Making Sense - Sam Harris - #253

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast.

00:00:08.860 This is Sam Harris.

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00:00:47.160 Today I'm speaking with Jason Fried.

00:00:50.580 Jason is the co-founder and CEO of Basecamp,

00:00:54.760 formerly 37signals,

00:00:56.540 which is a Chicago-based software firm.

00:01:00.000 which produces the Basecamp product.

00:01:03.460 He's also the co-author of the book,

00:01:05.540 Rework, among others.

00:01:07.780 And he also writes Inc. magazine's Get Real column.

00:01:12.000 And I invited Jason on the podcast

00:01:14.040 to discuss the recent controversy

00:01:16.440 over his no-politics policy at Basecamp,

00:01:20.920 which caused quite a firestorm on social media,

00:01:24.260 as you'll hear.

00:01:25.880 We discuss the pervasive failure of institutional nerve

00:01:29.880 in the face of all of this social justice activism,

00:01:33.420 how our politics has acquired a religious fervor of late,

00:01:38.380 some of the cultural risks of remote work,

00:01:41.700 how to keep activists out of one's company,

00:01:45.120 antitrust regulations for big tech,

00:01:47.680 how social media might be improved,

00:01:49.660 pro-publica's recent disclosure of the tax avoidance schemes

00:01:54.840 of the richest Americans,

00:01:56.220 the prospect of implementing a wealth tax,

00:01:59.520 and other topics.

00:02:02.240 Anyway, a very timely conversation

00:02:04.360 and a counterpoint to some recent podcasts

00:02:07.580 where I focused on corporate cowardice.

00:02:10.040 Here we have an example of corporate courage,

00:02:13.120 which is certainly worth celebrating.

00:02:16.240 And to that end, I bring you Jason Fried.

00:02:26.700 I am here with Jason Fried.

00:02:29.080 I'm sure there's a lot we could talk about.

00:02:31.180 You have an interesting background,

00:02:33.300 but we have a specific thing to talk about,

00:02:36.620 which we'll get to in a second.

00:02:37.960 But before we do, perhaps you can summarize

00:02:40.240 what you've been up to the low these many years.

00:02:44.300 How do you describe what it is you do?

00:02:46.560 And in particular, the company you started, Basecamp,

00:02:49.940 what does that do?

00:02:51.620 What is the product for those who have not experienced it?

00:02:55.320 Yeah, sure.

00:02:56.240 So back in 1999, I started a business set called 37 Signals.

00:02:59.640 We were originally a web design company.

00:03:02.200 And over a number of years,

00:03:03.660 we eventually morphed into doing software development.

00:03:05.740 And we did that because the work we were doing

00:03:10.880 was website design,

00:03:12.600 and we needed a better way to manage that work.

00:03:15.020 We were using email and shooting things back and forth,

00:03:17.440 and things were getting lost.

00:03:18.640 So we eventually made this thing for ourselves,

00:03:21.620 which wasn't called Basecamp yet,

00:03:23.500 but it was like a project management tool,

00:03:25.640 internal communication thing.

00:03:27.000 And eventually, we started using it with our clients,

00:03:29.460 and they liked it.

00:03:30.520 And we said, you know,

00:03:31.580 maybe we can turn this into a product.

00:03:32.820 And we did that in like 2004.

00:03:35.800 So since 2004, we've been making software.

00:03:39.280 We've made a variety of different products over the years.

00:03:41.020 This is software as a service,

00:03:42.180 stuff you'd use online.

00:03:43.880 And, you know, we've always been a very unusual company

00:03:47.260 in that we've done things our own way.

00:03:49.580 We're fully independent.

00:03:51.040 We're privately funded by ourselves and our customers,

00:03:53.060 so we don't take outside money.

00:03:55.520 And we've always sort of taken a different path

00:03:58.680 than the rest of the industry.

00:03:59.620 We've pushed back pretty hard

00:04:00.620 against a number of different things.

00:04:01.820 But basically, we make two things,

00:04:03.980 Basecamp, which is a project management

00:04:05.460 and sort of internal collaboration tool for remote work.

00:04:09.340 And also, we make something called Hey,

00:04:10.780 which is H-E-Y.com,

00:04:13.020 which is our newest product,

00:04:14.240 which is an email service.

00:04:15.280 And so those are the two things we make today.

00:04:18.400 And how big a company is it,

00:04:19.640 both in terms of employees and revenue or valuation,

00:04:23.600 however you'd want to consider its scale?

00:04:25.840 Yeah, I mean, I can rail on or rant on against valuations

00:04:30.880 because I think they're kind of ridiculous.

00:04:32.000 So I'll just give you a sense of,

00:04:34.140 we've historically been, you know,

00:04:35.900 at our largest, about 60 people.

00:04:39.220 And since we're private, I don't disclose exact revenues,

00:04:42.360 but we generate tens of millions of dollars

00:04:43.900 in annual revenues and annual profits.

00:04:46.260 And we've been profitable every year

00:04:48.400 since we started the business in 1999.

00:04:50.220 Nice. And you've also had a fairly intentional consideration

00:04:57.420 of culture and business philosophy.

00:05:00.820 I mean, you've published several books about business

00:05:03.700 and you write for Inc., I believe, regularly.

00:05:08.360 So maybe you can summarize how you've thought about business

00:05:12.260 and business culture up until this moment.

00:05:15.400 Yeah. You know, we are an independent company.

00:05:19.040 And I believe in independence and small businesses.

00:05:23.040 And, you know, part of the reason why

00:05:24.720 we haven't taken outside money

00:05:25.860 is because we don't want to be beholden to someone else.

00:05:30.100 We want to do what we think is right.

00:05:31.960 We want to try things.

00:05:32.900 We want to experiment with things.

00:05:34.080 And we've found that the only way to do that

00:05:35.820 is to be independent.

00:05:37.340 So I'll give you a sense of some of the things

00:05:38.920 that are different about Basecamp.

00:05:40.740 First of all, in our industry, which is the tech industry,

00:05:43.220 people are used to overwork

00:05:44.600 and just being driven really, really hard,

00:05:47.140 10, 12-hour days, all-nighters, weekends, the whole thing.

00:05:50.640 We just expect an eight-hour day from people.

00:05:52.760 Eight-hour day, 40-hour week, very standard,

00:05:54.820 very mainstream, very old school kind of work environment

00:05:57.760 in that way, which is just give us a good day.

00:06:00.480 Eight hours, that's plenty of time to do great work.

00:06:03.060 And because of that, we require a certain degree of focus

00:06:06.060 and attention to be put on that work,

00:06:08.340 which is why we try to eliminate a number of distractions.

00:06:11.140 For example, we don't really have meetings at Basecamp.

00:06:13.760 If people need to get together, it might be two or three people,

00:06:16.740 but we don't have scheduled meetings.

00:06:18.100 We don't have daily stand-ups.

00:06:19.160 We don't have a bunch of all-hands.

00:06:20.300 We don't have the type of culture that a lot of companies do,

00:06:23.260 which people are just drowned by meetings constantly.

00:06:25.920 They're in them all day.

00:06:27.840 And they're chunking your day into smaller and smaller bits,

00:06:30.180 and no one has time to get work done

00:06:31.480 because you've got only 15 minutes here

00:06:33.140 or maybe an hour there before the next meeting.

00:06:34.840 So we kind of stay away from that kind of stuff.

00:06:37.220 We do four-day weeks in the summer.

00:06:39.980 So basically May through September,

00:06:41.860 we only do four-day weeks, which is a 32-hour week,

00:06:44.900 which is really unusual.

00:06:46.100 We've worked remotely for about 20 years.

00:06:48.920 We have a very different approach,

00:06:51.000 and our general approach is let's focus on the stuff that matters.

00:06:53.580 Let's get rid of the things that don't.

00:06:55.280 Let's put in a good day's work,

00:06:56.680 and then let's have a life,

00:06:58.120 which is, again, very weird in the tech world,

00:07:01.380 which is not about life.

00:07:02.660 It's about work all the time,

00:07:04.120 and we're not about that.

00:07:05.400 So there's a bunch of other things as well,

00:07:07.280 but those are some of the fundamental things

00:07:09.220 that we've done to make this place a different place.

00:07:12.620 So you guys must have weathered COVID

00:07:15.140 better than many other companies.

00:07:17.320 You were already fully distributed?

00:07:20.380 We're pretty much.

00:07:21.520 So we've had an office in Chicago

00:07:22.980 for the past 10 or so years,

00:07:25.820 but most of our employees are all over the place,

00:07:29.260 so outside of Chicago.

00:07:30.260 So we have people in the U.S. and Canada and Europe,

00:07:32.860 Hong Kong and Australia,

00:07:33.880 and we've always been remote.

00:07:36.380 Even the local people who lived in Chicago,

00:07:38.920 they may have come into the office

00:07:39.860 once or twice a week.

00:07:40.840 So we've always essentially worked

00:07:42.360 as if we were a remote company.

