John Warnock once said at an Adobe company meeting "when an employee leaves a company it's like taking your hand out of a bucket of water -- it doesn't leave a hole."

This was in response to a similarly contentious issue -- moving from Mountain View to San Jose. People said they were going to quit. John Warnock said, in effect, "good riddance." And the company started growing very rapidly after that move.

(This doesn't detract from the fact that I think DHH is a fool and often mean-spirited.)