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Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

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Re: Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

#12
This must feel harsh for those on the receiving end, but is the right thing to do. It is not effective to try and turn every company into a rights activism group just because it is a group of people.

This may be a sign that it’s become increasingly hard to organize or take part in such activism outside of work. What happened?

Re: Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

#13

As a non-American, I find it truly bizarre (and sad) that's it's now controversial to publicly state that you're not taking sides.

It isn't possible to not take sides. It's only possible to support the status quo, either explicitly or implicitly, or else oppose it.

Re: Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

#14

I applaud Coinbase’s CEO on his position of keeping politics out of work. Other tech companies have been overrun with employee activism, which just means one political side has weaponized those companies in favor of their ideology. It is disrespectful to all their customers that don’t align with those views, damaging societally when digital public squares (Facebook and Twitter) are corrupted by employee politics, and…

Insisting that Facebook / Twitter workplace should be apolitical, is as persuasive as Wernher Von Braun and his rocket engineer colleagues insisting that their workplace was also apolitical.

Re: Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

#15

I applaud Coinbase’s CEO on his position of keeping politics out of work. Other tech companies have been overrun with employee activism, which just means one political side has weaponized those companies in favor of their ideology. It is disrespectful to all their customers that don’t align with those views, damaging societally when digital public squares (Facebook and Twitter) are corrupted by employee politics, and…

To understand your position, you're saying that if you take a job with a company, you must either take on the company's politics and ethics or leave?

There's no room for trying to improve a company from the inside?

Re: Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

#16
post #6

I applaud Coinbase’s CEO on his position of keeping politics out of work. Other tech companies have been overrun with employee activism, which just means one political side has weaponized those companies in favor of their ideology. It is disrespectful to all their customers that don’t align with those views, damaging societally when digital public squares (Facebook and Twitter) are corrupted by employee politics, and…

It's kinda interesting to see because the cryptocurrency space is surely one of the more political tech developments at the core - replacing fiat money, new financial instruments, self-governing contracts, ...?

Cryptocurrency represents a kind of financial libertarianism, that people should be able to own their money and be their own bank. It doesn't have much to say about aspects of life outside of that. It is political because of vested interests.

Re: Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

#17
post #12

This must feel harsh for those on the receiving end, but is the right thing to do. It is not effective to try and turn every company into a rights activism group just because it is a group of people. This may be a sign that it’s become increasingly hard to organize or take part in such activism outside of work. What happened?

It could also be a sign that people feel more empowered to express themselves in work and feel that a workplace that values their ideals is preferable to one that doesn't. Particularly in tech where we're all quite comfortably off we can worry about these things higher up the hierarchy of needs.

It will be interesting to see where this takes the culture of Coinbase.

Re: Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

#18
post #9

I applaud Coinbase’s CEO on his position of keeping politics out of work. Other tech companies have been overrun with employee activism, which just means one political side has weaponized those companies in favor of their ideology. It is disrespectful to all their customers that don’t align with those views, damaging societally when digital public squares (Facebook and Twitter) are corrupted by employee politics, and…

To be fair though, keeping politics completely out of any aspect of life becomes increasingly hard when things like science and the definition of "truth" are being politicized. A statement like "I believe the 99% of climate scientists that say climate change is man-made" shouldn't be considered a political statement, yet here we are.

You could... not talk about it at work?

Re: Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

#19

I agreed with what Brian Armstrong said in his blog post and thought it was admirable to publicly take that position, but now I have even more respect for his dedication. I don't know if the severance package is good or not, but it seems generous and it gives employees who aren't aligned with the company an easy way out.

Seems pretty damn good severance to me. Four to six months of a SF salary?

I wonder if the real goal here is just reduce headcount.

Re: Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

#20
post #15

I applaud Coinbase’s CEO on his position of keeping politics out of work. Other tech companies have been overrun with employee activism, which just means one political side has weaponized those companies in favor of their ideology. It is disrespectful to all their customers that don’t align with those views, damaging societally when digital public squares (Facebook and Twitter) are corrupted by employee politics, and…

To understand your position, you're saying that if you take a job with a company, you must either take on the company's politics and ethics or leave? There's no room for trying to improve a company from the inside?

If you are being told when to come to work and when to leave, what to work on, how and where to work on it, how to dress, corrected on even the most subtle things that you are doing "wrong" from the managements perspective and expected to do as told, what hope do you have to have any influence on the values of the company?

It's the norm that people in a workplace are primarily seen as cogs in the system, humans with needs and opinions as second. Any time the latter is perceived to potentially affect the former, you will be told to fall into line.

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