00:07:44.120 And I think we did weather it pretty well

00:07:45.960 because we were used to it.

00:07:47.300 We didn't have to scramble to figure this stuff out.

00:07:49.720 But at the same time, I think it hurt us

00:07:52.120 because we'd always leaned on each other

00:07:55.700 a couple weeks a year.

00:07:57.340 So we would fly everybody into Chicago twice a year

00:08:00.000 for about a week to have these in-person meetups

00:08:02.360 where we got to share a meal and hang out

00:08:05.160 and have some FaceTime

00:08:06.540 and just have some social interactions,

00:08:08.820 which we hadn't been able to do for the past year

00:08:10.700 because of COVID.

00:08:11.500 And the last time we did it, I think,

00:08:12.960 was fall of 2019.

00:08:16.060 So it had been a while,

00:08:17.900 and I think it was a problem

00:08:19.760 because, and by the way,

00:08:20.960 everyone's going through this as well,

00:08:22.360 so this isn't unique to us,

00:08:23.560 but I think we realized how important it was

00:08:26.500 or it is to see each other at least occasionally

00:08:30.340 and remind ourselves that we're all human,

00:08:33.060 we're all soft-bodied organisms here,

00:08:35.540 and we have feelings, we have emotions,

00:08:37.280 and we're complicated.

00:08:38.560 And I think we lost a little bit of that through COVID.

00:08:41.240 And I think, I know a lot of people have,

00:08:42.620 it's been a very difficult year

00:08:43.760 for a lot of companies, obviously, a lot of people.

00:08:46.220 Okay, so what happened?

00:08:47.700 I mean, now we have a picture of you as an employer

00:08:49.720 that sounds quite domineering and depressive,

00:08:53.620 and I can imagine that your workforce

00:08:55.340 is looking for every opportunity to revolt.

00:08:59.760 So what has brought us together for this podcast?

00:09:03.580 Well, it's been about almost two months now.

00:09:06.720 In mid-April, we announced a policy change

00:09:09.620 that basically said, you know,

00:09:12.380 we're not going to start talking,

00:09:13.460 or we're not going to continue to talk politics at work.

00:09:16.600 I'd say over the past few years,

00:09:18.100 probably starting in, you know, 2016,

00:09:20.340 as a lot of things started in 2016,

00:09:22.440 and through the 2020 election and beyond now,

00:09:25.800 politics has invaded every aspect of life, obviously,

00:09:29.380 and it's become incredibly contentious.

00:09:31.240 And it was sort of leaking into our day-to-day too often.

00:09:36.260 Not every day, but enough.

00:09:38.240 And we'd been at this kind of low simmer for a while

00:09:41.000 where we sort of felt like

00:09:42.220 it was just part of life at work,

00:09:45.420 but it started to get more and more concentrated,

00:09:47.860 and the boil began to heat up.

00:09:50.260 And we were having discussions in the company

00:09:54.420 that were company-wide.

00:09:56.360 So, you know, between 50 and 60 people

00:09:57.900 were participating in these conversations,

00:09:59.300 or at least receiving the notifications

00:10:00.900 that weren't all participating,

00:10:02.480 where things started just to go off the rails

00:10:04.880 in a way that felt very nonproductive and unhealthy.

00:10:07.960 And when I say nonproductive,

00:10:09.700 I don't mean, like, measuring productivity.

00:10:12.180 I just mean, like,

00:10:13.460 this is not the kind of general mind space

00:10:18.480 we should be in at work.

00:10:19.780 We shouldn't be debating

00:10:20.660 the most complicated issues of the day.

00:10:22.900 I mean, these topics are hard enough to discuss, period.

00:10:27.400 Professionals have a hard time discussing this stuff.

00:10:30.060 And, you know, to think that all we have to do

00:10:32.060 is mix work in there,

00:10:33.240 and that'll be the antidote,

00:10:34.200 and work will make it better.

00:10:35.380 I mean, it's just the opposite.

00:10:36.260 Work makes it incredibly hard

00:10:37.720 to have conversations like this.

00:10:39.200 And so we just decided,

00:10:40.680 when I say we, I mean, David and I,

00:10:42.100 we're the two owners of the business.

00:10:44.080 We decided that we were going to

00:10:46.200 not have political discussions

00:10:47.760 inside Basecamp any longer.

00:10:49.760 Now, to be clear,

00:10:51.120 let me just clarify a couple things.

00:10:52.340 So when I say inside Basecamp,

00:10:54.320 Basecamp is the name of the company,

00:10:55.720 but also the name of our product.

00:10:57.340 So when I say inside Basecamp,

00:10:58.820 I mean in Basecamp the product

00:11:01.120 where we do our work,

00:11:02.500 which is where we do all of our work,

00:11:04.680 we just don't want political conversations

00:11:06.260 leaking into that.

00:11:07.120 If you want to set up a Signal account,

00:11:08.880 a group, WhatsApp,

00:11:10.300 whatever you want to do,

00:11:11.080 a Discord thing to talk about that

00:11:12.440 during the day, that's fine.

00:11:13.680 But we can't have this in front of everybody

00:11:15.920 whenever at random times.

00:11:18.360 Now, we're also quite political

00:11:20.340 as an organization in a different way,

00:11:22.140 in that we are very outspoken

00:11:24.600 about things that involve our work.

00:11:28.060 So we're very much in favor

00:11:30.200 of antitrust regulations against big tech.

00:11:32.700 We're very much in favor

00:11:33.880 of more privacy regulations

00:11:35.240 because we think that big tech

00:11:36.940 is just basically in everyone's face

00:11:38.880 all the time,

00:11:39.480 in everyone's business all the time.

00:11:40.640 It's unhealthy.

00:11:41.380 So we push against that.

00:11:42.820 We've gotten into some very public battles

00:11:44.340 with Apple about the App Store

00:11:45.620 and their rules.

00:11:46.800 So we are still going to be involved

00:11:49.200 in political discussions

00:11:50.060 that directly touch the edges of our work,

00:11:52.860 but that's the limit

00:11:54.180 of what we're comfortable doing.

00:11:55.500 And so we made that declaration,

00:11:56.460 along with a few others,

00:11:58.260 and things kind of went sideways, let's say.

00:12:01.720 We had about,

00:12:02.540 at the end of the period of time

00:12:05.640 where this was sort of a topic,

00:12:07.040 we had about 20,

00:12:08.540 a little bit over 20 people leave the company.

00:12:10.860 So that's a third of your workforce.

00:12:13.100 Basically, yeah.

00:12:13.880 And a couple other things to share here,

00:12:16.460 which is that

00:12:16.960 we offered an extremely generous severance package.

00:12:21.180 Six-month severance for anyone

00:12:22.640 who'd been here for more than a few years,

00:12:24.200 and three months,

00:12:24.960 or yeah, three months,

00:12:25.820 if you've only been here for a few.

00:12:27.740 And some people took us up on that

00:12:29.420 outside of the policy changes.

00:12:30.820 They were just ready to go anyway,

00:12:32.640 and they were looking for a new opportunity,

00:12:34.520 and this was a good chance for them to do that.

00:12:36.500 That said,

00:12:37.100 the majority of people probably left

00:12:38.540 because of the policy change that we made.

00:12:40.180 So it was a very difficult time,

00:12:42.800 a sad time.

00:12:44.100 And I know a lot of people were sad,

00:12:47.980 and it was challenging,

00:12:49.520 a very challenging,

00:12:50.220 kind of an existential moment for us

00:12:51.700 as a company of roughly 60

00:12:53.380 to have a third leave.

00:12:55.080 But we survived it,

00:12:56.400 and we're here to grow again.

00:12:58.480 But it was a very interesting process,

00:13:00.060 and I learned a whole lot about group dynamics,

00:13:02.960 and especially social media pressure,

00:13:05.860 and sort of the toxicity, of course,

00:13:07.920 that we all know is there.

00:13:09.020 But then when you're part of it,

00:13:10.220 and you see it coming directed at you,

00:13:12.040 it's a whole other thing.

00:13:13.020 And that was an eye-opener,

00:13:14.720 even though I knew it.

00:13:15.780 But to feel it is different.

00:13:17.360 And it was challenging.

00:13:18.880 So here we are.

00:13:19.540 But we made the decision.

00:13:20.520 We think it's still the right call.

00:13:22.120 We think this decision is right.

00:13:23.520 And we think that we're early on it.

00:13:25.620 We have a history of being early.

00:13:27.700 You know, we've been working remotely

00:13:29.660 for a long time

00:13:30.780 before other companies had done it.

00:13:32.640 40 work weeks is still, of course,

00:13:33.980 not a thing most companies would do.

00:13:36.040 We pushed very hard against venture capital,

00:13:38.460 and you're starting to see

00:13:39.460 more of a bootstrap revolution

00:13:40.760 happening right now.

00:13:41.480 We've been preaching this for 20 years.

00:13:44.260 There's a number of other things

00:13:45.260 that we've done ahead of the pack.

