Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission • Hacker News Board

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

#421

Post by aVx1uyD5pYWW » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 3:46 PM UTC

rburhum wrote: post #198

How can you be “apolitical” and pay lobbyist to push crypto-friendly govt legislation? https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary...

That type of exception is explicitly stated in the CEOs blog post:

>We focus minimally on causes not directly related to the mission

>Policy decisions: If there is a bill introduced around crypto, we may engage here, but we normally wouldn’t engage in policy decisions around healthcare or education for example.

https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-is-a-mission-focused-comp...

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

#422

Post by ffggvv » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 3:46 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #346

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.

There is a lot of value in removing political activists from your company, and so it's worth paying them to leave. Aside from the combative toxic environment they generate, they are also often the source of disgruntled rogue employees that will generally behave improperly, misrepresent coworkers, leak documents, raise alarms about operations they don't understand, and generally draw the company into litigation. In a…

sounds like my experience at google

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

#423

Post by username90 » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 3:49 PM UTC

klyrs wrote: post #398

commandlinefan wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that every company that's taken a political stance has demanded that their employees suppress their opinions, unless those opinions are extreme left-wing opinions.

Define "extreme left." Do you mean stalinism or maoism? Are these companies in favor of exterminating the aristocracy through lethal force? Do you mean marxism? Are these companies that are in favor of peacefully gifting their workers with the means of production, and equalizing pay for all employees? Show me these leftist corporations. Or are you referring to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and subsequent Supreme Court…

Equality of outcome is extreme left, California subscribes to it pretty hard. The left we have in Europe are much saner.

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

#424

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 3:51 PM UTC

lliamander wrote: post #394

ldd wrote: post #312

I will offer a personal take on keeping politics out of my 1-man video game company. In theory, I am all for it. I do not use hashtags on twitter, or openly support any ideologies. However, as a light brown dude whose parents immigrated here to Canada, my existence itself is a political statement (in support of legal immigration) that is bound to offend people. I try, to the extent that is possible, to not say politi…

> my existence itself is a political statement (in support of legal immigration) Unless those in your country who are opposed to immigration literally want you dead, this is a pretty hyperbolic statement.

[deleted]

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

#425

Post by skinkestek » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 3:52 PM UTC

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #289

chii wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can’t truly be apolitical; that's one of those "you're either with us or against us" type of deal - which is not the right way to deal with anything imho. You _can_ be apolitical - as in, you do not let your political views affect what you do. You keep your political views private. You do not try to change anyone else's political views as part of your job.

The view you just described is active support for the status quo. One fairly non-controversial part of the status quo right now is our dependence on fossil fuels and co2 emissions to keep our economy running. Saying "I'll keep my views private" means I'm giving an okay to what's happening now. If every individual shares the thinking at every company then it is impossible to even imagine how the most catastrophic clim…

Will you be OK with everyone else doing the same, including people you deeply disagree with?

Because those people also have strong opinions, not because they are evil, but because from their point of view it is the right thing to do.

I'd say: unless you are OK with both Trump supporters, Biden supoorters, Pro-Lifers, Pro-Choice etc etc all bringing their politics to work, be careful about trying to use work for politics.

Edit: let me also add the Communist party, Jehovas Witnesses, the Catholic Church, Hinduism (a number of my colleagues wanting to learn meditation got stuck between two factions arguing loudly and angrily about some detail regarding reincarnation), the local NRA and everyone else. Unless you want to accept them doing activism on company time: don't be the one who starts it.

> in opposition to non-status quo beliefs that you disregard them completely.

Many of us disagree strongly with the status quo because we find it is way too little conservative.

Do you really want us to start using harder tactics instead of sticking to our current strategy:

- hoping the kids on the left will grow up soon. Traditionally in generation after generation they abandon the dumbest ideas after a decade or so. (And yes, this holds true for me too, I was influenced by socialism as a teenager even though I never torched anything.)

- be nice so that others will be nice to us, or at least think twice who they want to support

- stand up for others and hope others will stand up for us (and yes, despite me being deeply "conservative" that also means standing up for immigrants. I do that.)

