Thread by @polotek

Cleaning house.

"Yesterday, we offered everyone at Basecamp an option of a severance package... For those who cannot see a future at Basecamp under this new direction."
world.hey.com/dhh/let-it-all…

It's worth reading DHH's pay. It's kind a ramble, but there is important information there. He talks about how they failed to facilitate and meditate contentious discussion at the company.

I believe him when he says it felt disruptive. But I blame a lack of clear and decisive leadership. This is where white men like these show they lack the range. That they're not up to the task of navigating an environment where a diverse group of people all get to have a voice.

When it comes to things like the customer names list, that isn't something that requires a long internal debate. Any leader worth their salt would understand that list needs to go away. It doesn't require a lot of discussion and it doesn't matter if some people think it was fine.

If you think being open to discussion means you don't have to make any decisions as a leader, you've lost the entire fucking plot. And because they abdicated that leadership role at that time, they're now in a position where they're pushing people out of the company.

Instead, we know that people like David and Jason don't know what to do about the customer names list. It doesn't mean shit to them. They're not bothered by it. They're not hurt by it. It has zero impact on them. So the only thing they know how to do is over intellectualize it.

Your company follows your lead. If you wanna debate at length whether or not something is harmful, that's what people are gonna do. If you think people are gonna hash things out and come to alignment on things like this without leadership, you are not fit to lead humans.

I'm not saying this stuff is easy. It's not at all. If you're making decisions the way you need to as a leader, somebody's gonna be mad at you. There's no avoiding that. But if you find yourself handing out severance packages, that's just a failure.

Here's Jason again. Talking about how he thinks his job is to "please" everybody. How he's been running himself ragged trying to accomplish that instead of being a leader. And now that he's failed at it, it's "okay fine, just leave then".

https://twitter.com/polotek/status/1386749580415434754?s=19

I wanna close by calling out an important distinction. Most of the "problem" has been around this customer names list. A situation that could be entirely resolved internally by leadership decisions. But where Jason and David landed is "no political and social discussion at work".

Jason's public post on Monday left us to speculate on how it was about the big societal issues were all grappling with. But it never was. It was a reaction to their personal lack of leadership. This and "one other acrimonious exchange". And now employees get benefits removed.

So I'll say it again. Don't believe any of this bullshit about "politics" ruining the business. This is rich white men doing what rich white men do. Ask yourself instead what is gained by them doing it so loudly and in public.

https://twitter.com/polotek/status/1386827835659087873?s=19