00:13:47.460 And I think that sometimes

00:13:48.660 when you're early,

00:13:49.440 it hurts even more.

00:13:51.120 You've got to put your neck out there

00:13:52.080 and give something a try.

00:13:53.580 But to me, this is an extension

00:13:54.880 of the experiment, which is Basecamp.

00:13:57.160 And we feel almost a moral obligation

00:13:59.900 to live up to our independence

00:14:02.520 and to do things that other people

00:14:04.260 wouldn't give us permission to do.

00:14:06.020 That is why I'm an entrepreneur,

00:14:08.000 to do things that I wouldn't have

00:14:09.480 permission to do otherwise.

00:14:10.640 Because if you're just going to do

00:14:12.380 what someone's going to tell you to do,

00:14:13.440 you might as well go get a job.

00:14:14.620 It's kind of how I look at it.

00:14:16.020 So we take that seriously,

00:14:17.600 and we give things a shot,

00:14:18.420 and we try things out,

00:14:19.180 and we see what happens.

00:14:20.020 And time always tells,

00:14:21.180 and we'll see,

00:14:21.740 we'll look back on this,

00:14:22.540 you know, a year from now or two

00:14:23.740 and see how it all played out.

00:14:24.940 So things must have been heating up

00:14:28.820 prior to your change of policy, right?

00:14:32.400 Because you kind of ripped the band-aid off

00:14:34.840 with the policy change.

00:14:36.740 But prior to that,

00:14:38.740 were there signs that things were

00:14:42.180 becoming dysfunctional at the company,

00:14:44.320 or was it really at a very low simmer

00:14:46.980 and you just decided this was,

00:14:48.780 this is just something that needed

00:14:50.520 to be corrected going forward.

00:14:52.740 And then things only got chaotic

00:14:55.200 after you announced the new policy.

00:14:57.860 I think it's,

00:14:58.740 it had been ramping up.

00:15:00.520 Now I have a organizational view

00:15:02.880 that's different than

00:15:03.760 some people who only see

00:15:05.460 part of the organization.

00:15:06.360 I'm the CEO.

00:15:07.280 I'm part of all the discussions.

00:15:08.800 I see what's going on.

00:15:09.880 I'm part of other discussions

00:15:11.080 that aren't public inside the company.

00:15:13.320 And there was a ramp up.

00:15:15.680 Now, I'm only willing to talk about

00:15:17.560 the things that have been made public

00:15:18.660 because everything else

00:15:19.440 is a private internal conversation,

00:15:20.900 of course.

00:15:21.400 But the thing that ultimately

00:15:22.980 sort of ripped it all off,

00:15:25.080 I think,

00:15:25.500 was this conversation that was had about,

00:15:28.520 and this has all been made public.

00:15:29.780 It leaked.

00:15:30.660 So here it is.

00:15:32.180 There was a list of names

00:15:33.300 that had been kept

00:15:35.180 by some people in the company.

00:15:37.820 Sort of, you would call them,

00:15:38.860 well, they were,

00:15:39.800 they were considered to be

00:15:40.740 funny sounding names.

00:15:42.580 Now, this was a serious

00:15:44.000 lapse of judgment.

00:15:45.380 And when I say names,

00:15:46.260 these are customer names

00:15:47.160 that had come in

00:15:48.000 via customer service emails.

00:15:50.580 And this is a terrible

00:15:51.680 lapse of judgment.

00:15:52.460 And I feel responsible too.

00:15:53.640 I knew about this list

00:15:54.520 about a decade ago

00:15:55.500 when it first began.

00:15:56.980 And I sort of thought

00:15:58.600 it was put away at some point,

00:16:00.580 but apparently it continued

00:16:01.620 and it was growing.

00:16:04.280 It hadn't been updated

00:16:05.380 for many, many years,

00:16:06.340 but it existed

00:16:06.920 and it had been moved

00:16:07.440 between systems,

00:16:09.120 like upgraded,

00:16:10.020 moved between different file services

00:16:11.620 and whatnot.

00:16:12.860 Anyway, at some point,

00:16:15.080 an employee apologized

00:16:16.200 for being part of that list.

00:16:18.340 And I thought that apology

00:16:19.180 was very fair and great.

00:16:21.440 But in addition to that apology,

00:16:23.880 there was a chart

00:16:25.300 that was posted along

00:16:26.380 with the apology,

00:16:27.220 which is actually

00:16:27.720 the ADL Pyramid of Hate.

00:16:30.340 I don't know if you're familiar

00:16:30.980 with that pyramid,

00:16:32.700 where at the bottom

00:16:33.300 you have, I think,

00:16:33.780 microaggressions

00:16:34.460 and it kind of goes up

00:16:35.240 three or four levels.

00:16:36.100 To the top, it's genocide.

00:16:37.360 And the suggestion

00:16:38.820 ultimately was

00:16:39.800 that if we are going

00:16:42.300 to be making fun

00:16:43.280 of people's names,

00:16:44.000 which again was a major mistake,

00:16:46.280 that we could end up

00:16:48.000 literally genocidal,

00:16:51.320 which is just such an,

00:16:53.100 I don't know,

00:16:53.820 it's just,

00:16:54.520 I mean,

00:16:55.300 it's obviously what it is.

00:16:57.620 It doesn't make any sense.

00:16:59.080 I think you might need

00:16:59.720 to take some VC money

00:17:00.780 to bring that project to scale.

00:17:02.400 We would need some more people.

00:17:04.160 That's true.

00:17:05.060 That might be one reason

00:17:05.780 to do it, right?

00:17:06.480 So, but, you know,

00:17:08.180 the thing is

00:17:08.700 that was so interesting

00:17:09.380 about it was that

00:17:10.180 some people thought

00:17:11.320 that that was just simply okay.

00:17:13.460 And I could not wrap my head

00:17:16.180 around how we got to a place

00:17:17.820 where we were talking

00:17:18.600 about genocide at work.

00:17:20.780 And the subject of the genocide

00:17:22.760 was that we were potentially

00:17:24.660 going in that direction

00:17:26.440 if we were willing

00:17:28.340 to make fun of people's names,

00:17:30.080 which again was wrong.

00:17:31.280 And the thing that's

00:17:31.900 so interesting to me

00:17:32.700 is that there's got to be

00:17:34.220 a time and a place

00:17:34.980 where you can say,

00:17:35.640 we screwed up

00:17:36.480 and we're sorry

00:17:38.440 and it can end there.

00:17:40.020 But in some cases,

00:17:42.220 it can't end there

00:17:43.380 unless you come to a full account

00:17:45.680 of all the horrors

00:17:46.880 that it could also end up leading to.

00:17:49.460 And I just felt,

00:17:50.580 and David and I both looked at that

00:17:52.060 and said,

00:17:52.540 this has to be the end of that

00:17:54.400 because we can't normalize,

00:17:56.780 literally normalize discussions

00:17:57.920 about genocide

00:17:58.680 that we were potentially,

00:18:00.720 you know,

00:18:01.400 going to commit,

00:18:02.580 right?

00:18:03.400 Inside our company,

00:18:04.220 this is just so out of proportion.

00:18:06.180 And that was ultimately

00:18:07.660 what it was.

00:18:08.800 But there had been a boil

00:18:10.140 and this was sort of the moment

00:18:11.980 where like,

00:18:12.340 we can't let this continue.

00:18:13.780 This just doesn't make any sense.

00:18:16.200 Would I be right in guessing

00:18:17.220 that the person who alleged

00:18:18.500 that you were on the ramp

00:18:20.400 to genocide

00:18:20.960 is also a person

00:18:22.260 who took the buyout

00:18:23.100 when you offered it?

00:18:24.400 Yes.

00:18:24.700 Well,

00:18:26.260 obviously this is not just a problem

00:18:28.020 for Basecamp

00:18:28.920 and that's why we're having

00:18:29.620 this conversation,

00:18:30.920 but it has become

00:18:32.100 system-wide

00:18:33.580 in media

00:18:34.600 and tech

00:18:35.360 and Hollywood

00:18:36.820 and it's just,

00:18:38.120 it truly is ubiquitous

00:18:39.340 and that's what's so

00:18:40.660 alarming to many of us

00:18:42.720 that there's a fringe phenomenon

00:18:44.040 which should be a fringe phenomenon

00:18:45.380 on the left

00:18:46.960 that is capturing

00:18:48.600 our institutions

00:18:49.900 and, you know,

00:18:51.240 the K-12 education now

00:18:53.000 to a remarkable degree.

00:18:54.740 I mean,

00:18:54.940 I tend to describe

00:18:56.320 what we're witnessing

00:18:57.340 under the guise

00:18:58.660 of social justice politics

00:19:00.480 as a kind of moral panic

00:19:02.260 and,

00:19:03.460 I mean,

00:19:03.640 this is not to say

00:19:04.360 that racism

00:19:05.040 and sexism

00:19:06.040 and transphobia

00:19:07.420 aren't problems

00:19:08.440 anywhere.