- vote

- pray

- depending on location: make sure we are able to defend ourselves and our families if police cannot be expected to do so (we don't need to think about that here as crime rates are low and police arrive quickly if you need them)

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

#426

Post by toomanybeersies » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 3:53 PM UTC

I've been around the block enough times to realise that any tech job inevitably has morally murky dimensions.

It's never in regards the big overarching social issues like racial politics though. It's the advertising companies you work with, the casinos and bookmakers (which is the only time I've made a moral stand at work), or people losing jobs that are replaced by automation.

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

#427

Post by andymoe » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 3:55 PM UTC

The cool thing is that while Coinbase gets to use its inherent power/leverage over workers to get a certain outcome (capital is a form of power btw) workers can use their inherent power (withholding labor, negotiating as a unit, building consensus etc) to get their desired outcome and behavior from the company.

No one owes anyone anything and there are not really any rules here. Consequences and outcomes yes but no real rules.

So the people that work at Coinbase took some action (walkout) and the CEO is taking some action (blog post/policy/vision clarification/severance offers to leave). His job is to convince and use his power to get his desired outcome. But employees have a similar amount of power to change the vision and direction of the company too. They don’t often wield it well since it’s been in business owners best interest to convince workers they don’t have this power at all.

It will be interesting to see if the employees realize any of this and how they respond.

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

#428

Post by PragmaticPulp » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 3:56 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #346

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.

There is a lot of value in removing political activists from your company, and so it's worth paying them to leave. Aside from the combative toxic environment they generate, they are also often the source of disgruntled rogue employees that will generally behave improperly, misrepresent coworkers, leak documents, raise alarms about operations they don't understand, and generally draw the company into litigation. In a…

In my experience, the vast majority of employees don’t want their workplace to become a political battleground. Even those who occasionally discuss politics at work and are mature enough to behave like adults about it.

It’s tempting to think of this in terms of Democrats vs Republicans or right vs left, but that’s not really the domain of the most problematic employees. The most problematic employees are the ones who have given up on the notion of reasonable debate or disagreement and instead have become convinced that the other side is committing acts so terrible that fighting them at every juncture is the only acceptable thing to do. Strangely enough, the “other side” isn’t just far-right or fad-left people, it becomes centrists, or people who don’t vote, or people who don’t want to engage in politics at work.

When you’ve reached the point where a small handful of employees are fomenting outrage at their company for not putting a BLM statement on the company Twitter account, for example, the situation has arrived at a “with us or against us” false dichotomy.

Generally, the only way to win with politics at the office is to not play. However, when one side decides that not playing is equivalent to being evil, everyone is forced to play. When everyone is forced to play by a handful of disgruntled employees, everyone loses.

Paying to remove these people from a company makes a lot of sense. If you don’t do something to remove them, the people who are sick of being dragged into political debates at work will slowly diffuse out of the company. The hyper-political employees are a loud minority, but the people who just want to do their jobs and remain professional are very much more common. Don’t let the tail wag the dog.

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

#429

Post by ThrowawayR2 » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 3:56 PM UTC

albedoa wrote: post #336

disposekinetics wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This all makes Coinbase more attractive to me. I probably won’t be deplatformed no matter my ideology which is a desireable trait.

If Coinbase are more attractive to people who are worried about being "deplatformed" for their ideology, then they are selecting for that group. You write "no matter my ideology" when you mean "despite my ideology".

Since non-progressive liberals are also being punished for being insufficiently woke, that's not the negative that you seem to think it is.

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

#430

Post by rhino369 » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 3:56 PM UTC

sdfqasdghj2 wrote: post #285

adamzapasnik wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it used to be like that? My dad taught me not to talk about politics nor religion in a workplace. I think it's for the best.

It's sad. We ought to be able to debate important topics without people getting upset and emotional and ruining each others lives.

You can do that anywhere. Just don’t do it with a captive audience.

And the people most inclined to discuss politics in the work place tend to be the people who take it personally.