Over a dozen Basecamp employees have resigned | Hacker News Reader

Over a dozen Basecamp employees have resigned

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36 pointsjolux12 comments

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>do what we can to find them a new home where they're allowed to exist without being told they're divisive

If they're leaving over this, doesn't that kinda indicate that they are in fact divisive?

If one person leaves a company in protest, there's probably a pretty good chance they're the ones who are divisive.

If 1/3 of a company leaves all at once, it's far more likely leadership are the divisive ones.

It's not far-fetched that there's a pervasive combo of conformity, virtual signalling and outrage.

Oh, this is something.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210227065320/https://basecamp....

Lots of little avatars, right?

https://basecamp.com/about/team

Lots of missing avatars now!

Coinbase took a similar stance, lost 5% of their employee base, and it doesn't appear to have hurt them at all. In fact it may have accelerated their growth.

In the Midwest at least Basecamp is a highly desirable place to work for developers or designers.

You're stating some pretty plain details, so it's funny to see this get downvoted (I guess just out of spite?).

I'm leaving a company within the next couple weeks where I get blasted with the social issue firehose daily from the CEO down. I know more about pet social justice initiatives than I do our business plans..

I share their values including the effort to scrub out toxic discussions and individuals by putting the kibosh on certain public discussions in the workplace. Plan on applying as soon as they get their available jobs updated. They will be fine.

Apparently a third of the company have taken buyouts: https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1388212468510380034?s...

Taking passive aggressive parting shots is unlikely to make them more attractive to potential future employers. Even among employers who share their values, no one wants someone who has shown they're willing to publicly disparage the company.

All of the tweets linked seem pretty direct and transparent (i.e. the opposite of passive aggressive). Unless you're seeing some tweets that aren't in this thread?

That was my impression as well. The only real negativity was from the author of the thread (e.g. the "@jasonfried, I hope you enjoy your fucking sauna." comment), who AFAICT is not / was not affiliated with Basecamp.

That said, I think there are quite enough "openly woke" companies that it's not going to be hard for any of these people to find a welcoming home. Especially if they manage to successfully play the martyr on social media. This is where our society is at right now.

Overall this is probably a win/win -- the employees who left were surely the ones most dedicated to keeping the office political. Basecamp got rid of them and can rebuild with a team that's more aligned with the new policy, and those employees can find new jobs at companies that don't mind being political.

That's not how it works in practice. If anything, it pre-filters the next group of haters so you don't have to deal with them in the future, but it also lines up the sensible people.

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