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Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

theblockcrypto.com

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

#541

Post by quotemstr »

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…

> Also: don't miss that there are multiple pages of comments in this thread.

Is comment pagination still necessary?

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

#542

Post by j4nt4b »

If employees want to influence a company's political stance, then they've already lost, because employees are not shareholders. It's not their call to make.

They would have a leg to stand on if they were part of a worker's cooperative, because then they'd be owners. The juicy job market for tech workers may obscure this fundamental fact, but when the rubber hits the road any overpaid engineer is still considered hired help and forever "below the salt". Until workers build up a co-op sector to compete with private sector companies, they will never have a say, no matter how much they kick and scream.

So either sit your ass down and sell your soul like you already said you would, or get out there and start building. Not just for yourself, but for all of us. Because we will never have true democracy as long as most of the wealth the people generate gets sliced and diced at board meetings without even the veneer of representation.

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

#543

Post by newobj »

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…

Sorry, do you want an ideologically inclusive environment, as alluded to in the article, or an anideological environment?

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

#544

Post by claudeganon »

simias wrote: post #527

Reading these comments I feel like the root of the issue is the collapse of American democracy. It's a bit grandiloquent but that's definitely how it looks like. If workers trust that "We, the people" are still in charge on the big picture then it doesn't make sense to bring politics at work. Just vote. Now if you feel like your power as a citizen has dwindled and you can't meaningfully enact change through democrati…

> If workers trust that "We, the people" are still in charge on the big picture then it doesn't make sense to bring politics at work. Just vote.

This is a bizarre, ahistorical sentiment. Go read about the history of labor struggle in the US. Even when everyone could vote, the organizing of workplaces and response by their employers was far more contentious and violent than anything that’s going on today.

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

#545

Post by mediaguilt »

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…

Weird point of view when most tech and engineering is used to generate political instability, misinformation and vote suppression. In the case of coinbase I wouldn’t be surprise if the « amazing engineering » is mostly used for tax evasion or to by-pass politic finance laws, corruption laws etc...

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

#547

Post by toiletfuneral »

ptero wrote: post #513
Barrin92 wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.…

The comment author does not advocate ignoring the world, he wants to separate his engineering work from politics and thus wants to look for employers who do not push a particular political program on him. Which seems a perfectly valid (and attractive to me) view. You cannot ignore your dreams, your health, your family, social ills, the air quality, politics and a myriad of other things in the world around you. But if…

This response is mis-characterization and is acting in bad faith, no one in this thread is asking for forced demonstrating. That's not actually a thing that's happening.

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

#548

Post by cortesoft »

spollo wrote: post #524
JeremyBanks wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I don't disagree with your underlying feeling here, that is to say I'm on your side of the fence. But don't you think it's a bit extreme to label people sociopaths, insane, evil, incompetent, for expressing their desire to work in a place where they can focus on their craft? Your last sentence is actually really threatening as well. I can think of many reasons people might find this appealing. They may be incredibly…

> But don't you think it's a bit extreme to label people sociopaths, insane, evil, incompetent, for expressing their desire to work in a place where they can focus on their craft?

I don't think you can ever fully just 'work on your craft' without considering the consequences of what you are doing.

Do you think it would be ok to 'just focus on your craft' if you were hired to design computerized controllers for suicide bombers?

Obviously that is a ridiculous example, but it is a good demonstration of why you can't fully ignore what your work is being used for.

You don't need to care if your work is some great helper of humanity, but you do have a responsibility to make sure your work isn't evil.

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

#549

Post by purple_ferret »

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…

Have you considered Raytheon, Huawei, the Turkish government, etc?

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

#550

Post by skinkestek »

Seanambers wrote: post #169
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…

The activism displayed in U.S tech is damaging both from a organizational point of view, but also its a competetitive disadvantage. Imagine having employees who refuses to do work because 'they feel they shouldn't'. Or organizes walkouts, protests and are actively lobbying for changes in company policy to reflect their own personal values. Or protests against certain customers of the company, because they are evil in…

> Or protests against certain customers of the company, because they are evil in some perceived way or form.

Or protests against other employees because .

I'm the bloke who got my boss to hire the Polish girl who cleaned our offices after I realized she had a relevant degree.

The Indian girl I worked with at the helpdesk at the start of my career approached me at a wedding for common friends and said thanks for how much I had helped and encouraged her to pick up the local language.

I'm often the bloke people talk to about this or that because I listen and neither judge nor leak (unless clearly agreed).

I'm the bloke who was happy to be let go so that another guy with less experience could keep his as the bottom fell out of the market. (Also I really didn't like that job, but it made me genuinely happy that he could stay there as he had small kids and needed a job for different reasons. Also: I got a 40% increase in my base salary when I got a new job : )

It goes without saying I strongly believe all people have the same worth.

But at Google I would not feel safe at all, because I have studied enough biology and psychology to know that men and women are different and I refuse to pretend otherwise if confronted although I am wise enough not to bring the topic up.

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