're a poor engineer? That seems way more sexist than the alternative.

This blog post by Basecamp is excellent. What a fantastic company it must be to work for. It's too late now because I'm starting my own company and am fully dedicated to that, but part of the reason for doing so was the feeling that there weren't enough (any?) companies with these sorts of policies in the world. I'll add Basecamp to the small list of software firms I'd be willing to work at in future.

To be fair I would expect more female engineers to show a benefit in the retention rates of female engineers so I think this initiative could be net positive for the company but I also doubt the people pushing for this are being data driven.

There is no connection whatsoever between diversity and building product. Note: you haven't tried to explain your claim there is, just implied it's obvious, probably because you can't. I've seen people try to honestly intellectually defend a connection between employee diversity and product design before, and it's always a joke. You get anecdotes about face recognition not working on black people (reality: the software in question just had trouble with low contrast images and also struggled with white people's faces). And that's about it. I can't recall ever seeing someone actually argue that more women == better product because, well, that's a pretty sexist thing to believe isn't it? It implies men have no empathy, or that there's a universe of product requirements women will only tell to other women, etc.

If discrimination is happening against an individual and you work with the management chain to resolve it, that's not a political act, because you aren't attempting to radically remake the entire organisation for everyone (politics), but only address the specific problem that was actually observed.

But it’s a valid question more broadly as well, and some of the other answers have been dismissive.

In general it is unwanted by people who prefer to be treated (and to treat others) as individuals rather than group members. People who want to interact with others based on individual qualities and merits, irrespective of group associations (especially immutable characteristics like height, skin colour, hair colour, etc).

I believe this (for now) still represents the majority of people in the US, and probably in some other countries as well.

Look at this very thread. Just a few posts above this one is a guy who says he works at a firm where 40% of all recruitment efforts have to be for female engineers. Those sorts of policies are everywhere. That's actual, concrete discrimination. Firms put bonus pots aside for women, they set up competitions and career opportunities from which men are banned. Men are being barred from board positions and top executive roles all over the place.

At the last place I worked, after firing the head of sales the CEO announced at a company all hands that the next head of sales had to be a woman, and that's why the firm had been without one for so many months. It's of course illegal but the agencies that enforce these laws are run by people steeped in identity politics, so they aren't enforced. When one was finally located she turned out to be wildly incompetent. In the first management offsite she got up and said she had no idea why anyone bought our product. She didn't mean this in a "the product is bad, I'll shock them out of denial" way. She meant it in the sense that she really didn't understand what the product actually did (it was a rather obscure product for software developers). In a sales meeting with a customer she started trying to convince the customer not to use our product, apparently without realising she was doing so. The prior male head of sales had been fired simply for displaying low energy, this woman is of course un-fireable despite demonstrating repeatedly she has zero understanding of the companies products!

That same company invited a third party training company to use the offices at the weekend to run programming classes. These classes were open to everyone except straight, white men. I kid you not, that was the actual rule. If you were a white male you were expected to bring social media evidence that you were gay. Like, photos of you making out with other men or something like that. The justification for this was to keep the lessons "safe". Myself and my (gay) manager went to HR to complain, the head of HR spent 30 minutes trying to defend it. There was no apology and nothing was done about it.

This stuff is routine, it is daily life. It passes by without notice. If even one of these things happened in the reverse direction at a large company it'd make international news.

It's this kind of poisonous ideology that Basecamp are trying to expunge from their firm with this announcement, and what can the average man do but applaud? Who doesn't want to just come to work and have peaceful relations with their co-workers, regardless of race or gender? Only leftist activists, and which firms really need them? They're far more trouble than they're worth.

I live in a country where the differences are handled almost the exact opposite to what is done in the US. Instead of spreading positive discrimination that reinforces the idea that we're all different and actually promoting communautarism, we believe that our differences are fundamentally a private matter and when we want to build something together we leverage our common interest and values. It's all idealistic but in practice our racism isn't as widespread and brutal as other places, which is why I'm convinced it is the right way to follow

The question is, why make a big blog post about it in the first place? They can't claim innocence, since they followed Brian Armstrong pretty much to the letter, and have the walkouts to boot. So we can assume the attention was calculated.

Just look at how many posts on HN are now like "I want to work there!" Recruitment signalling accomplished.

The backlash is real, and to me the interesting part is it's semi-liberal tech dudes leading the charge.

BTW do you mean to say that bringing up issues of equal pay justify overt censorship as a "business decision"? Just asking because that was the issue I mentioned above.

Ultimately I identify as myself and that encompasses a small collection of things where I feel intensely vulnerable but also very secure in knowing that, relating to my experience of growing up, abandonment, attachment, my mental health, and so on. Attacking those aspects of my being is likely to hurt me, and is the point where I would decide whether this person needs to be present in my life or not.

