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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

#751

Post by curryst »

itsoktocry wrote: post #603
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…

> "The path to an IPO is to purge Black and Brown people from Coinbase ... this is very unbecoming of a federal contractor" Do normal people actually believe stuff like this???

Normal as in average? No, that leans pretty far left. It's not particularly unusual to see though. My theory is that there is a very loud minority of people online that believe things like that (or are willing to exaggerate to that degree).

Extremists abound on the internet.

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

#753

Post by dogman144 »

x3n0ph3n3 wrote: post #740
dogman144 wrote: post #400

An interesting part to this is Coinbase's mission is, if it actually works out, absurdly counter-culture and near revolutionary. Yeah, it's an exchange, trade w/o mainstream adoption will likely go on for a while, and there are a lot of caveats I'm not mentioning. A mainstream Coinbase with mainstream cryptocurrencies, which will include Bitcoin (assuming a multi-currency future, not just BTC dominance), implies some…

> It's interesting that in exchange for not taking a stance on one set of issues, their very aggressive stance in another extremely societally profound area is getting overlooked. It's not overlooked, it's explicit in the call to focus on the mission of the company and not unrelated politics.

Talking about gen pop. Obviously Coinbase is aware of it, and their stance makes a lot more sense when analyzed that way.

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

#754

Post by floren »

Nacdor wrote: post #744
rcfox wrote: post #714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's how it works: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22159031 You can disagree with how it's implemented, but it's not subjective. dang does a way better job of addressing moderation issues as they're happening than anything you'll see on Reddit (besides perhaps tiny, niche subreddits.) And at least he's not surreptitiously changing people's comments. ( https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/23/13739026/reddit-ceo-ste…

I'm not just talking about the "flame-war detection", although that system alone is extremely crude an ineffective (in my opinion). There are lots of other moderation features -- e.g. shadow bans and automatic vote penalties -- that are completely opaque but turn HN into a strong echo chamber. I also disagree with your point about Reddit. At least on Reddit you can easily track what was removed (there are entire subr…

> There are lots of other moderation features -- e.g. shadow bans and automatic vote penalties -- that are completely opaque but turn HN into a strong echo chamber.

Every time I click "vouch" I wonder if a counter is being incremented on my account, or if a record of things I've vouched is being kept for moderator perusal. A chilling effect which certainly exists outside of HN, of course.

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

#755

Post by vmception »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #750
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…

Based purely on the headline, it feels like the people who yell about it are the exact Twitter shitstorm party that tries to start a pitchfork mob everywhere, and if you just try to stay away from it, they'll form a mob against you for staying out of it. In other words, exactly the toxic group of people that this is trying to remove from the company.

I think that is pretty clear, but I think taking that approach of excising them is going to shoot themselves in the foot.

It should be clear that this isn't "just" trying to be mission focused, that was very eloquently written and timely, but it is failing because it is a reaction to internal issues which wasn't clear to the rest of us. And as such it has stirred a hornets nest that also no longer wants to keep things inside the company.

Many of the people it has stirred are also people that have been fighting for more inclusivity and also identify as part of underrepresented groups. People that feel like their voice isn't loud enough because they are so few inside the companies. This doesn't represent everyone in underrepresented groups, only that there is a significant overlap in the goals of inclusivity and people that want the company to be more welcoming by speaking out against inherently political nationalism, which the company doesn't want to do.

I'm not offering any solution only observation.

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

#756

Post by a1369209993 »

scsilver wrote: post #652
drak0n1c wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> If there was no opponent who would they be?

They wouldn't be; that's the point. If there was no problem there would be no reason to define oneself as anti-problem.

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

#757

Post by paxys »

artursapek wrote: post #488
Barrin92 wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a conformist is someone who conforms to a norm, there is no such thing as a conformist minority by definition. Are you thinking half of the employees are activists and he wants to kick them all out?

The majority of people in Silicon Valley are liberals. The loud, troublesome activist liberals are who he is ousting. Just look at Google.

You probably haven't spent much time in Silicon Valley if you think that.

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

#758

Post by a1369209993 »

newobj wrote: post #653
itsoktocry wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 threat…

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

Yes; the victim is being attacked by activist coworkers for admitting that they don't agree with attacking people for admitting they they don't agree with things.

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

#759

Post by disposekinetics »

ascorbic wrote: post #730
disposekinetics wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a supporter of radically free speech, I'm selecting for the widest possible grouping. That's tolerance.

A supporter of radically free speech is attracted to a company because it bans political speech.

Companies that have embraced politics have time and time again come down on the side of censorship, so it is the lesser of evils.

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

#760

Post by thelock85 »

hackerfromthefu wrote: post #526
thelock85 wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> draw a line between mission-related politics and all other politics Agreed. I wonder if they will take some word smithing to the mission statement. Even with the clarification and interpretation presented in the blog post, "economic freedom" encompasses a lot of "other politics". It is a helluva juggling act to want a diverse, thriving team, and a singular shared definition of economic freedom across that team. Mor…

I always thought it's quite normal for people to work together despite not having all the same ideas and definitions. That those flowery words on a mission statement are not precise or exact, and will never stand up to all situations and expectations. Perhaps it's not really that important, and there's not even much point debating it for the organisation .. people at work could instead get on with the work they are d…

Yes, and our current socio-political state has this CEO bringing more precision to the flowery mission statement.

> without inflicting it excessively on their colleagues

This is the tricky part. In a transition from the old normal to the new normal, I believe it's important to recognize who may have always been excessively afflicted but didn't have the platform. Or conversely, who may have never felt excessively afflicted and had full discretion over their professional platform.

It's the eternal theme of monoculture vs. multiculturalism. The Coinbase CEO is acknowledging both sides of the coin, and maintaining focus on one side (pun intended). I don't think that's right or wrong. It is what it is.

There is more than enough willing talent to keep the line he has drawn in the sand, but will people look back years from now and question the veracity of the original mission despite evident success (e.g. Facebook making the world more open and connected)?

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