00:19:09.720 I think they clearly are,

00:19:11.080 but they're not problems

00:19:12.500 everywhere

00:19:13.100 and they're being treated

00:19:15.340 as such

00:19:15.940 by a large group

00:19:17.200 of activists

00:19:17.900 and cult leaders,

00:19:20.140 frankly,

00:19:20.580 I mean,

00:19:20.720 people like Ibram X. Kendi

00:19:22.120 who are pushing

00:19:24.520 a politics

00:19:25.380 on the rest of the country

00:19:26.740 that resembles

00:19:28.020 nothing so much

00:19:29.060 as mental illness

00:19:30.400 and because they enjoy

00:19:33.340 this asymmetrical advantage

00:19:35.300 with respect

00:19:36.200 to social stigma

00:19:37.220 because being accused

00:19:38.380 of racism

00:19:39.060 in particular

00:19:39.880 is so destructive

00:19:41.660 to a person's reputation,

00:19:43.800 these activists

00:19:44.580 are successfully silencing

00:19:47.340 and cowing

00:19:48.600 most good people

00:19:50.380 and the people

00:19:52.340 who do have the courage

00:19:53.520 to call bullshit

00:19:55.040 on all this dishonesty

00:19:56.520 and bullying

00:19:57.080 can be made to seem

00:19:58.640 like they're joining

00:19:59.440 the ranks of bad people

00:20:00.660 who are really racist

00:20:01.900 and sexist

00:20:02.620 and transphobic.

00:20:03.780 So now we have

00:20:04.860 the spectacle

00:20:05.440 of some of the least

00:20:07.760 racist people

00:20:08.800 and institutions

00:20:09.880 on earth

00:20:10.660 issuing abject apologies,

00:20:14.440 the kinds of apologies

00:20:15.300 that would seem appropriate

00:20:17.120 in an exit interview

00:20:18.680 from the Ku Klux Klan

00:20:19.880 just rending themselves

00:20:21.840 over their past sins

00:20:23.740 and I mean this is something

00:20:26.160 that recently happened

00:20:26.920 that you may have heard

00:20:28.460 about this

00:20:28.900 at Juilliard, right,

00:20:30.680 and its drama department

00:20:32.400 in particular

00:20:33.220 just tore itself apart

00:20:35.020 over its alleged racism

00:20:36.720 but the drama department

00:20:38.620 at Juilliard

00:20:39.420 is 50% black

00:20:41.280 and it's circulating

00:20:43.100 crazed lists

00:20:44.540 of demands to itself

00:20:45.940 talking about how

00:20:47.200 black bodies

00:20:48.040 are being subjected

00:20:48.880 to violence

00:20:49.580 under this appallingly

00:20:50.900 racist regime

00:20:52.300 at Juilliard

00:20:52.960 and so this has become

00:20:54.820 like the Salem witch trials

00:20:56.560 and I remain convinced

00:20:59.420 that this fever

00:21:00.960 will break

00:21:01.540 at some point

00:21:02.180 and that sane people

00:21:03.460 will step forward

00:21:04.180 and acknowledge

00:21:04.780 that while there's still

00:21:06.120 a lot of work to do

00:21:07.000 to address specific

00:21:08.020 inequalities in our society,

00:21:09.400 we have made

00:21:10.820 tremendous progress.

00:21:12.100 I mean there is in fact

00:21:13.300 less racism

00:21:14.240 and sexism

00:21:15.080 and transphobia

00:21:16.020 at this moment

00:21:16.800 in America

00:21:17.340 in particular

00:21:18.720 in our institutions

00:21:19.780 than there has ever been

00:21:21.800 anywhere on earth

00:21:22.980 and not to acknowledge

00:21:24.380 that is becoming

00:21:25.940 increasingly perverse

00:21:27.520 even while you

00:21:28.620 are right to want

00:21:30.620 to work

00:21:31.160 to resolve

00:21:32.220 remaining inequalities.

00:21:34.400 So what you've done

00:21:35.720 here I think is

00:21:37.460 you know

00:21:38.480 if it hasn't been

00:21:39.160 celebrated sufficiently yet

00:21:40.820 it will one day be

00:21:42.860 because I mean

00:21:43.840 that the lack

00:21:44.460 of institutional courage

00:21:45.880 we're seeing

00:21:46.640 in the most profitable

00:21:48.720 companies

00:21:50.000 that have ever existed

00:21:51.560 I mean a company

00:21:52.360 like Apple

00:21:52.960 right which is just

00:21:54.040 showing every sign

00:21:55.120 of capitulating

00:21:55.860 the moment

00:21:56.700 a Twitter thread

00:21:57.620 gets started

00:21:58.240 it's really shocking

00:22:00.040 and totally dysfunctional.

00:22:02.440 How do you view

00:22:03.200 the landscape

00:22:04.520 of tech in particular?

00:22:06.820 I mean how many

00:22:07.920 there are a few other

00:22:08.860 companies who have done

00:22:10.020 more or less

00:22:11.280 what you've done

00:22:11.920 I mean I'm thinking

00:22:12.400 of Coinbase

00:22:13.320 and Shopify

00:22:13.980 I think in the case

00:22:15.500 of Coinbase

00:22:16.220 I certainly didn't hear

00:22:17.300 they paid the same

00:22:19.300 kind of price

00:22:20.120 you did in terms

00:22:20.860 of employees leaving

00:22:22.700 and perhaps

00:22:23.160 they didn't offer

00:22:23.960 the same kind

00:22:24.600 of generous

00:22:25.140 exit package

00:22:26.360 but how do you view

00:22:27.800 your tech colleagues

00:22:29.840 and their commitment

00:22:31.720 or lack thereof

00:22:32.720 to holding the line here?

