Basecamp did the right thing - but for the wrong reasons (and way too late)
The right time to stop discussions unrelated to company business on official internal channels was the first time the "Best Names Ever" list was being sent around. But that was over 10 years ago.
As a tech founder and someone sensitive to issues around race etc, I'm not surprised the initial issue (the "Best Names Ever" list making fun of their own customers) started in customer support not engineering. I've seen stuff like this at companies we've partnered with. Support often has a generally antagonistic view of the customer base and support staff themselves are generally the lowest status group within the organization (pay/influence/etc). When support is not handled by engineers (as is done in the smallest companies and a handful of others who purposely structure themselves as a set of smaller startups) they are dealing with customers who are having issues with things they themselves are not empowered to directly change. When a product focused engineer hears a customer problem, they tend to blame themselves and their team for any misunderstanding the customer has (e.g. we need to make that step clearer - and then go do it) but typical support staff often blame the customer for the misunderstandings and dismiss the customer as stupid. When I see these same people (support staff or other less technical people) share insensitive memes and diss customers on their company's internal channels, all I can do is shake my head and understand why things play out like this. They're at the lowest level in the organization and envisioning others as beneath them must make them feel better about themselves. I feel bad for them honestly.
As a founder, I'm more concerned that Hansson and the rest of the management team allowed their support staff to openly diss their own customers than I am that I'd probably find some of it personally/culturally/racially insensitive. And now that they allowed this type of communication on internal channels to go on for so long (we're talking over a decade), it's ironic that they now want to introduce a new etiquette regarding keeping official internal channels focused on actual work.
It's great that Hansson says "Basecamp should be a place where employees can come to work with colleagues of all backgrounds and political convictions without having to deal with heavy political or societal debates unconnected to that work". Unfortunately they dropped the ball (from day one its seems) on creating a space for their "colleagues of all backgrounds" to not be exposed to stupid memes and an internal culture that clearly offended some of them deeply. I don’t see how the discussions that stemmed from the "Best Names Ever" list could be any more polarizing than the list itself. It just seems this discussion made the founders uncomfortable where the name list only made some of their employees uncomfortable. It’s interesting that Hansson uses the word "heavy" to describe the debate that apparently couldn't be brought to a positive conclusion. I see the use of "heavy" in contrast to the "light" discussions of race and culture happening all along at their customers’ and employees’ expense.
As a founder, I'm obviously sensitive to the need for employees to focus on the business I've hired them to help build and run and to avoid distractions like those that were clearly getting in the way at Basecamp. But were people so far off in their views that they couldn’t be brought back together through thoughtful leadership? Was the employee who shared the pyramid of hate diagram actually equating the non-inclusive language clearly present within the "Best Names Ever" list to genocide? Or were there inherent issues with the remote work setup that Basecamp has been literally selling us way before the pandemic? If internal communication channels are the only way colleagues are able to communicate, using them for heated debates that overflow into work spaces is surely problematic. Perhaps this remote work mantra is a root cause of the "Best Names Ever" stupidity. If you can't see my face when you're making insensitive remarks, it makes it hard to realize you are offending me. If we can't grab lunch so I can pull you to the side and have an "offline" conversation, of course any issues that bubble over will eventually make their way to the official internal channels.
Personally, issues like this are why I got into tech and ultimately became a founder in the first place. Tech was appealing because it is likely the least political and closest thing to a meritocracy as you’ll get. I became a founder so that I can set the rules both for myself and for my employees (especially for the "lowest" level roles like support). In my rulebook you don’t diss your own customers, and a culturally/racially insensitive joke (or years of such jokes in this case) is actually worse than a deep discussion that might make some people uncomfortable in the short term but that can actually lead to a stronger team in the long term. The problem here is that this deep discussion apparently made the founders as uncomfortable as anyone else.
On a positive note, I wonder how many new indie hackers or startups will come out of this whole debacle. While Basecamp apparently didn’t loose any significant revenue from all of this, they did loose a significant number of employees. Employees who quit, reportedly got between 3 and 6 months severance pay based on tenure, so the longer-term employees have 6 months to start something new.
Any former Basecampers here on IH? If so what are you working on? And above all, what will you do differently when you’re the founder making the tough decisions?