So I would speak out strongly on the topic of depression and suicide, for example, because part of who I am - my identity - is that I tried multiple times and survived each time, and that long-term state of depression significantly changed who I am.

If someone made fun of me for being some bleeding-heart liberal whenever I talk about compassion or some spiritual experience? whatever...I don't care. It's not for everyone.

But yes, there were likely other solutions to try before this one, including but not limited to: not blogging about whatever solution they picked.

Not sure how appropriate it would be from a US context, but say Bernie-bros and Clinton / Biden supporters.

Without these "oh politics is sin" things, the bosses saying no might require them to justify it. Instead they can now weasel their way out of this kind of stuff, and basically shield themselves from criticism on this front, even if people internally might want to change [0]

Lots of conservative ideology is around this, trying to turn some subjective defense of beliefs into like... some objective rules about not doing X/Y/Z (basically maintaining the status quo). I'm not saying the decision makers are conservative, but that's what the result is going to be here.

(tbh I think there are good reasons to minimize discussions about current events into places where people aren't forced to be exposed to them at work. I know I don't want to, just cuz I'm already exposed to it a lot. But there's a difference between banning politics talk and just asking people to keep it in certain areas IMO)

[0] https://basecamp.com/about/team they don't have the engineering/non-engineering split here, but 50-odd people and they have 3 Dans + 3 Jasons. There are definitely companies with more absurd balances and the people at Basecamp probably would like to see improvements! But this kinda stuff makes it harder.

The point is to explicitly not politicize these conversations and instead talk and relate on a human-to-human level

If you were in the middle of a meeting to plan a new product launch and suddenly announced "I'm getting married this weekend!" what kind of reaction would you expect? People might be polite but gently remind you that's not really relevant to what's being discussed at the moment and to get back to work. If you kept on trying to turn every discussion about work back to how it relates to your upcoming wedding, they'd eventually get annoyed and write you off as an obnoxious weirdo, and they'd be right.

Somebody discussing their plans and related challenges may have political notions attached, but the “right and wrong” are not the focal point.

If someone responds with “good, gay marriage is wrong”, you’ve clearly crossed into political debate, and opened the line for personal attacks.

If someone responds with “everyone who’s against this is a Nazi”, you have also done the same.

If, instead, the response is centered around the person’s own experience (“I’m sorry to hear that, I know some family with a similar struggle”) then it’s fine.

It’s not terribly different if you’re discussing being disappointed that your insurance rates went up.

“Sucks that we have to pay $75 more a month” is fine. Adding that “it’s all because of Obamacare” crosses the line.

I don’t see the line being that difficult, it’s just that most people on BOTH sides take these statements as their cue to start engaging in their political debate, usually abandoning all subtlety and nuance while gathering the pitchforks and drawing warlines.

People forget how much diversity of opinion there is, from gay couples against marriage, to Christian supporters of gay marriage, to libertarians who don’t support any state recognized marriage at all.

Same goes for taxes, HUD approved appliances, EPA regulations, etc.

Name a political debate, and I’ll give you people I’ve met or worked with who don’t fit into the media-prescribed boxes.

Most importantly, people have seemingly forgotten that whether you agree or disagree with the cause, it’s entirely possible to just be supportive of your fellow humans for the sake of wanting them to be happy.

And I really don't understand why your sexual preferences should be known to/by your coworkers either.

Having recent returned to a corporate work environment I am amazed at how much time is spent focusing on these things instead of, you know, running the business and generating shareholder value.

Well fuck them. Mentioning your partner is not political, it's conversation. They are the ones that make it political, not you. This borders discrimination in my opinion.

If they are showing prejudice or treating you unfairly it is them that should be reported. It must be a pretty fucked up workplace for the opposite to happen?

And as long as we continue assuming the worst in people that we disagree with, the problem of polarization will remain. Why not give them the benefit of the doubt and assume, until we have evidence to the contrary, that they just want to encourage a sane, low-stress work environment?

But you immediately lept to “conservative politics” as the one opposition that might object to the very existence of somebody. Clearly, without any context, if ever a word were to be said about this hypothetical scenario, it would be inherently political, and you would already know from which side. So, clearly, you’ve also already ascribed politics to this anodyne chitchat.

But I also think it’s disingenuous to leap from “banning political discussions at work” to “the LGBTQ family has to pretend they don’t exist”. If culture is such that people discuss what they did with their significant other or family over the weekend, then setting an environment where everyone is welcome to discuss that freely falls on leadership.

