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

#651

Post by mesozoic » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 6:05 PM UTC

skinkestek wrote: post #485

nrmitchi wrote: post #390

I know that this will greatly help a few who are legitimately disturbed by the recent post and feel they either can't work at, or aren't excited by, Coinbase any more. But at the level of severance discussed in the post (4 (or 6) months, 7-year exercise window), it feels like most employees who know they could soft-land into another position would be silly not to take this offer. Some people may still enjoy working a…

At this point in my life this is a message that would make me want to stay. Not having to deal with activism at work sounds like a nice perk!

Agreed. Putting Coinbase on my shortlist for sure.

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

#652

Post by scsilver » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 6:05 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/

I find it hard to take someone seriously when they define themselves by what they are not. Its defining themselves by their opponent. If there was no opponent who would they be?

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

#653

Post by newobj » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 6:06 PM UTC

itsoktocry wrote: post #589

ryanisnan wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you are only young and naive and will learn how short-sighted your opinion has been here.

What makes you so sure you're on the "right" side here?

You ever wonder why "politics at work" has flared up so much in the last 4 years? Have you completely lost sight of the timeline of events, or do you refuse to acknowledge it?

Do you think it's a reaction to something? Or did it just spontaneously instigate itself one day? Just uppity libs getting bored?

People are speaking up because people feel existentially threatened. Because people are being existentially threatened. This threat permeates peoples' lives. It doesn't get left at home when they "go" to the office. Asking them to turn it off at work is asking them to TURN IT OFF. And now we're in gaslighting territory.

DARVO. You know it?

We're in the phase now where the person under threat is the problem, the victim is being attacked for speaking up.

Extinguishing politics at work is not some "rational man" exercise. "I just want to be free to ply my trade, dude." It's asking people to pause their very real own pain. It's asking them to deny it, deny its effects; to pretend it's not real. To think they're the problem, not the person who's threatened.

This has never been about "ooh, should we, or should we not, discuss supply-side economics at work?" Broad segments of the population are under threat. That's not politics. That's just violence. Asking them to switch it off at work is just perpetuating and enabling the violence.

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

#654

Post by coryfklein » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 6:06 PM UTC

ryanisnan wrote: post #580

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…

This is impossible. When the very technology you work on is employed in entirely political ways (i.e. dragonfly), you cannot separate work from the world.

Cash is a technology that is one of the biggest enablers of drug trafficking and child prostitution. Does this serve as an argument for employees of the Treasury Department (which prints and mints said cash) to engage in politics in the workplace?

Much of technology is agnostic to politics, and enables much evil and good alike. This does not, in my mind, serve as justification for technology creators to intertwine politics with the creation of said technology.

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

#655

Post by SamReidHughes » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 6:08 PM UTC

paulgb wrote: post #223

tossAfterUsing wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When we have had presidents who were willing to condemn white supremacy, we tended not to call on CEOs to. https://twitter.com/robsmithonline/status/131113297546835968...

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…

More like, he unambiguously condemned Neo nazis and white nationalists right after Charlottesville, so don't repeat that lie. We have the freaking video. https://www.twitter.com/BarrettWilson6/status/13111436668917...

And the Proud Boys' leader looks pretty black for a white supremacist.

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

#656

Post by Apocryphon » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 6:09 PM UTC

coryfklein wrote: post #654

ryanisnan wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is impossible. When the very technology you work on is employed in entirely political ways (i.e. dragonfly), you cannot separate work from the world.

Cash is a technology that is one of the biggest enablers of drug trafficking and child prostitution. Does this serve as an argument for employees of the Treasury Department (which prints and mints said cash) to engage in politics in the workplace? Much of technology is agnostic to politics, and enables much evil and good alike. This does not, in my mind, serve as justification for technology creators to intertwine po…

Yes, if it will bring about more regulations and protections.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/treasury-plugs-gap-in-anti-mone...

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

#657

Post by lliamander » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 6:09 PM UTC

mplewis wrote: post #567

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.

How is that remotely "owning the libs"? Sounds like this person just wants to be free of them (or those that would try to get him fired).

It's not an attack if people just don't want to be around you.

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

#658

Post by uoaei » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 6:11 PM UTC

subsubzero wrote: post #503

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.…

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 pol…

Voting is literally an infinitesimal part of politics. Voting is an instantaneous act, and then it's done. That is not politics.

All labor is "activism" performed in service of a specific outcome, because every action is inherently ideological. Only tools are morally neutral -- not the actions performed with them.

What you spend your time doing, introduces an influence that drives nature and society in one direction over another. If you make tools for microlending, you are contributing to the economic activity of disconnected portions of the world population. If you make tools for surveilling undocumented immigrants, you are contributing to the apparatus which continues to strip and violate the human rights of large groups of people.

Different degrees of separation warrant different levels of attribution. But no one is completely inculpable.

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

#659

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 6:11 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…

There are other forms of cooperate governance than co-ops and corporations, and there are other ways to ensure non-investor stakeholders like employees (and the community) have a say in some business decisions. Unions are an obvious one. The German model for corporations is another: employees get an actual seat on the board with an actual voice and a vote, by law.

None of these are perfect solutions, but any of them would be a step in the right direction. When manufacturing was the engine of economic growth in America, workers figured out how to get it to work for them. Tech is becoming the new engine now, and it's time for us (the workers) to figure out how to implement systemic changes to ensure our concerns are heard and addressed.

As to your main point, I agree. Whinging about your employer won't change anything - the systems themselves need to be changed.

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

#660

Post by spamizbad » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 6:11 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…

My personal view on this is that these "activist employees" are a predictable natural side-effect of any organization is:

1) Large

2) Has a culture that embraces optimism, reject cynicism, and has "Change the World!" type mission statements

3) Have overly-strict culture fit parameters.

Political activists share a lot in common with founders: They are stubbornly optimistic (Why fight for social change if you think it's pointless or impossible?), they want to change the world, and they have interests in building movements/organizations. If your hiring process is designed to weed out candidates cynical enough to know your organizations mission statement is bullshit and recognize you're just here to make money not change the world - or pessimistic enough to think they'll never be part of positive change - don't be surprised if you find yourself with a team full of activists... just saying.