I discovered Ruby on Rails in 2005. And through that discovery, I started reading "Signal Vs Noise" - the blog of a company called 37Signals (now called Basecamp). I was hooked.
In fact, because of Ruby on Rails and because of 37Signals, by 2007, I had quit my job and started my own business. Just like 37Signals, I believed that there was a better way to run a company. Not only could you use technology in a different way, but you could treat your employees and customers right. Both these things were my inspiration.
In the last few days, Basecamp have been big news. Following a blog post by Jason (the CEO) and a follow up by DHH (the CTO), a third of their staff have left the company?
Why?
Because Jason and David have banned political discussion on their internal Basecamp forums - although, as ever, it’s actually much more nuanced than the headline suggests.
Some people have regarded this as a victory - work is for work, not for politics. But, digging deeper into the story, reveals how politics and work are inter-linked. Because the trigger was a document of "funny customer names". This brought up discussions around acceptable behaviour in the workplace and how much customer support should say about the data they access. On top of that, Basecamp was setting up a Diversity Committee, along with acceptable use policies - what type of things can you use Basecamp for? That is nothing if not political. And Jason and David have decided these are not things for employees to discuss, but something that is solely their domain.
I will go on record and say that I'm disappointed.
One of the things that inspired me was the idea that they put forward of treating your employees as adults. Allowing them to make the decisions about their work, about the product. Their mantra was “bring your whole self to work” - and they hired fifteen years worth of people on that promise.
Yet now they are saying that this principle only seems to apply when the discussions are easy.