00:22:35.860 Yeah

00:22:36.100 well there's a few

00:22:37.440 things going on

00:22:38.240 first of all

00:22:38.640 there does appear

00:22:39.240 to be a tinge

00:22:41.200 of sort of

00:22:41.660 a religious fervor

00:22:43.140 about this

00:22:43.960 and you know

00:22:44.340 I will say

00:22:45.680 everybody who's

00:22:46.720 ever worked here

00:22:47.460 I think is a wonderful person

00:22:48.600 and they have a great heart

00:22:49.640 and their intentions

00:22:50.400 are good

00:22:50.880 I don't wish

00:22:52.620 ill will on anybody

00:22:53.500 and I think that

00:22:54.840 people are making

00:22:55.620 their own personal decisions

00:22:56.640 and I'm fine with

00:22:57.520 the decisions people make

00:22:58.580 the problem though

00:22:59.660 is that when

00:23:00.240 the alternative

00:23:01.340 is that

00:23:01.920 you know

00:23:02.820 the takes

00:23:03.720 are so uncharitable

00:23:04.640 that

00:23:05.160 if you stick around here

00:23:07.120 I mean there was

00:23:07.620 some threats

00:23:08.400 like to people

00:23:09.880 who work here still

00:23:10.980 and I'm very

00:23:12.420 very appreciative

00:23:13.140 of the people

00:23:13.600 who stayed

00:23:14.080 and lived through this

00:23:15.140 because some of them

00:23:16.100 were being threatened

00:23:16.880 terribly

00:23:17.840 that you know

00:23:19.020 they were racist

00:23:20.020 and they are white supremacists

00:23:21.680 and that they are fascist

00:23:23.000 or part of a fascist regime

00:23:24.240 it's like

00:23:24.580 the most uncharitable

00:23:25.620 possible takes

00:23:26.600 on people

00:23:27.580 when it

00:23:28.140 when it defaults

00:23:29.280 to that

00:23:29.900 that's a problem

00:23:31.340 that is

00:23:32.800 like they're heretics

00:23:34.080 basically

00:23:34.520 and that

00:23:35.240 that sits with me

00:23:37.020 that does not sit well

00:23:38.140 with me at all

00:23:39.060 to go straight there

00:23:40.780 just does not make sense

00:23:41.960 and it's funny

00:23:42.720 like I'm Jewish

00:23:43.460 I was called

00:23:44.520 a Nazi

00:23:45.140 I was called

00:23:46.200 a white supremacist

00:23:47.000 of course white supremacists

00:23:47.960 want me dead too

00:23:48.940 like to even

00:23:49.980 have a suggestion

00:23:51.320 that I

00:23:51.760 I would side with that

00:23:53.160 is just to

00:23:54.360 be completely

00:23:55.220 blinded

00:23:56.400 to the realities

00:23:57.220 of what that is

00:23:58.240 anyway

00:23:59.040 that's

00:23:59.580 what happened is

00:24:00.480 is that

00:24:00.920 Twitter

00:24:01.380 the other thing

00:24:01.760 I've kind of

00:24:02.540 noticed here

00:24:03.120 and by the way

00:24:03.440 I've been off Twitter

00:24:04.180 for about two months

00:24:05.000 I was off at about

00:24:05.720 a week prior

00:24:06.440 to to this

00:24:08.260 all going down

00:24:09.120 and I'm glad

00:24:10.080 that I was

00:24:10.960 because my sanity

00:24:11.820 was was maintained

00:24:13.040 to some degree

00:24:13.820 during this this process

00:24:15.100 but I was shown

00:24:16.000 screenshots

00:24:16.560 of what was going

00:24:18.040 on on Twitter

00:24:18.580 and the amount

00:24:20.300 of shame

00:24:21.060 and bullying

00:24:21.820 directed at

00:24:22.820 our employees

00:24:23.640 and that people

00:24:24.800 who work here

00:24:25.480 was just

00:24:26.400 horrifying

00:24:27.260 and what's

00:24:28.500 interesting is that

00:24:29.240 I think part of the

00:24:30.020 reason why

00:24:30.460 for example

00:24:30.860 Coinbase

00:24:31.360 I think they lost

00:24:31.940 something like

00:24:32.320 5% of their

00:24:33.060 workforce

00:24:33.380 something like

00:24:33.860 that

00:24:33.960 we lost

00:24:34.340 about 30

00:24:34.840 is that we

00:24:35.180 have a smaller

00:24:35.640 surface area

00:24:36.360 we have

00:24:37.400 60 people

00:24:38.860 and we had

00:24:39.820 a page

00:24:40.440 up at

00:24:40.800 basecamp.com

00:24:41.900 slash team

00:24:42.660 which we've

00:24:43.080 since taken

00:24:43.560 down

00:24:43.960 where everyone's

00:24:45.140 name was there

00:24:45.820 and people's

00:24:46.320 Twitter handles

00:24:47.000 were there

00:24:47.360 if they were

00:24:47.680 on Twitter

00:24:48.080 and it was

00:24:48.840 very easy

00:24:49.500 to throw

00:24:50.420 a mob

00:24:51.780 at that

00:24:52.500 small degree

00:24:53.380 of surface area

00:24:54.120 and literally

00:24:54.780 shame the hell

00:24:55.640 out of people

00:24:56.100 it's just

00:24:57.580 it's

00:24:58.420 you know

00:24:58.780 Twitter

00:24:59.460 and you know

00:25:00.760 look

00:25:00.880 I've been

00:25:01.600 on Twitter

00:25:01.940 for years

00:25:02.640 got a few

00:25:03.420 hundred thousand

00:25:03.920 followers

00:25:04.420 I've been

00:25:04.780 very active

00:25:05.340 on Twitter

00:25:05.880 and Twitter

00:25:07.160 is a double

00:25:07.800 edged sword

00:25:08.320 and I've

00:25:08.800 just come

00:25:09.140 to realize

00:25:09.700 that it's

00:25:10.020 actually

00:25:10.380 a terribly

00:25:11.780 toxic

00:25:12.240 soup

00:25:12.700 of complaints

00:25:14.080 and attacks

00:25:15.560 and I don't

00:25:17.520 want to soak

00:25:17.900 my mind

00:25:18.360 in that

00:25:18.620 anymore

00:25:18.880 so I'm

00:25:19.460 off of it

00:25:20.040 but I think

00:25:21.420 Twitter plays

00:25:21.920 a huge role

00:25:22.660 in this

00:25:23.220 and it's

00:25:23.540 one of the

00:25:23.820 reasons

00:25:24.040 why so

00:25:24.660 many

00:25:24.820 companies

00:25:25.320 are afraid

00:25:26.720 because

00:25:27.420 you get

00:25:28.460 a very

00:25:28.780 very vocal

00:25:29.420 group

00:25:30.280 grandstanding

00:25:31.480 and throwing

00:25:32.620 bombs

00:25:33.940 at individuals

00:25:35.400 I mean

00:25:35.840 who's going

00:25:36.120 to stand

00:25:36.480 up

00:25:36.760 to that

00:25:37.560 and I

00:25:38.440 don't blame

00:25:38.800 any of

00:25:39.100 our employees

00:25:39.620 who decided

00:25:40.120 they just

00:25:40.620 couldn't take

00:25:41.080 that

00:25:41.340 and they

00:25:41.620 decided

00:25:41.940 they had

00:25:42.280 to leave

00:25:42.560 too

00:25:42.760 because they

00:25:43.040 didn't

00:25:43.160 want to

00:25:43.360 be part

00:25:43.780 of that

00:25:44.000 I can

00:25:44.240 understand

00:25:44.660 that

00:25:44.900 I really

00:25:45.220 truly

00:25:45.520 can

00:25:45.880 that

00:25:46.320 that pressure

00:25:46.980 must be

00:25:47.380 enormous

00:25:47.820 and there

00:25:48.260 was moments

00:25:48.720 that I

00:25:49.500 wanted to

00:25:49.900 quit

00:25:50.140 like I

00:25:50.580 don't want

00:25:50.820 to do

00:25:51.040 this

00:25:51.260 anymore

00:25:51.620 I don't

00:25:52.400 want to

00:25:52.620 be subject

00:25:53.420 to this

00:25:53.860 how did

00:25:54.140 this

00:25:54.440 happen

00:25:54.800 so I

00:25:56.000 get I

00:25:56.660 get the

00:25:57.020 pressures

00:25:57.340 but I

00:25:57.640 think that's

00:25:58.080 part of

00:25:58.480 what's going

00:25:58.840 on if

00:25:59.180 there was

00:25:59.440 no Twitter

00:25:59.960 I think

00:26:00.940 things would

00:26:01.240 actually be

00:26:01.600 quite a bit

00:26:01.960 different

00:26:02.240 now Twitter

00:26:02.960 is also

00:26:03.300 wonderful

00:26:03.700 we've

00:26:04.540 managed to

00:26:05.260 make

00:26:05.640 serious

00:26:06.320 inroads

00:26:06.800 against

00:26:07.760 some stuff

00:26:08.360 that Apple

00:26:08.700 is doing

00:26:09.100 not around

00:26:10.600 this but

00:26:10.920 around the

00:26:11.240 app store

00:26:11.700 by by

00:26:12.540 marshalling

00:26:13.160 an audience

00:26:14.040 on Twitter

00:26:14.540 and getting

00:26:15.040 people to

00:26:15.400 understand our

00:26:16.000 point of

00:26:16.340 view and

00:26:16.600 our take

00:26:17.040 and Twitter

00:26:17.760 Twitter's

00:26:17.960 wonderful in

00:26:18.880 those ways

00:26:19.300 too but

00:26:19.720 man it's

00:26:20.320 such a

00:26:20.840 tricky place

00:26:21.460 and I

00:26:21.940 think that's

00:26:22.320 the main

00:26:22.760 thing that's

00:26:23.220 going on

00:26:23.760 is that

00:26:24.600 because Twitter

00:26:26.100 is so public

00:26:26.840 and because

00:26:27.880 there's no

00:26:28.340 identity

00:26:28.740 verification on

00:26:29.580 Twitter you

00:26:29.960 have no

00:26:30.400 idea who

00:26:31.560 is forming

00:26:32.700 the mob

00:26:33.140 is forming

00:26:33.580 the group

00:26:33.940 you just

00:26:34.240 don't know

00:26:34.680 and so

00:26:35.000 therefore

00:26:35.380 like there

00:26:36.600 are reasonable

00:26:37.520 good people

00:26:38.320 on there who

00:26:38.700 do have a

00:26:39.060 different point

00:26:39.460 of view

00:26:39.740 fine who

00:26:40.240 want to

00:26:40.540 throw some

00:26:41.400 bombs

00:26:42.020 that's fine

00:26:42.640 but there

00:26:43.320 could be

00:26:43.620 thousands or

00:26:44.300 tens of

00:26:44.680 thousands or

00:26:45.100 hundreds of

00:26:45.580 thousands of

00:26:46.080 fake accounts

00:26:46.860 you have no

00:26:47.360 idea what's

00:26:48.080 going on

00:26:48.480 on there