Somebody finding fault with that is going to have to be dealt with by HR the same way you might deal with a person who constantly shames everyone else for eating sugary donuts every morning - an opinion they can keep to themselves, without attacking or threatening others.

I’m not saying the line is always easy to find, but it’s not nearly as complex as most make it out to be.

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure Basecamp is not at all saying people should not reveal, let alone actively hide, their sexual orientation, gender identity, or anything like that.

I think anyone else at the company who considered such a thing political and tried to tell that person or the chat that what they're doing is political would be the only individual who's violating the "no politics at work" policy (perhaps in addition to other policies, too).

I understand your concern in general, here, but I don't see any reason why "gays are gonna get told to stop mentioning their husbands like we used to" is a thing that would start happening as a result of this policy change at Basecamp. I very strongly share your opinion that a conservative person who would do such a thing is deeply in the wrong, but I don't really think I see how it would apply to this particular situation.

I don't think "banning political discussion" at all carries the implications you're concerned about at most companies, and I think if it did happen at such a company it would be the thing that's violating the policy.

Stop being the language police or we'll never make any progress. Tolerance, generosity, always assume the best of someone.

Straight white could simply meant mostly white or mostly straight and white

As an example, a couple months ago at the start of a dev meeting, my boss made a joke about a protest organized by business owners in the area urging our governor to open up businesses. It was covered as a largely conservative group.

Here’s roughly how that went:

Boss: “Doesn’t seem like a chance of this lockdown ending with all of those morons protesting this week”

Coworker A: “Yeah, it’s scary how many of them think the virus doesn’t exist”

Coworker B (imitating conservatives): “I’ll just shoot at the virus with my gun”

Everyone laughs

Coworker A: “The problem is they’re just not educated. If only we could steal their kids away and take them to some private education camp”

Boss grunts with agreement.

Coworker B: “Or they should just be prevented from having kids at all”

Coworker A: “Maybe it’s for the best that they’re the ones that will die off. Natural selection at work.”

Everyone laughs. Then the meeting starts.

It escalates so quickly, in an awkward “half joking” way, that at no point to I feel able to jump in and provide perspective that many of them feel their livelihoods are threatened. That maybe we’re lucky that we haven’t missed a paycheck. That maybe they’re protesting not out of ignorance, but rather perspective we don’t have.

Sometimes it’s simpler - my boss jokes that a neighbor put up a Trump sign and he “always thought they seemed like inbreds”, or a coworker questions why his friends daughter is dating a conservative who “hates women”.

Is that my cue to explain “actually, I’m a conservative but believe strongly in women’s equality” or “hey, just because I have strong feelings about the 2nd amendment precisely as a means for women and minorities to protect themselves doesn’t mean I’m a bigot or an inbred?”

To be fair, I have not outed myself as either a conservative or LGBTQ. Maybe they would think twice about what they say if I do. Maybe these are perfectly innocent jokes using a form of hyperbole that I’m just not getting.

But I’ve also had plenty of conversations with friends and family along the “I wish gay people would keep it to themselves” and “kids need a mom and dad”. In those cases I’ve always felt able to have a discussion advocating against their ideas without feeling like my tires would be slashed in the parking lot.

I just miss high quality political debate. What we have how is just name calling and tribalism.

While I wish my work environment allowed me to express my views as everyone else does, I do genuinely appreciate hearing other side, and I’ve certainly gained valuable perspective on some issues this way.

As the other reply from atonse mentioned, I would love an environment where ideas can be discussed (and even disagreed with) but with mutual respect for each other as people with differing life experiences.

I think we mostly have more in common than most of us think, and I think we would all have a lot less hate, a lot more shared understanding, and ultimately better outcomes at work and at home.

I honestly believe that the real solution is treat everyone the same, and to demand from everyone to do the same.

When your solution includes distinction, you will never get rid of the distinction.

Your argument is basically "my relationship is political because I am gay". I disagree. I think that reasonable people understand that your marriage is not political. Acquiring your right to marry was political, but exercising that right is not. If someone doesn't understand this and interprets you referencing your husband as some political statement, they are wrong, and I expect most HR departments would realize that if push came to shove.

Agreed. I'm not sure why that's a big deal though?

If you don't drink coffee, are the other employees getting compensation via their free coffee? Coffee can really add up.

There is also a portion that tracks your sleep habits, but it requires you to enable the Bedtime feature on the iPhone, which I don't want to do.

"You’re eligible to participate in profit sharing after two years of working at Basecamp. You’ll accrue one share per month starting on your second anniversary at Basecamp, and you’ll max out your shares at 10 years. We calculate shares based on months of tenure so there’s no unfair cliff between being hired in December vs January."