Some months ago Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong penned a piece about his organisation being a “mission-driven company”. At the time the various echo chambers I dabble in were most delighted by his noble adherence to the mission (whatever the fuck that means for a poor excuse for a crypto bandwagon of a company anyway.)
And now the Basecamp has proudly announced the same. Their place of work won’t be for discussing anything other than biznizz. Any again, people are delighted to hear about two white dudes proclaiming the virtues of being silent on anything of import.
And, let’s call this exactly what it is – being silent on important issues of the day is itself a position. Opting not to vote in a democratic society is right, and a powerful message to send to your network. [[expand]]
It turns out that high-tech companies tend to attract bright people who derive much of their asymmetric upside from an uncanny ability to question the status quo, and leverage inefficiencies in the difference between how the present and future do/will work. But it so happens that founder CEOs who spend the majority of their time being lauded as oracles, praised at every turn for their sage wisdom don’t really like it when one of their underlings poses tough questions.
We’ve seen this unfold at the major firms – Google, Facebook, Amazon, and more. Bright people like to discuss more than just their subject matter, and perhaps unsurprisingly, care more about the rights of the wider population than their well-heeled bosses.
As with Coinbase’s admission that they would still bribe lobby politicians to endorse crypto-positive policy, Basecamp says the company will of course still invest in causes that the founders company cares about – like privacy, antitrust, and dumb meandering blog posts (I can get on board with that last one!) And here is revealed the true reason for the inane and misplaced posture around this matter. The founders want to control precisely what their company is involved in. That’s completely fair. But why not just say that?
“We don’t really give a shit about BLM or any of that bollocks, we just want to vibe on pastel colours and rainbows over here mannnnn”
For this latest pair I’m surprised, given their desire to always write clearly and plainly, that they can’t simply say they themselves are personally tired of accepting viewpoints that they don’t actually agree with. It’s a shame their own insecurities got the better of them in this instance.
My primary question at this point is: why go public with this? What extra brand building are you doing here? Or are you trying to simply attract non-descenting thinkers into your recruitment funnel? Probably that.
How should companies behave? Well, taking a position is a good thing. If you approach matters in a well-reasoned and considered way nobody needs to die on their sword. When people make bad decisions they’ll be subject to feedback loops as they are in everyday life.
A company doesn’t need to do anything. But when you attract talent, you usually attract different views. This should be encouraged and managed. Nobody wants their team spending 50% of their working time penning extensive essays about their views on specific social matters – if people are doing this then you’re either:
- Managing them incorrectly,
- In the midst of a major cultural awakening.
The latter is rare. The former significantly more likely.
Having not experienced the precise circumstances that have led to heat reaching upper management like this I can only guess at the path. I assume it goes something like this:
- Bob writes statement referencing social issue
- Alice disagrees
- Bob and Alice discuss in more detail
- More people offer their opinions
- Harry reads it and sends screenshots to his boss saying he’s not a big fan
- HR picks up on this, senior leadership is notified
- They fall into a spiral of political correctness fatigue
- The ban all discussions
And so on.
If you believe that this silencing is the right approach, ask yourself what else it might apply to. What about religious freedom? What if someone posts a blog about their experience this Eid? Or Dwivedi?
What if someone disregards your country’s basic historical identity? Or off-hand disprages some publication you happen to like?
If you restrict the discourse of your workforce beyond reasonable measure (read: don’t be a dick), you will drive away those who will bring most value over the long term.