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Comment by Trasmatta | Hacker News Reader

> 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.

If this telling of the events is accurate, what a petty way of handling the situation. Especially for an executive and company leader. It's like when somebody on Reddit digs through your comment history to try to win an argument.

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100% agree, although digging through someone’s comment history on Reddit is totally fair game! ;)

In all seriousness this is an abhorrent example for a company leader to be setting. It’s incredibly disappointing but unfortunately maybe not that surprising.

This guy sells books on how to run companies with progressive culture.

This is another case study in why I'm instantly suspicious of any company that markets themselves primarily on how amazing and perfect their workplace is. The truth is never as great as the marketing material.

Well said. To me it is a red flag. The places that I have worked that had great cultures, never spent much time promoting it. The ones that have claimed they have a great culture, best place to work ect, were toxic in some way.

Yeah, the leadership shown here is just so poor.

I've been using Rails for nearly a decade, so I'm all too familiar with DHH's penchant for inserting his opinions loudly and everywhere. He can't seem to help himself, to the point where he was allegedly trying to win arguments against his own employees by digging through their old chat logs.

With this extra context, it feels very likely that David was one of the primary instigators in making political conversations at Basecamp heated and difficult. So rather than trying to address his own problems with engaging constructively with his employees, they decided to just preemptively shut down all further discussion.

At least that's what it looks like on the outside with the context of this piece, and being very familiar with how DHH engages in debate. I'm sure there's even more to the story, but I don't think there's any world where David comes out of this looking good.

I personally can no longer trust this company with my email archive on HEY after reading this. I hope it’s not true.

History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes: https://signalvnoise.com/posts/3078-trust-is-fragile

There’s no reason to assume it isn’t true. Journalists don’t write known falsehoods. Their livelihoods and reputations are based on the accuracy of their reporting.

have you heard of these things called: tabloids?

They're usually full of lies and falsehoods yet the people who write them claim to be journalists.

Just so we’re all on the same page, since I wrote my original comment, DHH has confirmed this account on his own blog.

the person I replied to claimed that journalists don't lie. That's why I commented because some journalists do (i.e. tabloid journalists), I felt like they were offering a blinkered opinion.

Whether what DHH did is confirmed or unconfirmed is but one data point in a sea of billions on the subject of the general subject trustworthiness of journalists.

Are you joking to make a point? Their livelihoods are based on the number of clicks they get.

Are you being facetiously reductive to make a point? Their livelihoods are based on the integrity of their reporting.

Well there is probably nuance to this as is it is with everything. It's petty. But maybe DHH had a bad day. Or the employee was known for hypocritical takes and this was the last straw. Or maybe it was straight up bullying from DHH and even worse than we know. It's kinda hard to know from the outside.

Having a bad day does not excuse ones actions, especially as the leader of a company.

If this individual did think of it as a mistake the logical next step would be to apologize for that and to take actions towards not repeating them. His response was to outlaw any political conversations and ask anyone who disagrees with that extreme policy to leave.

Probably the employee was extremely hypocritical.

E: Making fun of people's name leads to genocide. DHH: it was wrong to allow this. But it is also not genocide, so let's move on. E: No! Making fun of people's names IS genocide. Fire everyone who had anything to do with this because it's genocide. DHH: Okay, here is a screenshot of you laughing along in the company chat. Is it still genocide, or can we move on?

With that said, this list shouldn't have existed. If I were to see a coworker collecting funny sounding customer names, I'd tell him to stop and never do that again.

That's the thing. Someone acting in an immature and dumb way is not automatically racist. I've made my share of insensitive jokes because I was young, dumb, and lacking life experience. Then I grew up, in many cases by being called out.

The woke crowd does not appreciate personal growth. Unless you are born with God-like perception of every person's sensitive points, you are a shit-tier human for life. And the hypocrisy of that crew - case in point - is sometimes just breathtaking.

Its really not that petty. An employee was claiming that it is GENOCIDAL!!! to participate in making fun of a _name_... yet they did it too. Something something stones and glass houses no? It is hypocritical and they are mad DHH exposed it.

I mean seriously, making fun of names leads to genocide? How dramatic.

> I mean seriously, making fun of names leads to genocide?

Making fun of names because they are foreign or different? It's a step on the path, yes. It's a long path, with many actions much worse than making fun of names (such as racially motivated killings).

But it is a step down that horrific path.

> An employee was claiming that it is GENOCIDAL!!!

While I can't speak to what was actually said, this statement is false according to the reporting in the article. Nobody was quoted as saying that making fun of names is genocidal, but rather that it contributes to a society where genocide, mass killings, or targeted hate killings are possible.

I feel you're attacking a straw-man of the argument, to make it intentionally silly, in an attempt to justify the manager's actions.

Most of the names, if they were foreign, were European. Six names were Asian.

You can read DHH’s accounting of why he posted the old chat log. It really was not petty.

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