Uh, yeah, I've read the account of the Basecamp all-hands meeting a couple of times. I couldn't believe how childish the whole dispute was after the first reading, so I read it again.
Rather than spending that morning strategizing about the next version of their software, what bugs needed fixing, how to increase sales, what features were working or not -- they argued over politics.
I mean, no one was accused of doing something illegal or even wrong. There was no sexual harassment. There were no racists or racist work practices uncovered.
Just non-work political grievances. One guy had different political opinions than some other people. I think he said something positive about Breitbart, gods forbid. Some of the participants claimed to have been literally crying and yelling at their computer screens. Words were interpreted or twisted to frame an argument over if there was no white supremacy anywhere, or whether there was no white supremacy in that work environment. "Privilege" accusations were leveled.
The whole thing was ridiculous.
