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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

#91

Post by sneak »

ponker wrote: post #87
sneak wrote: post #76

The blog post he made, which was a whole lot of words to say "We're not going to say Black Lives Matter, so stop asking", was really something else. I see a lot of people praising the "not taking sides" thing. This presumes a false two-parties dichotomy that is endemic in the discussion of US social issues. Really though, you can choose the status quo of widespread human rights abuses in the US, or you can choose to…

There's something that makes me very uneasy about companies and individuals having to go on the record saying "Black Lives Matter" or being ostracized. It feels like a shibboleth, like kids reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, like the Parsley Massacre, like a kid twisting another kid's arm saying "Say uncle! Say uncle!" That said, I don't think Armstrong's blog post made a strong argument against these kinds of mantra…

Well, the reason that's happening is that a lot of people benefit a lot from a widespread culture of white supremacy, and the systems, to use the popular terms, need to be actively dismantled, because they were actively designed and have been (and continue to be) actively maintained.

Disambiguating those who haven't thought much about it simply because it doesn't affect them from people who actively don't give a shit about human rights and would prefer things stay as they are is a critically important thing to happen in our society.

Additionally, in the cryptocurrency space, there are a lot of cryptoracists (i.e. from kryptos: "hidden") who are just sort of skating by, assumed to be decent. An analogous situation was when the POTUS was asked recently to commit to a peaceful transition of power following the election. Not saying anything, posed that question, is saying something quite loudly.

The very plain statement that sums up this situation nicely is:

> If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.

I think that's plainly true, and anyone who doesn't see a massive problem with the status quo is, at the very least, a little bit of a contributor to that problem.

Pretending that the way our world works is someone else's problem is not tenable whilst hiring and building things in that very world. You're moving in a direction, and the effects of that direction cannot be ignored as they exist within a moral and ethical framework.

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

#92

Post by Closi »

objclxt wrote: post #23

Brian Armstrong wants to have it both ways. He wants employees to focus “on the mission”, and not bring societal politics and activism into the workplace. Fair enough. For better or for worse, we live in a capitalist system, and companies are not first and foremost social justice organisations. I am not unsympathetic to the problems he is trying to solve. But he also wants to influence politics and laws to benefit hi…

As someone who works for a mostly apolitical organization - it depends on the issue.

For example, the company refuses to take a stance on:

- Brexit (even though it will negatively impact them)

- Elections or any vote (even though again, this impacts them)

But for example actively campaigns on:

- Agricultural issues (It's in the food industry)

The company VERY strongly supports LGBT rights and minority rights, and will raise money for charities, but typically this does not transfer into support of individual political policies or parties.

The view is effectively that the company has lots of customers, and we shouldn't alienate them if they have opposing views, and that taking a strong political stance outside our industry can look like we are not respecting opposing viewpoints that our customers or competitors may have.

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

#93

Post by moduspol »

unishark wrote: post #19
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #3

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.

I wonder if the real goal is to foist problematic employees onto competitors.

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

#94

Post by moduspol »

kkhire wrote: post #65

I’ve never worked in the Bay Area, so could just be OOL but I’m genuinely surprised that this is such a big deal, or that this blog post got so much praise. Never discussed politics at any of the companies I’ve worked for, we were always too busy with...work!

Virtually every meaningful task humans have accomplished has been a result of groups of us putting aside our differences to unite and focus on solving the problem at hand.

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

#95

Post by nullc »

kkhire wrote: post #65

I’ve never worked in the Bay Area, so could just be OOL but I’m genuinely surprised that this is such a big deal, or that this blog post got so much praise. Never discussed politics at any of the companies I’ve worked for, we were always too busy with...work!

Coming from the east coast (and maybe a little from an earlier era) I also find the attitude on this stuff a little mystifying.

"In my day" -- it was just poor form to bring up that kind of stuff at work. If you did so at all, you usually tried to avoid being "that person". You don't get to choose each person you work with, so it pays if everyone puts in a bit of extra effort to not give anyone else a hard time.

I think some of these work politics issues--in particular around the bay area-- is partially a product of extremely homogeneous work forces (at least politically), partially poor work-life balance cultures (no life outside work), partially social networking (massively increasing the visibility of your co-workers out of work activities), and -- I don't feel I really have a complete understanding of what is going on.

Maybe a factor is a breakdown in our wider culture's ability to see people who disagree as being people who are still good people with reasonable points but just have different understandings or priorities (or even just to patronize them as stupid or uninformed). But instead perhaps there is a trend to rapidly decide people we disagree with are irredeemably evil just based on a soundbitized version of some insanely complicated political trade-off (or maybe even just by association)... But I'm not really sure how much that breakdown is actually happening compared to the appearance of it happening in the reporting funhouse mirror ("Reasonable people do a reasonable thing" said no headline ever).

