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

#561

Post by gkop » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

nilkn wrote: post #109

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 have to say most companies I’ve worked for have subscribed to the policies in Armstrong’s blog post, and it has worked very well. But these companies were mostly outside the Bay Area. I suspect the Bay Area is extremely nondiverse and homogeneous, and folks there aren’t actually used to having to work with and get along with people who strongly disagree with them on politics. In that kind of monoculture, it’s easy…

> I suspect the Bay Area is extremely nondiverse and homogeneous

Yes it's fair to say that about Bay Area tech companies. The geographic region that is the Bay Area however features extraordinarily diverse demographics: https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/10/14/three-bay-area-cities...

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

#562

Post by chillwaves » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 5:27 PM UTC

moduspol wrote: post #93

unishark wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would take the payout and go get another high paying job.

Easy money. Not much to read about politics in the decision of getting paid for nothing.

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

#563

Post by paulgb » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 5:28 PM UTC

skinkestek wrote: post #523

paulgb wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last night he was given the chance to unequivocally condemn the Proud Boys and instead told them to "stand back and stand by", which the group themselves has taken as a rally cry. Just like how after Charlottesville, white supremacists took his ambiguous response as a sign of approval. He doesn't condemn, he validates with just enough deniability that people can make lists like the one you posted, while everyone who…

Did you follow that debate closely? Because it seems like a lot more nuanced than the media put it.

I did, unfortunately. I haven't really followed the media's portrayal of it, but I do know that the Proud Boys' website now says "stand back and stand by" prominently on their home page above a call for recruits.

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

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Post by drak0n1c » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

sk5t wrote: post #535

Never forget that calls that protests and political expressions aren't happening "in the right venue" or "in the right way" only help one side. Take for example NFL management telling the players not to kneel in solidarity. That is the players' most effective (and frankly, peaceful, and not particularly disruptive) way to send a message. But if you don't agree with their message, moving to shift it to a less visible…

That's the point. Why should a private business like Coinbase accommodate far-left ideologues against capitalism and its very existence? That seems incongruous.

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

#565

Post by human_person » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 5:31 PM UTC

Erica Joy (Director of eng at Github) had an interesting take on this. https://twitter.com/EricaJoy/status/1311178025275289600

"coinbase engineers walked off [in June] because brian wouldn't say "Black Lives Matter," he posted it so they'd get back to work, now he's having an executive "YOU AREN'T THE BOSS OF ME!" meltdown* about it" and "this looks a whole lot like the play certain advisors tell CEO's to run when they need to extend their runway. whether or not they backfill the people who leave will tell the tale. guess it's time to watch linkedin."

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

#566

Post by moneytalks » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 5:32 PM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #511

buzzerbetrayed wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP never said to ignore politics. You are the one that brought that up. They said to leave them out of the office. There is plenty of time for politics before and after work. Bringing your politics in to work just makes for an uncomfortable work environment for you co-workers.

'the office' or the firm today, is for better or worse our primary means by which we can exercise influence. That is why tech workers are bringing politics into the firm in the first place , because they realise, rightly, that it is one of the most potent channels to actually exercise change, and that's why so many people want to keep politics out of it. The workplace is the one space where your political opponent ca…

Some would call political activism on your employer's dime theft.

Unless it's part of your job description.

But no one likes to face what it means to sell their time to another person.

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

#567

Post by mplewis » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 5:32 PM UTC

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…

Joining a company with garbage politics to own the libs is truly a bespoke reactionary take.

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

#568

Post by vmception » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 5:32 PM UTC

s1artibartfast wrote: post #533

vmception wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't change my stance on what I would prefer companies do but it seems like a multilayered issue on the tides to pay attention to here and at the very least makes me not want to espouse my own thoughts about "Yeah! mission focused companies!" publicly. Here are quotes from my feed: "The path to an IPO is to purge Black and Brown people from Coinbase ... this is very unbecoming of a federal contractor" "Over a d…

Do the people making the statements you quoted have more context/information, or are they just more vocal. In my experience, there has never been a shortage of people with practically no information communicating very strong opinions online?

It is a mixture of more context, more vocal, as well as people joining the fray with less context, assimilating to the same perspectives.

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

#569

Post by Reedx » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

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.…

If people don't want to bring the political battlefield into every venue, that's not only valid, but wise.

You are not going to innovate or create anything if you're fighting all day, every day. Constantly distracted. The purpose of a company is to bring people together to CREATE something of value. To solve problems. Hopefully to improve lives on some vector. And you do that most effectively by rowing in the same direction, focused.

People spending their day on Twitter or Slack or in the office halls arguing about the war is not productive. It's mostly just destructive. They're certainly not inventing anything, or curing a disease, or improving energy efficiency, or creating tools, or educating, or entertaining, or inspiring, or anything else additive.

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

#570

Post by itsoktocry » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

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.…

>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.

The issue with "activist" employees isn't so much that they want to bring politics to work (which I can see arguments for and against). It's that the new "activist" employees insist everyone's politics be the same, else you become a target.

I think "no politics" offices will crush it in the future, if by nothing more than being able to focus on the product.