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.
Source: Basecamp implodes as employees flee company, including senior staff
This came back up in an HN discussion about their new web app deployment tool, MRSK. (And, being a big fan of Capistrano, I really want to try.) I remember this happening, and I remember the outsized reaction to it. Here’s a tiny company of only 57 employees, and yet this story reverberated around the IT news world. The audacity!
On top of that outsized reaction, what hadn’t really registered was that 18 people jumped ship. A third! An entire third of the company was so upset that they couldn’t espouse their politics on internal forums that they had to leave. It’s been about 2 years now, and they’ve launched an entirely new product, so I guess the predictions of their demise were… probably just wishful thinking.
Reminds me of another controversial company changing gears, and being predicted to fail miserably…