00:26:48.800 and they

00:26:49.760 can destroy

00:26:50.280 people and

00:26:50.900 that's really

00:26:51.880 sad so I

00:26:52.440 understand the

00:26:53.140 self-preservation

00:26:53.960 what it must

00:26:55.300 take at that

00:26:55.920 level to

00:26:57.100 sacrifice somebody

00:26:58.320 or something

00:26:59.000 to say we're

00:27:00.220 just gonna like I

00:27:01.440 can't handle this

00:27:02.340 anymore in public

00:27:03.400 so we're just

00:27:03.880 gonna do this

00:27:04.820 thing to make

00:27:05.600 that go away

00:27:06.280 I get where

00:27:07.240 that comes

00:27:07.640 from

00:27:07.960 yeah we have

00:27:10.880 a massive

00:27:12.460 coordination

00:27:13.020 problem here

00:27:13.880 because this

00:27:14.520 problem could

00:27:15.380 go away

00:27:16.060 instantly if

00:27:16.960 enough people

00:27:17.500 just stepped

00:27:18.160 forward together

00:27:18.980 but because

00:27:20.100 it's difficult

00:27:20.700 to orchestrate

00:27:21.360 that and

00:27:22.300 because the

00:27:22.680 penalty for

00:27:23.260 any one

00:27:23.800 person summoning

00:27:25.560 too much

00:27:26.040 courage can

00:27:27.480 be extraordinary

00:27:28.480 you have

00:27:29.820 people just

00:27:30.760 wanting to

00:27:32.040 to avoid the

00:27:33.340 problem altogether

00:27:33.920 it becomes

00:27:34.320 rational not to

00:27:35.580 be the one

00:27:36.020 to open your

00:27:36.560 big mouth

00:27:37.180 because you

00:27:38.380 know so much

00:27:38.980 ire and

00:27:39.800 dishonesty is

00:27:41.500 going to be

00:27:41.960 targeted in

00:27:43.380 your direction

00:27:43.980 and this

00:27:45.620 problem you

00:27:46.320 know strangely

00:27:46.840 doesn't go

00:27:47.600 away when

00:27:49.440 you become

00:27:50.040 incredibly

00:27:51.400 successful and

00:27:52.260 wealthy I

00:27:52.820 mean this is

00:27:53.240 you can literally

00:27:54.900 meet billionaires

00:27:55.840 who have no

00:27:56.820 more courage

00:27:57.600 than you know

00:27:59.180 your lowliest

00:28:00.460 employee because

00:28:02.160 they're the first

00:28:03.920 to think well

00:28:04.540 you know what's

00:28:05.900 the upside for

00:28:06.640 me you know

00:28:07.180 like I you

00:28:08.080 know I don't

00:28:08.620 want to

00:28:08.820 complicate my

00:28:09.420 life and in

00:28:10.920 addition I've

00:28:12.360 got thousands

00:28:13.820 of people and

00:28:14.820 and in some

00:28:15.420 cases hundreds

00:28:16.140 of companies

00:28:16.760 and I was

00:28:17.200 talking to a

00:28:17.980 you know famous

00:28:18.900 venture capitalist

00:28:20.280 who you know

00:28:21.900 shares all of

00:28:23.060 my opinions

00:28:23.620 apparently on

00:28:24.220 this subject

00:28:24.820 and when I

00:28:25.440 asked him why

00:28:26.300 he wouldn't

00:28:27.100 talk about this

00:28:28.580 publicly he

00:28:30.160 said you know

00:28:31.360 this is admittedly

00:28:32.480 this can be a

00:28:33.340 totally altruistic

00:28:34.360 motive you know

00:28:35.380 at least in his

00:28:35.960 head he said

00:28:37.340 just too many

00:28:38.460 people and

00:28:38.960 companies depend

00:28:39.660 on me you

00:28:40.520 know I've got

00:28:40.800 hundreds of

00:28:41.300 companies and

00:28:42.160 and people whose

00:28:43.540 whole livelihoods

00:28:44.700 are wrapped up

00:28:45.560 in you know the

00:28:46.760 next thing I do

00:28:47.820 or don't do on

00:28:49.400 some level and

00:28:50.140 you know why

00:28:50.660 would I want to

00:28:51.340 complicate everyone's

00:28:52.440 life by opening my

00:28:54.040 big mouth on this

00:28:55.080 topic yeah I mean

00:28:56.860 you know part of

00:28:59.160 that is is when

00:29:00.500 you have so many

00:29:01.040 interests that are

00:29:01.620 intertwined and

00:29:02.400 dependent upon one

00:29:03.180 another you you

00:29:04.660 you have to you

00:29:05.900 know worry about

00:29:06.880 what the stakeholders

00:29:07.620 might say and

00:29:08.420 maybe your company's

00:29:09.120 going to go IPO

00:29:09.940 you know in a year

00:29:11.060 and you got to

00:29:11.420 worry about that and

00:29:12.400 there's a lot of

00:29:13.280 things to worry

00:29:13.860 about the more the

00:29:15.040 deeper your

00:29:16.280 tentacles go and

00:29:17.480 the more dependent

00:29:18.640 you are upon this

00:29:20.440 funding source or

00:29:21.720 or that eventual

00:29:22.760 exit or whatever it

00:29:23.820 might be which is

00:29:24.460 one of the reasons

00:29:25.020 why we felt like we

00:29:26.400 could take this on

00:29:27.540 and try it we are

00:29:29.340 as I mentioned

00:29:30.500 earlier you know

00:29:31.260 independent we don't

00:29:32.760 have a board we

00:29:33.900 don't have investors

00:29:34.760 if not us who

00:29:36.260 and look you know

00:29:38.720 we even discussed

00:29:40.440 David and I my

00:29:41.900 business partner I

00:29:42.540 discussed like this

00:29:44.100 could take the

00:29:44.700 company down like this

00:29:46.200 literally could and

00:29:47.320 you know what we're

00:29:48.620 okay with that if that

00:29:49.880 was to happen we've

00:29:51.160 been in business for

00:29:51.760 22 years this is more

00:29:54.040 of a I guess a stoic

00:29:55.420 practice perhaps but

00:29:56.380 just kind of the

00:29:56.840 negative visualization

00:29:57.540 like the worst thing

00:29:59.040 that can happen here is

00:29:59.760 we can we could the

00:30:00.740 business could go out

00:30:01.520 of business and that

00:30:02.320 would suck it really

00:30:03.760 would it'd be painful

00:30:04.780 and terrible and this

00:30:05.560 I put my life's work

00:30:06.600 into this I'm 47 like

00:30:08.720 half of my life

00:30:09.480 basically and the

00:30:11.540 full majority of my

00:30:12.880 of my professional

00:30:13.760 life has been in this

00:30:14.620 I would hate for this

00:30:15.900 to go away I love

00:30:16.700 this place I love the

00:30:17.680 people who work here

00:30:18.400 at the products we

00:30:19.040 make are fantastic we

00:30:20.400 have wonderful

00:30:20.860 customers we've done a

00:30:21.880 lot for the industry we

00:30:22.820 care a lot we give a

00:30:23.820 lot back we're very

00:30:25.460 altruistic when it

00:30:26.200 comes to the work that

00:30:27.200 we do we've open

00:30:29.300 sourced tons of

00:30:29.960 software written a

00:30:30.740 bunch of books we're

00:30:31.580 out there and very

00:30:32.260 vocal and willing to

00:30:33.460 say things that we

00:30:34.220 think need to be said

00:30:35.000 but if that all went

00:30:35.660 away we would be okay

00:30:38.280 with that I mean I

00:30:39.560 don't want it to be

00:30:40.360 that but we had to

00:30:41.480 come to that and I

00:30:42.900 can understand how

00:30:44.160 other people who have

00:30:45.760 far more dependencies

00:30:47.320 and by the way the

00:30:48.400 other thing is if

00:30:49.020 you've worked at

00:30:49.560 base camp you can work

00:30:50.520 anywhere so you know

00:30:51.960 anyone here who has a

00:30:53.200 job could get another

00:30:54.020 job somewhere else if

00:30:55.260 that happened I'd feel

00:30:56.480 terrible about it but if

00:30:57.480 that happened that would

00:30:58.300 happen and I mean

00:30:59.560 we're very grateful

00:31:00.780 that that didn't

00:31:01.340 happen and that we

00:31:02.180 have a wonderful crew

00:31:03.060 here and we've already

00:31:04.260 been hiring and people

00:31:05.260 are excited to work

00:31:06.080 here more than ever in

00:31:07.520 some cases because they

00:31:08.500 really want a place

00:31:09.560 that's a refuge from

00:31:11.340 what's going on in the

00:31:12.220 world right now they

00:31:12.900 want a place where they

00:31:13.740 can hone their craft and

00:31:14.840 focus on the work of

00:31:16.360 course have social

00:31:17.000 conversations with

00:31:17.800 colleagues of course but

00:31:19.440 a place where they

00:31:20.340 aren't constantly having

00:31:22.560 to address or decide

00:31:24.820 whether or not they

00:31:25.360 want to wade in or stay

00:31:26.680 out of the biggest

00:31:28.160 topics of our time

00:31:29.700 they want a place where

00:31:31.140 they can just kind of do

00:31:31.880 the work and so so

00:31:33.080 that's been wonderful to

00:31:33.840 see the response and the

00:31:34.740 company is great and we

00:31:35.720 it didn't hurt the

00:31:36.500 business we had a few

00:31:37.900 extra cancellations that

00:31:39.020 one week but other than

00:31:39.960 that everything's back to

00:31:40.820 normal so that was

00:31:42.060 reassuring too that this

00:31:43.360 is actually I think our

00:31:44.320 position is actually quite

00:31:45.360 mainstream yeah it's

00:31:47.620 hard in the tech world to

00:31:48.800 feel that because when

00:31:50.480 you're surrounded by it

00:31:51.720 and you're especially if

00:31:52.780 you spend time on

00:31:53.380 Twitter it feels like the

00:31:54.420 whole world is against

00:31:55.400 you at this moment but

00:31:56.460 you know the more I

00:31:57.540 talk to people and the

00:31:58.320 more people I've heard

