At least 19 Basecamp employees publicly announced their departure from the company after a week of turmoil for the Chicago tech firm since announcing a ban on discussing politics and social issues at work.
Departing Basecamp employees took to Twitter on Friday to say they have left the company, accepting severance packages Basecamp offered earlier this week to employees. Basecamp offered six-month salary packages to those who’ve been with the company more than three years, and a three-month salary package to those at the company less than three years.
Before the departures, Basecamp employed 57 people, including its two founders Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson.
Fried, Basecamp’s CEO, did not return a request for comment as of publishing time.
The drama at Basecamp started on Monday when the company announced a slew of new company policies, which included a ban on having societal and political discussions on the Basecamp account. One of the other new policies was an elimination of workplace committees, which effectively shut down a newly formed diversity, equity and inclusion council employees had created in February.
Shortly after the new policies were announced, some current and former employees, as well as those in the tech and startup industry broadly expressed their frustration with the new policies.
In an interview with Inno on Tuesday, Fried acknowledged disgruntled employees, saying, “We're in the raw stage right now. Things will heal in time and we'll see where we're at.”
Later that day, a story by tech journalist Casey Newton for the The Verge revealed that Basecamp leadership instituted the new policies in response to a toxic culture brewing at the company that stemmed from an old list of “funny” customer names that current employees found inappropriate and sometimes racist. Newton's most recent reporting shows that about one-third of the Basecamp staff has resigned with more expected to come.
In response to Newton's reporting, Heinemeier Hansson wrote a blog post addressing the issues raised in the article and announcing the severance packages.
“For those who cannot see a future at Basecamp under this new direction, we'll help them in every which way we can to land somewhere else,” Heinemeier Hansson wrote. “We've committed to a deeply controversial stance, some employees are relieved, others are infuriated, and that pretty well describes much of the public debate around this too.”
