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

#591

Post by hackerfromthefu » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

quotemstr wrote: post #541

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?

The pagination also breaks comment deep links that aren't on the first page - ie deep links to a comment after a 'more'

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

#592

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

gkop wrote: post #561

nilkn wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

[deleted]

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

#593

Post by kennywinker » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

itsoktocry wrote: post #570

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.…

> 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 yo…

Your logic is sound: politics are a distraction, so offices where politics are put aside will be more productive. But I know a lot of VERY smart people who wouldn’t sign up for that workplace. Especially if there are social and political ramifications to the product being built or the customers being served (there almost always are - hence the cliche “making the world a better place” goal of any startup).

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

#594

Post by Apocryphon » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #519

hardwaregeek wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sur…

People can be as politically active as they want, on their own time and on their own dime. Ironically, the people preaching activism in the workplace would be livid if a religious believer proselytized their faith at the workplace, despite the believer having as strong a belief in their ideas as the activists do in theirs. Quite the double standard.

Perhaps religious believers should be free to proselytize their faith at work. It might not be the most effective venue to do it at, but why should they be forbidden from following their conscience?

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

#595

Post by devteambravo » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

In theory, I would agree with the sentiment of not bringing politics to work, but this is 2020. We have Nazis marching in the streets. We have algorithms that don't "work" on brown people because they were built by and for white people. In practice, I've found that "no politics" at work means "let us be racist in peace".

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

#596

Post by ascorbic » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 5:43 PM UTC

drak0n1c wrote: post #553

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…

There is now even a job site for firms and employees that want to avoid toxic accusatory work environments: https://www.unwoke.hr/

The name of that site makes its partisanship pretty clear.

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

#597

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 5:43 PM UTC

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…

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

#598

Post by Impossible » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 5:43 PM UTC

j4nt4b wrote: post #542

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 hire…

Uh aren't most employees shareholders in most public tech companies? I've definitely been a shareholder in every public company I've worked at.

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

#599

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 5:43 PM UTC

tshaddox wrote: post #575

ptero wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Wanting to separate engineering work from reality is precisely what Barrin92 is saying should not and can not be done. Engineering work isn't just some insulated game that gives you tokens to buy things you need in the real world. The engineering work is itself part of the real world.

Everything is part of the real world. Would you go to a mattress company and demand that they make it harder for your political opponents to get a good night's sleep?

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

#600

Post by eli » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 5:43 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…

Sorry. Your work is political whether you choose to acknowledge that or not.