00:31:59.080 from I received hundreds

00:31:59.900 of emails from folks and

00:32:00.940 I've talked to a lot of

00:32:01.640 people and other CEOs and

00:32:02.880 leaders and business

00:32:03.600 owners and other

00:32:04.200 employees at other

00:32:04.840 companies and and just

00:32:06.660 vendors that we work with

00:32:07.860 and they're like politics

00:32:09.180 at work that's crazy why

00:32:10.340 would we ever talk

00:32:11.100 politics at work we

00:32:11.960 don't talk politics at

00:32:12.900 work it's also a bit of

00:32:14.060 an American thing since we

00:32:15.820 have employees all over the

00:32:16.740 world we did lose a few

00:32:18.240 great employees in in

00:32:19.860 Europe but for the most

00:32:21.460 part a lot of people were

00:32:22.920 just surprised that this

00:32:25.000 that it the reaction was

00:32:27.040 what it was and anyway it

00:32:30.040 it comforts me to to know

00:32:32.160 that this is actually a

00:32:33.560 pretty mainstream point of

00:32:34.340 view which is that politics

00:32:35.240 and religion I mean there's

00:32:36.380 other things you just

00:32:37.020 wouldn't talk about it

00:32:37.760 where people know not to

00:32:38.620 talk about religion and

00:32:39.540 since politics is

00:32:40.260 essentially become a

00:32:41.180 religion these days it

00:32:43.340 feels like it fits in that

00:32:44.440 category in the same way

00:32:46.020 that if you were in an open

00:32:47.260 office and you were to you

00:32:49.500 know everyone's working in

00:32:50.200 office and someone just

00:32:51.020 grabbed a podium and

00:32:52.540 started to proselytize and

00:32:54.220 and talk about their

00:32:55.280 points of view on religion

00:32:56.600 or or politics and that

00:32:57.740 you should come this way or

00:32:59.000 else everyone would say

00:33:00.460 like hey shut up like what

00:33:02.340 are you doing like what

00:33:03.580 this is totally inappropriate

00:33:05.000 but given the fact that

00:33:06.900 we're we use remote working

00:33:08.440 tools like base camp and

00:33:10.260 other companies use things

00:33:11.100 like slack and whatever else

00:33:12.540 you use it becomes actually

00:33:14.300 you lose the the attachment

00:33:16.440 to the physical pushback of

00:33:19.280 some of these things it's

00:33:20.900 the same way this is a bit

00:33:22.320 of a tangent but it's the

00:33:23.300 same way it's the same

00:33:24.460 reason why software often

00:33:26.160 gets worse over time it's

00:33:28.160 because there's no physical

00:33:29.340 edges pushing back on it if

00:33:31.480 you have like a physical

00:33:32.240 object if you're thinking

00:33:33.220 about industrial design

00:33:34.540 some sort of a can of soda

00:33:36.220 or something it's gonna

00:33:38.240 have to be a certain shape a

00:33:40.200 certain size made of a

00:33:41.300 certain material there's just

00:33:42.740 some obvious physical limits

00:33:44.740 to what something can be

00:33:46.080 software however can be

00:33:47.420 anything and that's why it

00:33:49.420 often becomes anything it

00:33:50.760 becomes overwrought with more

00:33:52.440 features and slows down it

00:33:53.560 gets confusing over time and

00:33:55.300 I think the same thing is

00:33:56.200 true right now with remote

00:33:57.540 work which is that and by the

00:33:58.880 way I'm a huge proponent of

00:34:00.100 it but that you can throw

00:34:02.000 things into this place that

00:34:03.720 you normally wouldn't if you

00:34:05.020 were in person and and that

00:34:07.500 begins to erode the sort of

00:34:10.080 the the wall between what's

00:34:11.380 reasonable and what isn't

00:34:12.520 given the environment and the

00:34:13.840 organization that you're in so

00:34:15.300 I think that's part of it

00:34:16.600 too and I almost don't blame

00:34:17.880 people for falling into that

00:34:19.620 because it's sort of a natural

00:34:20.800 depression I don't mean

00:34:23.120 depression I mean like a

00:34:24.620 depression in the land you

00:34:25.700 know yeah and a tractor it

00:34:26.980 happens I get it but anyway we

00:34:29.440 had to we had to we felt like

00:34:30.620 we had to to basically fill that

00:34:32.560 depression in so people

00:34:34.520 wouldn't keep falling into it

00:34:35.780 and we didn't normalize it and

00:34:36.980 here we are yeah there's

00:34:39.020 something insidious about what

00:34:41.900 gets done with silence in

00:34:43.640 software and on social media

00:34:45.040 too because you know silence

00:34:46.180 gets read as a scent for

00:34:48.680 better and worse and mostly

00:34:50.540 worse and and then you you

00:34:51.920 can get attacked for your

00:34:53.680 silence like I noticed you

00:34:55.020 haven't commented on X you know

00:34:57.320 that must mean you're a a

00:34:58.620 fascist yeah and then you know

00:35:00.900 what's widely supporting this

00:35:03.180 problem is is that people's

00:35:04.760 silence is being counted as as

00:35:07.920 acquiescence to this hysteria

00:35:10.940 right I mean so you know the

00:35:12.040 silence of people at every

00:35:13.540 level you know including at the

00:35:14.920 top it's just giving space to

00:35:17.880 all of these I mean again it

00:35:20.680 does have a quasi religious

00:35:22.280 shape to it I mean there's been

00:35:23.580 a blasphemy tests and a formal

00:35:26.280 scapegoating of people I mean

00:35:27.780 you know reputational witch

00:35:29.620 burnings and all of it is so

00:35:31.660 dishonest in most cases that it

00:35:33.780 it's really toxic and affecting

00:35:36.840 almost everything that was one of

00:35:38.900 the other things if I could jump in

00:35:40.300 on that is this is one of the

00:35:42.960 other things that that started

00:35:43.900 happening is I began to hear from

00:35:45.500 a number of employees who who

00:35:47.480 over the past number of months

00:35:48.680 felt very uncomfortable because

00:35:50.120 they have their own personal

00:35:51.820 opinions even in support of some

00:35:54.540 of these things but they chose

00:35:55.660 just not to share them because

00:35:57.220 you know people sometimes will say

00:35:59.580 that's privilege I think it's

00:36:00.880 just your own personal opinions

00:36:01.980 are your own right you don't need

00:36:03.220 to share what's on your mind with

00:36:04.700 everybody your cause doesn't have

00:36:06.920 to pull an opinion out of me at

00:36:08.960 any time and some people just

00:36:10.680 choose not to want to talk about

00:36:11.900 these things it's also not on

00:36:12.980 everybody's mind equally you know

00:36:14.940 some people don't have time to

00:36:16.040 think these things through and

00:36:17.000 they're not even sure where they

00:36:17.980 stand you know people are

00:36:19.580 nuanced here people are

00:36:21.140 complicated and these are really

00:36:22.460 complicated issues and you know

00:36:24.620 you shouldn't have to wonder if

00:36:27.460 staying out of it means that

00:36:28.460 you're complicit right and and that

00:36:30.980 the the the non charitable or the

00:36:32.740 uncharitable assumption is is that if

00:36:35.180 you don't say something you don't

00:36:36.300 stand up for something that then

00:36:37.400 you are against it and not only are

00:36:39.340 you against it but the against

00:36:41.100 equals you're a racist you're a

00:36:43.300 white supremacist I mean the the

00:36:45.420 reach is just it's so vast so

00:36:48.320 quickly and also then if you want

00:36:50.620 to kind of wade into it because you

00:36:52.740 you maybe do want to participate but

00:36:54.460 you say the wrong thing you don't

00:36:55.880 necessarily know how to say it and

00:36:57.020 everyone's definitions a little bit

00:36:58.280 different you know you you can be

00:37:00.320 attacked for you know a

00:37:01.860 microaggression or whatever it might

00:37:03.340 be and and then you're like you

00:37:05.160 just you don't know where to go and

00:37:06.360 I feel like what ended up happening

00:37:07.580 at base camp was that the self

00:37:09.900 esteem of the organization felt like

00:37:12.480 it was being battered that that we

00:37:14.600 we didn't if people were afraid to

00:37:16.840 talk they didn't know how they were

00:37:18.520 being perceived they there was

00:37:21.100 assumptions about what was being said

00:37:22.880 and what side you were on their

00:37:24.320 factions were being formed and you

00:37:27.000 know it's it's it's one thing to

00:37:29.820 have a detailed debate with somebody

00:37:32.860 or a political debate with someone

00:37:35.020 when you know you can at the end

00:37:36.280 clap your hands and go home the

00:37:38.140 problem with with mixing this with

00:37:39.560 work is that you you have this

00:37:41.200 debate or you stay in it or you stay

00:37:42.980 out of it and staying out of it is

00:37:44.820 communication as well again like you

00:37:46.380 said it could be perceived as as as

00:37:48.060 acquiescence or whatever it might be

00:37:49.280 and but then you gotta you gotta work

00:37:52.140 with people who think you're a monster

00:37:54.200 you know it's like how do you how do

