The story of Basecamp’s disastrous policy – The Verge

Basecamp CEO apologizes to staff in new post: ‘We have a lot to learn’

2021-05-04T17:36:43-04:00

In a new blog post, Basecamp CEO Jason Fried apologized after the "policy changes" he announced last week ultimately led to a third of the company's workforce opting to leave.

"Last week was terrible. We started with policy changes that felt simple, reasonable, and principled, and it blew things up culturally in ways we never anticipated," Fried wrote. "David and I completely own the consequences, and we're sorry. We have a lot to learn and reflect on, and we will."

The blog post that started the software company's terrible week was a list of new company policies that prohibited, among other things, "societal and political discussions" on …

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Inside the all-hands meeting that led to a third of Basecamp employees quitting

2021-05-03T20:00:00-04:00

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At 8AM PT on Friday, a bleary-eyed Basecamp CEO Jason Fried gathered his remote workforce together on Zoom to apologize. Four days earlier, he had thrown the company into turmoil by announcing that "societal and political discussions" would no longer be allowed on the company's internal chat forums. In his blog post, Fried said the decision stemmed from the fact that "today's social and political waters are especially choppy," and that internal discussions of those issues was "not healthy" and "hasn't served us well." The public reaction had been furious, and Fried said he was sorry for the way the new policies had been rolled out - but no …

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Basecamp implodes as employees flee company, including senior staff

2021-04-30T16:20:47-04:00

After a controversial blog post in which CEO Jason Fried outlined Basecamp's new philosophy that prohibited, among other things, "societal and political discussions" on internal forums, company co-founder David Heinemeier Hansson said the company would offer generous severance packages to anyone who disagreed with the new stance. On Friday, it appears a large number of Basecamp employees are taking Hansson up on his offer: according to The Verge contributing editor Casey Newton's sources, roughly a third of the company's 57 employees accepted buyouts today. As of Friday afternoon, 18 people had tweeted they were planning to leave.

Not long …

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Breaking Camp

2021-04-27T20:00:00-04:00

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The controversy that embroiled enterprise software maker Basecamp this week began more than a decade ago, with a simple list of customers.

Around 2009, Basecamp customer service representatives began keeping a list of names that they found funny. More than a decade later, current employees were so mortified by the practice that none of them would give me a single example of a name on the list. One invoked the sorts of names Bart Simpson used to use when prank calling Moe the Bartender: Amanda Hugginkiss, Seymour Butz, Mike Rotch.

Many of the names were of American or European origin. But others were Asian, or African, and eventually the …

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