After the 1 year anniversary of Basecamp's mass employee resignation, I've had some thoughts about the event and just wanted to riff:
For those that aren't aware, on April 26th, 2021, two days after writing a public love letter to buying a sauna "sight-unseen", Jason Fried made an announcement to the masses about major changes to the company direction.
What he seemed to want to impart to us (and also his employees as this was the first they would hear about it as well) was that difficult conversations were becoming distracting at work, and they wanted to make it a friendly space for everyone.
The subtext however was not subtle: The employees were operating in a manner that took some small amount of control from the owners, and that had to end.
And when I say the subtext was not subtle, well we can just quote directly:
"No more committees... Back to basics, back to individual responsibility, back to work."
That's right. No organizing, no fraternizing, do your work and only that.
"No more lingering on past decisions... It's time to get back to making calls, explaining why once, and moving on."
Who makes a call? Jason and DHH. Who explains it once? Jason and DHH. Don't like it or want to discuss alternatives? Tough, move on.
"[W]hen we need advice or counsel we'll ask individuals... rather than a pre-defined group at large."
Jason and DHH don't want your input. They don't need it. They don't care about it.
And lots more of the same.
Nearly all of their changes are about having full control, and being completely unwilling to share decision responsibility with those who actually create alongside them.
The spin on all of this was to make a more peaceful working environment, but that's definitely not what happened - certainly not in the immediate aftermath.
DHH got so much flack on Twitter, that he tried to post through it (just posting one unrelated topic after another) until finally he just turned off replies so that he could turn a blind eye to it all.
Employees started leaking past conversations and how Jason and DHH actually treated the company, and cracks in the ethos of the "it doesn't have to be crazy at work" guys started seeming a little larger than any had suspected.
Because this was about absolute control, and not really about their claims of creating a peaceful workspace, they ignored all negative feedback. So this wasn't a "how can we make things better" thought process. It was a "how can we take back all decision making".
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A year on, and DHH still hasn't opened up his Twitter replies. A strong indication that there is still a lot of badwill that he is unwilling to deal with. I've been keeping up to date on the types of posts and comments DHH has made since then, and it's fascinating to see the sheer amount of spin he has tried to use to justify their decision. It's never addressed directly, but it's so painfully obvious.
A recent post made on May 5th, 2022 titled "Bring your work self to work" is just a screed on why it's actually good to be a drone at work, why it's good to be a cog, why you shouldn't deal with life at all when you're at work, you just need to work.
And that's not an exaggeration. Here's some direct quotes:
"Holding some of yourself back means having something in reserve."
Don't let the world effect your work. Don't let a harsh reality of life be something that Jason or DHH have to deal with in any way.
"All this used to be obvious. Self evident. Encoded in our work-place uniforms, even... I think we lost something value when we collectively gave it up."
The fact that people are complex individuals and not easily swapped out pieces of machinery is apparently a lost value?
"Work isn't owed all of you. Don't offer it."
This last line, by far, is doing so much doublespeak it might as well say "freedom through work" and just be done with it.
So while it's true work isn't owed all of you, DHH is co-opting worker's resistance language to promote the very opposite of employee empowerment. It's truly insidious.
Couple all this with DHH's radical shift toward bitcoin advocacy and right-wing talking points and I think what we see is a man who was always pulling the wool over people's eyes. Jason and DHH captured an initial audience with words on cooperative trust and work openness that they didn't ever actually believe. But now, they're free of the burden of that dishonesty, and can be their true selves. Ironically, even at work.
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TLDR: The changes at Basecamp were never about making a better work environment, it was about taking absolute control.
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