00:37:56.220 you do that this is just it's unfair

00:37:58.120 it's literally unfair to to to have that

00:38:01.520 going on and so you know again like

00:38:04.500 this atmosphere just does not feel

00:38:06.860 conducive to a to a supportive place

00:38:08.960 where we can actually do the work that

00:38:10.600 we're here to do and the other thing

00:38:12.280 is that we're we're a small business

00:38:13.480 we can't really affect global change

00:38:16.820 on any of these points anyway I mean

00:38:19.020 it's one thing perhaps to try to get a

00:38:21.320 huge multinational corporation to to

00:38:23.580 make some moves to make something

00:38:24.920 better if you want to go in that

00:38:26.380 direction like I can almost understand

00:38:28.700 the desire for that we just don't have

00:38:30.800 that that presence we can't make that

00:38:33.240 that we can't press into the world in

00:38:34.960 that way we can press into our world

00:38:37.280 which is the tech world we can press

00:38:39.120 into into antitrust stuff we can press

00:38:41.260 into software development we can press

00:38:42.660 into leadership and management styles

00:38:44.200 and and advocate for sane work hours

00:38:46.780 and advocate for really fair pay and

00:38:48.620 advocate for reduced hours and advocate

00:38:51.460 for remote work and advocate for a lot

00:38:53.600 of autonomy and and and agency inside

00:38:56.100 organizations and all these things that's

00:38:58.340 our realm that's our our sphere of

00:39:00.680 influence and we can stick to that and

00:39:03.460 feel we should be able to stick to that

00:39:05.040 and feel wonderful about our

00:39:06.320 contributions to the world without

00:39:08.160 feeling like we need to just take

00:39:09.540 everything on that could ever be wrong

00:39:12.500 and that's how it began to feel and

00:39:14.920 maybe not to everybody and I can

00:39:16.740 appreciate how some people go or

00:39:18.240 probably listen to this going Jason it

00:39:19.380 wasn't like that well it was where I

00:39:22.180 where I sit in the organization which is

00:39:24.320 looking at the whole place and how we're

00:39:26.340 doing and how we're feeling and the

00:39:27.900 general sense and I hear from all sorts

00:39:29.700 of different employees so as CEO I have

00:39:32.280 to make some of these difficult

00:39:33.500 decisions about what is this place like

00:39:35.820 to work at and this was one of those

00:39:38.320 decisions I really don't think anyone

00:39:40.140 could challenge your lived experience as

00:39:41.900 CEO Jason you're on firm ground there

00:39:44.640 I tried yeah this is the so have you

00:39:49.620 changed anything about your hiring

00:39:52.340 practices or what what advice have you

00:39:55.800 given yourself here going forward and

00:39:57.660 what advice would you give to other

00:39:59.380 tech leaders yeah well we've put a few

00:40:03.600 job ads out there so far and we're

00:40:05.020 getting wonderful people applying and

00:40:06.680 so we haven't changed the practices I

00:40:08.720 think it's it's pretty clear that you

00:40:10.460 know we want to make sure that we're

00:40:11.660 focused on the work here and that this

00:40:13.520 is a place where you can come and do

00:40:14.580 great work and hopefully the best work

00:40:16.020 of your career and that we want to

00:40:17.880 create an environment where that's

00:40:19.360 possible and I think that we've shown

00:40:21.000 over 22 years that this is a wonderful

00:40:22.840 place to be for those reasons and it's

00:40:25.200 one of the reasons why you know up

00:40:27.280 until just recently I think close to

00:40:29.300 half of our company had been with us

00:40:30.620 for more than seven years which is

00:40:32.500 extraordinarily long in this industry I

00:40:35.160 think the average tenure at most tech

00:40:36.560 companies is something like 18 months

00:40:38.120 or two years and I think we had 20

00:40:39.860 some odd percent that were over 10

00:40:41.700 years here so obviously I'm bragging a

00:40:46.280 bit which is not something I'm

00:40:48.220 comfortable with doing so much but I

00:40:49.660 will say that we have we built a

00:40:51.140 wonderful company a place where people

00:40:52.820 can do great work with great people and

00:40:54.560 even the people who left are great

00:40:55.740 people I feel like everyone's a great

00:40:57.060 person here we have wonderful

00:40:58.720 benefits and wonderful pay in a

00:41:00.140 wonderful environment we don't screw

00:41:02.220 people over with meetings all day and

00:41:03.560 we don't take people's time we don't

00:41:05.220 divert people's attention so I think

00:41:07.100 all those things are one of the

00:41:08.980 reasons why we typically get hundreds

00:41:10.620 or thousands of applications whenever

00:41:12.160 we put a job up and that's continuing

00:41:14.900 as we've seen already with the job as we

00:41:16.820 put up so I don't think we have to say

00:41:18.420 anything else we just have to make it

00:41:20.160 clear where we stand I mean you could

00:41:22.320 be relying on the fact that this

00:41:24.520 hiccup got so much press that anyone

00:41:27.200 seeking a job with you now knows you

00:41:30.140 know what the rules are but you know

00:41:32.700 five years from now if you couldn't

00:41:34.520 really assume that would you be asking

00:41:36.860 any further questions or telling people

00:41:40.740 just what the policy is up front as a

00:41:43.100 kind of filter against woke or any other

00:41:46.060 style of activism coming into the

00:41:48.080 company yeah we haven't really

00:41:49.620 discussed that like what to do about

00:41:51.960 that I would just say that first of

00:41:54.840 all politically I don't I don't care

00:41:56.920 where you stand I don't care you know

00:41:58.900 where you stand religiously I don't

00:42:00.060 care about any of these things they're

00:42:00.920 none of my business like that's how I

00:42:02.740 look at them right they're completely

00:42:04.040 none of my business so you can come in

00:42:05.540 with any point of view you want but we

00:42:07.960 have a collective you know society here

00:42:10.120 and we're deciding to to focus on the

00:42:12.180 work and be essentially non-political

00:42:14.300 outside of our you know our immediate

00:42:16.880 the immediate things that we touch so I

00:42:19.060 don't know what that language might

00:42:20.180 look like I know Coinbase has said

00:42:21.900 mission focused I that's their language

00:42:24.600 I'm not I don't like mission purpose

00:42:27.100 and not that's not my language so I

00:42:28.800 don't know what we're gonna say at

00:42:29.960 some point so far we don't have to say

00:42:32.420 anything but I think yeah at some point

00:42:34.600 it would probably make sense to come up

00:42:36.180 with something like that but we tend

00:42:38.020 not to get ahead of ourselves on these

00:42:39.540 things right now we're attracting

00:42:41.460 wonderful people hired some great

00:42:42.920 people already and you know right now

00:42:45.440 everybody understands the advantage to

00:42:47.960 working at base camp can you really

00:42:49.860 state at that categorically because you

00:42:52.100 know you know I'm also hiring you know

00:42:55.180 I'm I have my own ventures and you know

00:42:59.220 I would not be eager to hire a white

00:43:02.660 supremacist say right if you're a neo-nazi

00:43:05.600 and you're applying to you know what a

00:43:07.360 however good a software engineer you

00:43:09.500 might be if you're applying for a job at

00:43:12.060 waking up and those are your political

00:43:14.780 views well we're obviously not interested

00:43:18.200 and I would extend the same judgment to

00:43:22.960 the other side of the continuum I mean if

00:43:24.840 you're so far to the left that you think

00:43:27.620 I'm a racist for saying what I just said

00:43:30.440 on this podcast you know I'm also not

00:43:33.120 interested in working with you I know how

00:43:36.480 to communicate that I mean in my case I

00:43:38.700 probably don't need to communicate that

00:43:40.660 explicitly because people are aware of of

00:43:42.920 what I'm up to on the microphone but I'm

00:43:46.300 just wondering if you know if you're a CEO

00:43:48.360 of another company and you basically see

00:43:50.600 the world that way where you just you just

00:43:52.540 don't want extremists and extremist

00:43:55.420 activists in your company you know because

00:43:59.180 they are a species of religious fanatic and

00:44:03.240 you know they are the laws against

00:44:05.720 discrimination on the basis of religion

00:44:08.080 notwithstanding I'm not going to hire

00:44:10.460 jihadists I'm not there's a lot a lot of

00:44:12.260 people I'm not going to hire based on their

00:44:14.000 cockamamie beliefs so the question is how

00:44:17.320 to select against those beliefs because they

00:44:20.480 are so disruptive is there a generic advice

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Making Sense - Sam Harris - June 17, 2021

#253 — Corporate Courage

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