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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

#121

Post by ericmay »

sneak wrote: post #69
howlgarnish wrote: post #11

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.

Does the country in which you live have a status quo of the regular imprisonment, enslavement, and public executions of a specific race of people? That's the issue in the USA, and "not taking sides" on that matter is, well, an issue, because it means you don't care about human rights.

If you’re talking about the US here, can you expand on your comments? I’m very confused about what you’re trying to get across here.

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

#122

Post by paul_f »

sneak wrote: post #69
howlgarnish wrote: post #11

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.

Does the country in which you live have a status quo of the regular imprisonment, enslavement, and public executions of a specific race of people? That's the issue in the USA, and "not taking sides" on that matter is, well, an issue, because it means you don't care about human rights.

LOL. Thank you for filling out the form. HR will be in contact shortly.

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

#123

Post by tarkin2 »

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!

But most company's work becomes political now.

You only want to work on a feature for a social media platform? No politics there, right?

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

#124

Post by kleinsch »

nullc wrote: post #95
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 th…

I worked for companies on the east coast, then moved to SF and now work at a big tech company. The companies I worked for on the east coast were mostly B2B, so we were focused on making a good product for businesses so they’d pay us more money. Big tech companies recruited for a long time with the pitch that we’re changing the world. That has brought in a bunch of employees who joined bc they want their employment to make a positive change in the world. Companies are now realizing the conflict being a neutral platform poses to these people - if I have a belief that my employment should make a positive change in societal issues, how could I work somewhere that I believe contributes to making things worse?

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

#125

Post by jokethrowaway »

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…

I disagree that we live in a capitalist system, the lobbying you mention in your post clearly points to that.

Companies do what works better for them, which means: - Earn money - Retain employees

Political discussions will definitely make some employees feel uncomfortable or unwelcome (unless you have an entirely homogeneous company). This is deeply unfortunate and troubling (I blame education and the media for people incapacity to have a discussions without feeling triggered) but it's today polarised reality. Preventing or discouraging polarising discussions on the private properties of the company sounds like a sensible choice.

Political moves from the company will definitely have some trade-offs but have less of an impact on employees. This is not zero (I remember some Google or Amazon employees leaving over their company's political choices) but it's far less common.

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

#126

Post by nemo44x »

jeromegv wrote: post #108
moduspol wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

??? Nice way to rewrite history. Would you say the civil rights movement was successful because it wanted to put aside differences? Or because they fought for their rights, their difference, and the privileged majority had to make concessions?

Yes very much so. They found the moral high ground and were able to persuade people on our shared humanity. No one “had” to do anything. People were compelled to as they were persuaded that we had immoral systems in terms of individuals civil rights.

A universal appeal to shared humanity is an approach that works. Shaming people into a type of morality will only invite pushback.

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

#127

Post by wwright »

Zenbit_UX wrote: post #120

Why is a company wanting to be apolitical is controversial? That should be the default, is this an American thing like how masks and healthcare are controversial? I would expect a government to have proper separation from church and state, so why is it weird to want a company to separate politics and mission? I can't see any good coming from being in a work environment where the company supports a political issue I'm…

I (and many others) are of the opinion that you can’t truly be apolitical; claiming to be so is its own form of politics (and generally one that supports the status quo).

Politics is ultimately about how we engage and collaborate with each other as a society, not just which “party” you like. The very act of being a company is very relative to the laws and regulations your country has, which are of course determined by politics.

Coinbase is specifically a company about cryptocurrency. Crypto is directly related to a how governments manage their own currency, the right to privacy, law circumvention (see Alpha Bay), and so on. How can they truly be neutral on all of these issues that are directly relevant to the business they do?

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

#128

Post by jokethrowaway »

Gormisdomai wrote: post #115
mountainb wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not true that "LGBT Rights" are value-free. Promoting LGBT rights also alienates members of the largest religious groups in the world, including those that are majority-non-European like Islam and Catholicism. Being a practicing L, G, B, or T or pro any of them is against sharia, the Catechism, and against the rules of many major Protestant sects like Mormons. Gay marriage is expressly against the rules of most…

Your high level point about universal tolerance stands - but you might like to challenge some of your object level assumptions about world religions and LGBT. Iranian theocratic leadership for example officially does not think that being trans is against sharia and the nation carries out more gender reassignment surgeries than any country except Thailand (not that their treatment of trans people is perfect by any mea…

A past employer decided to publish a rainbow themed design for LGBTQ pride and rolled back the UAE version of the website following feedback from clients there.

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

#129

Post by username90 »

sneak wrote: post #69
howlgarnish wrote: post #11

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.

Does the country in which you live have a status quo of the regular imprisonment, enslavement, and public executions of a specific race of people? That's the issue in the USA, and "not taking sides" on that matter is, well, an issue, because it means you don't care about human rights.

Police biggest issue isn't racism. If it is then Mississippi has the least racist police and therefore the best police. Should all other police departments work to be more like Mississippi? I don't think so, their police kills a lot of people, just that they kill proportionally as many whites as they kill blacks. I think the New York police is doing an a lot better job even though they proportionally kill many times more blacks than whites.

The problem is that the American police kills a lot of people, not that it kills a lot of blacks. It kills a lot of whites as well compared to European police.

https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/states

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

#130

Post by throwaway0a5e »

howlgarnish wrote: post #11

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's only controversial among the people who think that not wanting to fight whatever particular battle is in question that minute is an endorsement of the status quo.
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