Some of it might also be due to a transition from products to services-- people seem a lot more willing to view product sales as anonymous and totally transactional, while they seem to view a service as something more akin to a marriage.

A big downside of reactions like coinbases' might be that in what I would consider the traditional regime there was still an opportunity for employees to bring a little bit of their politics to work-- so long as they were professional and not obnoxious about it, or in places where there were genuine interactions with work ("How about lets not buy the toner cartages made from clubbed baby seals?") ... but if you can't count on people to control themselves and you're forced to set bright line policies then there is probably a lot less room for people to be reasonable.

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

#96

Post by britch »

kyrers wrote: post #58
onion2k wrote: post #29

I wonder if this is a way for Coinbase to push politically engaged employees out of the company in order to reduce the possibility of anyone pushing for internal change like people who want worker's rights groups or unionization. Operating with a workforce who only want to turn up and write code and never discuss anything that affects them as a group puts Coinbase in a very strong negotiating position because there's…

In the blog post in which he explained Coinbase's mission, he specifically mentioned that: > Of course, employees should always feel free to advocate around issues of pay, conditions of employment, or violations of law, for instance. Now, if he really is trying to diminsh the possibility of that happening, I don't know.

For what it's worth, Coinbase must "allow" those discussions by law in the US. In my mind, that's the kind of thing you say in a staement like this to protect yourself from a lawsuit.

I doubt Coinbase thinks employees advocating around pay/conditions are desirable for the company.

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

#97

Post by danpalmer »

Closi wrote: post #92
objclxt wrote: post #23

Brian Armstrong wants to have it both ways. He wants employees to focus “on the mission”, and not bring societal politics and activism into the workplace. Fair enough. For better or for worse, we live in a capitalist system, and companies are not first and foremost social justice organisations. I am not unsympathetic to the problems he is trying to solve. But he also wants to influence politics and laws to benefit hi…

As someone who works for a mostly apolitical organization - it depends on the issue. For example, the company refuses to take a stance on: - Brexit (even though it will negatively impact them) - Elections or any vote (even though again, this impacts them) But for example actively campaigns on: - Agricultural issues (It's in the food industry) The company VERY strongly supports LGBT rights and minority rights, and wil…

What's the difference between strongly supporting LGBT rights and strongly supporting remaining in the EU?

Both likely affect the company significantly, both are (unfortunately) political issues, both (unfortunately) alienate people.

It seems the only distinction here is that Brexit is a closer call in the UK. Is there another way of looking at it?

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

#98

Post by PavleMiha »

objclxt wrote: post #23

Brian Armstrong wants to have it both ways. He wants employees to focus “on the mission”, and not bring societal politics and activism into the workplace. Fair enough. For better or for worse, we live in a capitalist system, and companies are not first and foremost social justice organisations. I am not unsympathetic to the problems he is trying to solve. But he also wants to influence politics and laws to benefit hi…

> He seems to believe that you can separate “political decisions that benefit Coinbase” and “political decisions that are irrelevant to Coinbase”, but you can’t. They’re all interconnected. It’s naive to pretend otherwise.

I agree that it's hard and maybe impossible to make a hard line that separates the two, but wouldn't you agree that some political decisions are way more specific to Coinbase than others? Specifically the CEO sets out a pretty clear distinction: "If there is a bill introduced around crypto, we may engage here"

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

#99

Post by anoncake »

danpalmer wrote: post #97
Closi wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who works for a mostly apolitical organization - it depends on the issue. For example, the company refuses to take a stance on: - Brexit (even though it will negatively impact them) - Elections or any vote (even though again, this impacts them) But for example actively campaigns on: - Agricultural issues (It's in the food industry) The company VERY strongly supports LGBT rights and minority rights, and wil…

What's the difference between strongly supporting LGBT rights and strongly supporting remaining in the EU? Both likely affect the company significantly, both are (unfortunately) political issues, both (unfortunately) alienate people. It seems the only distinction here is that Brexit is a closer call in the UK. Is there another way of looking at it?

One is a human rights issue, the other is not.

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

#100

Post by [deleted] »

objclxt wrote: post #23

Brian Armstrong wants to have it both ways. He wants employees to focus “on the mission”, and not bring societal politics and activism into the workplace. Fair enough. For better or for worse, we live in a capitalist system, and companies are not first and foremost social justice organisations. I am not unsympathetic to the problems he is trying to solve. But he also wants to influence politics and laws to benefit hi…

[deleted]
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