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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

#501

Post by hackerfromthefu »

tehjoker wrote: post #471
jiofih wrote: 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?

If one were to engage with the works of leftist thinkers, one would recognize that the workplace is actually the central point for activism as it is where one seizes the means of production.

Seizes or sabotages .. it's all a matter of perspective

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

#502

Post by ledauphin »

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.

this is undoubtedly true, but also undoubtedly easier said than done. we don't seem to be wired as a species to have difficult conversations without feeling emotions amd having those emotions affect our relationships.

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

#503

Post by subsubzero »

Barrin92 wrote: post #483
subsubzero wrote: post #465

I may want to apply to coinbase. I am really fed up with 'activist' employees and the toxic environment they bring. All I want is to just focus on engineering and ship features/improvements. Bringing politics to the office(thanks Google!) has been one of the worst things to happen in the 21st century for tech companies. Interestingly enough google has been going through absolute hell with these cancerous employees an…

>All I want is to just focus on engineering and ship features/improvements. Yeah if there wasn't the pesky world around all the engineering and we could all just stare at our stock options while we sit in our gentrified neighbourhoods and pretend the world doesn't exist. You can ignore politics but politics doesn't ignore you. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil is an unworthy attitude for a democratic citizen.…

Your strawman argument is invalid to what I said. I spend an inordinate amount of time researching each candidates views and each propositions pros and cons. Before election day I usually set aside a day or two to deep dive into every choice I make. I take voting very seriously as people have died to give me the luxury to vote. These actions all occur outside of the office where they belong. That being said leave politics out of the office.

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

#504

Post by hackerfromthefu »

zo1 wrote: post #195
jiofih wrote: 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?

Or that it's becoming easier to perform activism within work contexts? Especially with left-leaning causes that always sound good, justified and fair in principle, so they are easy for public/PR-sensitive companies to adopt without rocking the boat. Essentially that means that for the company, it ends up being a win-win situation. They satisfy their employees' urges to perform activism and they get brownie points fro…

Assuming there's enough non-activists in the company to actually get some real work done while the primadonnas are blowing hot air and ganging up on the the next victim

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

#505

Post by eulenteufel »

username90 wrote: post #167
krapp wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Supporting the status quo would mean that you actively oppose those who try to change it. Being neutral means that you help neither those who try to change it nor those who try to keep it the same as before. They are not the same. Example: A person is being murdered near you. You flee. Did you support the persons murder by not engaging, and therefore letting it play out? No, you did not.

I think inconvenience of activism plays a role here. I don't have to endanger my life by stopping a murderer. I should however at least call an ambulance if I see somebody bleeding to death on the street.

Of course I didn't support the bleeding by not taking action to stop it, but I did have a responsibility to act. I think this responsibility to act is the issue here. If I was supporting anything or staying neutral are semantics that I don't see central to this issue.

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

#506

Post by hardwaregeek »

subsubzero wrote: post #465

I may want to apply to coinbase. I am really fed up with 'activist' employees and the toxic environment they bring. All I want is to just focus on engineering and ship features/improvements. Bringing politics to the office(thanks Google!) has been one of the worst things to happen in the 21st century for tech companies. Interestingly enough google has been going through absolute hell with these cancerous employees an…

I think each side needs to have sympathy for each other. I totally understand not wanting to hear about politics. I'd love for the world to be boring enough that work could stay work. But on the flip side, a lot of people have skin in the game, so to speak, and can't disentangle politics from their life. Being able to ignore politics right now is a very privileged, very lucky position. I have no doubt that if you surveyed various politically active employees, they'd love it if they didn't have to think about politics. Unfortunately that's not their decision.

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

#507

Post by GoblinSlayer »

marcinzm wrote: post #237
GoblinSlayer wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should toilets be political too? Which would you use?

Toilets are political which is why certain places have moved to uni-sex toilets.

I mean the porcelain friend specifically. Which party symbols should it be ordained with?

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

#508

Post by myroon5 »

dang wrote: post #454

The thread on the original blog post is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24610267 It got relatively little discussion because it set off the flamewar detector ( http://hnrankings.info/24610267/ ). Normally we'd turn that off in such a case, but we missed that one. Also: don't miss that there are multiple pages of comments in this thread. That's what the More link at the bottom points to. Or click: https://n…

the flamewar detector seems interesting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23280488

how often does it get triggered?

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

#509

Post by trhway »

subsubzero wrote: post #465

I may want to apply to coinbase. I am really fed up with 'activist' employees and the toxic environment they bring. All I want is to just focus on engineering and ship features/improvements. Bringing politics to the office(thanks Google!) has been one of the worst things to happen in the 21st century for tech companies. Interestingly enough google has been going through absolute hell with these cancerous employees an…

'activist', toxic, cancerous ... Slapping these terms onto the people around understandably takes time and effort away from focusing on engineering and shipping features.

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

#510

Post by gamblor956 »

subsubzero wrote: post #465

I may want to apply to coinbase. I am really fed up with 'activist' employees and the toxic environment they bring. All I want is to just focus on engineering and ship features/improvements. Bringing politics to the office(thanks Google!) has been one of the worst things to happen in the 21st century for tech companies. Interestingly enough google has been going through absolute hell with these cancerous employees an…

"Activist" is being used to describe an extremely broad range of employees.

It's one thing for an employee to be activist within the company about new (or even existing) features/products/etc, because that is part of the company's mission and business ops and its the kind of feedback a company should get before it introduces a potentially controversial product/feature to the market, or about problematic products/features that should be retired. Otherwise you end up with companies like Palantir, or unethical business models based on loot boxes and youth gambling.

It's another thing for an employee to take external politics that aren't directly or indirectly related to the company's business, and try to make the company and other employees take a stand on those political issues. Generally, the only time this is appropriate is if, for example, those political issues directly affect a large segment of the customer base and taking a position is also a deliberate act of marketing. (See, e.g., Patagonia, Nike and even Hobby Lobby, but contrast with Chikfila.) Otherwise, you just end up alienating a large portion of your employees and customers to the overall detriment of the business.

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