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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

#801

Post by eli »

jlokier wrote: post #775
SquishyPanda23 wrote: post #731

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh it's not strategically genius. The crypto community is hugely political and right-libertarian leaning. He's just signalling that he's not going against that trend. > He's totally neutered the ability of employees to take strong political stances He absolutely has not. I'm sure they will continue to take hard right-libertarian stances that are common in the cryptocurrency world.

"There are many unbanked and underbanked people in the world who have no ability to get a loan to buy a home, or start a business, so this kind of technology has enormous potential to improve the world over time, even if it is still early days." - Brian Armstrong, 2 weeks ago Seems to me that's not at all a hard right-libertarian stance.

That the world is full of underserved people who should be helped by...this for-profit corporation?

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

#802

Post by frankish »

T-hawk wrote: post #786
prions wrote: post #769

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is why I'm frustrated with the idea that we need to enact change and policies at the federal level. The federal government should just exist to protect our liberties and organize national defense. Everything else should be organized more locally at the community level where voters actually have some skin in the game. You'd think that after months of "locally led" covid responses in the US that this naive take…

It's not so much about locality - it's about competition . Locality is just the means to that. Everyone wins when competitors try different things and find out what's efficient and what works well and what doesn't. Marijuana legalization and gay marriage started as experiments by states and localities, which could find and set the example to be adopted federally. Everyone loses when an entrenched monopoly (here the f…

Not to say that competition isn't also relevant, but I think locality is still necessary for osmosis of ideas/thoughts.

I think both Marijuana and gay marriage legalization started because of a small group of like-minded people that found it acceptable and were able to spread that ideology enough so that eventually the state could vote on them. For those particular examples, competition doesn't really kick in until it's already been experimented with, but then it really speeds up the spread for sure.

Looking at the timeline of cannabis laws [1], recreational use in particular, Colorado basically tipped the ice berg. My point is that the organic spread of new and/or controversial ideas is localized before competition kicks in.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_cannabis_laws_in_t...

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

#803

Post by tomjakubowski »

hejja wrote: post #372
Seanambers wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Case and point: employees at Spotify wanting to censor Joe Rogan. Whether or not you agree, you can objectively see how this would jeopardize a presumably 10-figure deal for Spotify.

Rogan's deal is in the hundreds of millions (9 figures), not in the billions.

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

#804

Post by heavyset_go »

paxys wrote: post #723
anm89 wrote: post #689

I see this as strategically genius whether you agree with it or not. He's totally neutered the ability of employees to take strong political stances within the company going forward and he's made it clear where the company stands in away that makes it very hard for people to come back later and defend staying if they were interested in these kinds of politics. If you want to stay focused on building a company and not…

Whether it is a strategically genius move or not will depend on the eventual outcome. No tech company, especially one in the bitcoin/fintech sector, can pretend to be completely apolitical. So putting out public blog posts and setting strict policies that apply to employees may not fly well when the company or its leadership/executives themselves don't follow them down the line.

> No tech company, especially one in the bitcoin/fintech sector, can pretend to be completely apolitical

Especially when the company in question makes significant political donations[1].

[1] https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/?...

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

#805

Post by x3n0ph3n3 »

sk5t wrote: post #789
drak0n1c wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Do you then agree that Coinbase is forcing a certain set of politics on its employees?

No, it's telling people to leave their politics at home and focus on work at work.

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

#806

Post by chillacy »

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…

There's probably a handful of people who had already interviewed and were on their way out in the next few weeks who got a lucky break today.

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

#807

Post by [deleted] »

Dirlewanger wrote: post #393
echelon wrote: post #300

It would be so ironic if every Coinbase employee took this exit. It's not like there isn't more work out there. The longer I work, the less I put up with dehumanizing actions from the top. You only live for so long. Why be told to your face that you're just a resource .

Please show me a modern tech company that treats its employees fairly, pays decent wages, whose mission to actually bring about good change in society, is profitable and won't go under next year, and doesn't say they support X social movement on Twitter for cheap PR points.

[deleted]

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

#808

Post by chillacy »

jcims wrote: post #116
jeromegv wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

??? Nice way to rewrite history. Would you say the civil rights movement was successful because it wanted to put aside differences? Or because they fought for their rights, their difference, and the privileged majority had to make concessions?

It's actually a perfect example. It's hard to imagine everyone fighting for civil rights was previously aligned on all fronts or agreed with everything that was done along the way.

In MLK's book "Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community" he talks about some of the internal battles within the civil rights community and how they explicitly tried to forge alliances with other groups. That's when I learned just how brilliant MLK was in this political / social sense.

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

#809

Post by [deleted] »

pornel wrote: post #56

This is going to work great for Coinbase. It's very helpful for employers to select for conformists who can be told to shut up, and not stand up for what they believe (unless they believe in the status quo and the company, which is called non-political). Selecting for groupthink^W mission is pretty important in the business of cryptocurrencies. Reduces chances of anyone having a different moral stance that would push…

[deleted]

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

#810

Post by fataliss »

It opens up a whole can of worms though. What's "political"? Nowadays anything uncomfortable is brushed aside as political? Racism? Political! Gender inequality? Definitely political! Wealth in... you see where I'm going with this. So what that screams to me is this will to bubble up Coinbase with people happy in the current status quo, whatever that is!
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