Monday's Opening Thought: May 3, 2021

This week’s opening thought: I just read that the percentage of employees confirmed to be resigning from Basecamp is nearing 40%, with more anticipated to be resigning in the coming days.

Note: If you’re not familiar with what is going on at Basecamp, I would recommend hitting up your preferred search engine for details. You’ll even find some more info about the situation right here on this website.

In a matter of weeks, the founders and owners of a major tech company basically destroyed their own company publicly for the entire world to see. Sure, taking a very public stance against dealing with their white supremacist workplace culture and their tasteless defense of the company’s uber-racist “funny names list” will do that. But it wasn’t the public stance or the list alone that led to this public letdown. Those are symptoms of a bigger issue. What’s the issue?

You can only lie about your “goodness”, your righteousness, and your intentions for so long before you find yourself exposing who you really are and what you really stand for. The truth will come out. In this case, they outed themselves.

If you’re running a business and you’re claiming that your workplace culture is equitable, inclusive, and actively anti-racist - and you’re calling out others in your industry for their workplace cultures - you’re gonna have to prove that you’re not all talk eventually. And when you’re exposed? You’re gonna have to own who you really are and what you really stand for.