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Comment by ethnt | Hacker News Reader

Well, you say that it's one of the nicest companies to work in, but clearly not if 1/3 of their employees are willing to leave over a policy decision. Some of the employees that left had been there for over 15 years — it used to be a good place to work, but this made it untenable for them.

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> Well, you say that it's one of the nicest companies to work in, but clearly not if 1/3 of their employees are willing to leave over a policy decision.

I'm afraid many of them will be in for a rude awakening.

Basecamp has really stood out it seems.

> I'm afraid many of them will be in for a rude awakening.

This is what stood out to me. Basecamp pay 90th percentile Bay Area salaries regardless of where you choose to live. Maybe I'm wrong but I'm not sure that's going to be easy to find without relocating.

Even if you're not a rabid mercenary you're certainly going to feel the impact, if not on your day to day life then on your future plans, of taking a possibly massive pay cut, if you don't want to relocate.

Maybe remote working will become more the norm post-pandemic, and that will put upward pressure on remote salaries, but I don't by any means think that's a foregone conclusion.

>but this made it untenable for them.

I'd say "I've been here too long, let's shop around since IT is a buyers' market, and take advantage of this one-time buyout offer" is a far more probable explanation than "no political discussions at work rule makes this untenable for me"...

Without the buyout or in a worse job market, we'd see much closer to 0 "principled" exits...

Difficult as it may be for you to fathom, not everyone is a mercenary driven by money and greed. Many people choose their work based on their values and beliefs. Especially a well known, tight knit company like Basecamp have leadership positions filled with people who live and breathe the product and its users.

Choosing to leave for greener pastures may be an easy decision if you're at an early stage of your career, but there's a reason these extraordinarily talented folks stayed with Basecamp for as long as they have. It's not because they just couldn't get Google to pay them more.

>Difficult as it may be for you to fathom, not everyone is a mercenary driven by money and greed.

I'm absolutely sure of the above. Just not these people.

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