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I can’t speak to the longterm viability of Basecamp as a company. Frankly, I have no idea whether they’re failing or not. I do know there are plenty of companies their size that do just fine. I’m not privy to their books nor have I had any dealings with the company whatsoever. I have, however heard of them and am aware of some teams that use their core product.

I do, however, note that they offered a 6 month severance package to any employee who had a problem with the policy and the ones who left took them up on it.

You seem to be emotionally invested in designating this company as a failure, which is fine with me. I don’t really have an interest either way except to say that I very much appreciated the tone and tenor of their announcement. I thought it was a breath of fresh air and something that needs to be done by more businesses, both inside the tech industry and out.

I don’t find it outside the realm of believability that 1/3 of the people working there decided to virtue signal by leaving. Hell, I even read a blog post by one of the ‘aggrieved’ and she was precisely the kind of toxic person that needs to be cut from any professional environment like the cancer that she is. Therefore, I find it difficult to slap a label of ‘failure’ on this company or even one that says ‘success’ for that matter. I just chalk it up to being merely an indication of the times in which we live.

Failure or no, moving forward without the employees concentrating on critical race theory instead of their work can only be an improvement from the status quo.

This story is interesting on a few different levels.

First, both of the founders, and the company, at least before current year, were as woke as any in the software industry, which is notoriously woke.

But then something happened to wake them up: a couple of employees anonymously complained of illegal “harassment” and “discrimintation”, based on an internal chat (which has since been published, and was completely innocuous). The company, and the founders, had to spend time and money on an external HR probe, which found that nothing untoward had occured.

And in reaction to that, they seem to have found a way to smoke out the weirdo wokesters. It might have worked a little better than they had planned, but if you dig into it a little bit, the biggest “damage” seems to have been with the UI team. Is that a loss, or a “don’t throw me in the briar patch” moment? UI is where you put the second stringers so they can’t break anything important, and even better can be outsourced in about, oh, three minutes.

Not sure how they’re doing in the market, but if they can navigate these shoals, they’ll come out stronger on the other side.

If you think I’m emotionally invested that 100% projection from you. Right there with your assumption this was a conservative move and the liberals are the ones leaving. There’s no indication of that. I’m just pointing out reality. Companies that slash benefits are dying. Always. Every time. Anybody who thinks otherwise is wrong. Always. Every time.

I don’t find it outside the realm of believability that 1/3 of the people who smell the rot in the ship get out. Especially when you look at the who of who left. Head of marketing. Head of support. Head of design. That’s the people who see the math. And the ones who will land on their feet.

Their status quo is going out of business.