# Story 2: Basecamp bans political discussions - **Episode:** [146](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/146.md) (2024-11-19) - **Type:** news-roundup - **Tags:** basecamp, politics, workplace-policy - **Time:** 8:45–14:58 (start 525s) - **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/146?t=525](https://truthliesandwork.com/146?t=525) --- [8:45] Al Elliott: Well, a couple of weeks ago there was a small election in a small country over the sea. What was it? I think they call it— is it America? I can't— I don't know how you pronounce it, uh, but there was a— [8:57] Leanne Elliott: USA [8:58] Al Elliott: USA, that was it [8:59] Leanne Elliott: USA [8:59] Al Elliott: Exactly [9:00] Leanne Elliott: USA. Really? [9:01] Al Elliott: Yes [9:01] Leanne Elliott: I hadn't heard about that. Who won? [9:03] Al Elliott: I don't know. Quite a few discussions online about it, including on this podcast. And there was a discussion recently on this podcast about whether companies should encourage or discourage Outright talk on politics in the workplace. Now, politics is a little bit like religion in that it can be pretty divisive. So we have to be a little bit careful when we talk about this. We had one of the letters for the Workplace Surgery was around this. Should I just ban talk of politics completely? Well, that's what someone's done. So a couple of years ago, Jason Fried of Basecamp, one of the co-owners of Basecamp, he took a stance on this that was a little controversial. Back in 2022. Jason announced that they are banning societal— we get this right— societal and political discussions on company chat forums, which led to several employees to look at leaving. Then Coinbase, the hugely successful Y Combinator startup, the CEO of that, Brian Armstrong, came out with public support for this, for this move. And this is— this makes me laugh— public support in that they just basically, they just tweeted, replied saying, another mission-focused company with a clapping emoji. That's what, that's what coming out with emotional support is in 2024. Anyway, the employees say the ban is a surprise as they never really had much in the way of political discussions. One worker explained, at least in my experience, what they said, at least in my experience, has always been centred on what's happening at Basecamp. It's never been big political discussions like the Postal Service should be disbanded. That's an odd example to choose, but that's the one that they're choosing. I'm just reading from what they said. So what turns out is this policy is a little bit confusing for some of the staff because Some of them pointed out that how do you talk about raising— this is what I'm saying again, by how do you talk about raising kids without talking about society? How do you talk about your, your wage without talking about politics? As soon as I bring up something like public schools and it's already political, which is a fair point. So summary, where we're up to. Jason and DHS, David Hyman Hansen, who are the 2 co-owners of 37signals, which is now Basecamp, basically said no political and societal discussions online. Or in the company, people are saying, I don't really know how to deal with that. Basecamp itself has actually taken quite political stances, which seems a little bit weird to me. They've criticized Apple's App Store fees and even let a Chicago mayor use their office as a campaign headquarters in 2018. Now I have to be honest, full disclosure here, 'cause I think the guys at Basecamp are great and I really enjoy, like I've got 5 of their books behind me. I think what they say is brilliant and it's a tough job managing what they've only got 40, 50, 60 people there. It's a tough job because— [11:41] Leanne Elliott: Are there really? [11:41] Al Elliott: Yeah. Yeah. It's only a very small company [11:43] Leanne Elliott: Wow [11:44] Al Elliott: They started off calling 37signals and the idea was that they're only going to have 37 people. That was going to be the maximum of it. So I don't— I think they might have gone to in the heyday, possibly 100, but they try and keep it intentionally small. So I'm kind of trying to look at both sides here. Jason Fried wrote that this is the long-term healthy way forward for Basecamp as a whole. The company and our products, and to be honest, most of DHH and Freed do at Basecamp, which is pretty amazing, is for the good of the company. However, I did find tucked away in one article, one anonymous employee seems to think there's less about making a great culture and more about falling in with the views of the two leaders. They said the bosses are not interested in seeing things in their work timeline that make them feel uncomfortable or distract them from what they're interested in. What it comes down to is. If you were thinking of banning societal or particular political discussions in your workplace, there is a template that 37signals/Basecamp have implemented, and you've started, and I've given you some ideas of the feedback on it. It's not as simple as saying, right, we don't talk about politics anymore. It's just not as simple as that. That said, I don't know whether some of this, some of this pushback is coming from because people want to talk about politics, where people feel like they're being a little bit sort of like You know, free speech is taken away from them in their company, or maybe they just don't like David and Jason. I don't know. Anyway, Lee, that's kind of where we're up to. What are your thoughts? [13:04] Leanne Elliott: Um, is Basecamp remote? 100% remote? [13:08] Al Elliott: Uh, not 100%, but mainly remote, yes. Right [13:11] Leanne Elliott: The problem with this and why it creates beef and a bit of saltiness, um, is because there's no consistency and there's some incongruence there. I could, I could have argued You know, at least you've taken a stance and you're standing by it until you hosted, um, the, um, the Chicago mayor for their political campaign [13:32] Al Elliott: To be fair, that was in 2018, and this was 2022 when they made the decision [13:35] Leanne Elliott: Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Oh, fair enough then. My misunderstanding. Scrap that. Um, I guess it's one of those, isn't it? It's, it's fine if you want to kind of— it's clarity in processes and policy is always really good. So it's very clear, isn't it, that we don't talk about that. On an online thing, which I'm guessing is going to be something like Slack or whatever internal kind of chat internet platform thingy they use. Um, yeah, all right then, because I guess you can always, you know, if you've got a friend, you can always give them a call, or if you see them in the office when you are there, chat about things. I think the challenge is, is when, when politically there is a lot happening that actually has a direct impact on a lot of people, um, in terms of health policy, in terms of immigration, There is a lot of things that are happening that will actually cause anxiety amongst your people and concern around your people, um, in terms of their health, in terms of their safety, in terms of their way of life. So putting kind of a hard block on it might create a challenge for the psychological safety needed when somebody needs to raise this with their manager because it's directly impacting them. They're feeling anxious about it. It could raise an extra barrier, but then I You know, maybe there is something in the policy that says under these circumstances you are allowed to escalate to your manager. Maybe it's more about escalation's fine, general chatter is not, in which case, yeah, maybe [14:56] Al Elliott: So, Leanne, what else have you seen this week?