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

#811

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

Reedx wrote: post #365

Zenbit_UX wrote: post #120

Why is a company wanting to be apolitical is controversial? That should be the default, is this an American thing like how masks and healthcare are controversial? I would expect a government to have proper separation from church and state, so why is it weird to want a company to separate politics and mission? I can't see any good coming from being in a work environment where the company supports a political issue I'm…

> Why is a company wanting to be apolitical is controversial? It's wild. That was standard not long ago. Most companies, even in tech, were apolitical. Maybe there would be some watercooler chat near the election with that one coworker who was really into politics, but that was about it. People mostly didn't know or care what the politics of their coworkers were. If they did, it wasn't a big deal and would still be f…

I agree that it is wild that wanting to be "apolitical" is controversial. Sadly though, I think that it has become almost impossible to be "apolitical" due to how politics has creeped into every facet of life.

What is more wild to me is that statements like "black lives matter", "climate change is real and a problem", and "the coronavirus pandemic is real" are political. These seem like they should be commonly agreed upon facts. If those statements are political then it is much harder to be apolitical.

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

#812

Post by int_19h » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 11:32 PM UTC

awb wrote: post #718

jaywalk wrote: post #700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social media is the root of the problem here. All you have to do is make a post promoting the cause, and then you get a flood of little dopamine hits with each like.

Social media is certainly an accelerant, but these issues of leading through blame rather than leading through example have been prevalent in our worst leaders for a long time.

American politics, at least, has been very partisan at times long before social media showed up. Much of 19th century was like that, even outside of the Civil War. That recent period you referenced, when politics was mostly private and considered embarrassing to bring up, is actually more abnormal than normal in that regard. IMO, it just indicates a period of time after major political issues get decisively resolved one way or the other, and a new issue hasn't come up yet (or, more likely, hasn't come to the boiling point yet).

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

#813

Post by jlokier » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 11:34 PM UTC

eli wrote: post #801

jlokier wrote: post #775

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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?

You're projecting an exclusiveness that is just not there in the quote. Nowhere does it argue that this corporation should be the only one helping.

If anything, "this kind of technology" means the opposite of exclusivity, namely that Coinbase is part of a larger system than themselves, made of multiple corporations and other entities, and the people themselves, using this kind of technology, which it is claimed together help the underserved.

Or are you trying to argue that this for-profit corporation, or all for-profit corporations, should not be aiming to help underserved people?

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

#814

Post by int_19h » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 11:36 PM UTC

WJW wrote: post #641

monoideism wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s far beyond politics and more a religion than anything. I believe this is a result of the fact that Americans have turned away from organized religion in recent years (note: I'm not religious myself). There seems to be something deep inside of most people that requires a shared spiritual experience. Wokism has emerged to fill that need.

There seems to be an obvious counterexample in the rest of the Western nations (ie Canada, Australia, most of western Europe) that have experienced a similar reduction in organized religion but have not seen a corresponding rise to political division. Certainly not to the degree that the USA has.

It feels like Western Europe very much did experience political divisions in that time period, looking at how various populist parties (that thrive on that) are faring now compared to, say, 30 years ago, and the kind of rhetoric they're generating.

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

#815

Post by eli » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 11:37 PM UTC

jlokier wrote: post #813

eli wrote: post #801

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You're projecting an exclusiveness that is just not there in the quote. Nowhere does it argue that this corporation should be the only one helping. If anything, "this kind of technology" means the opposite of exclusivity, namely that Coinbase is part of a larger system than themselves, made of multiple corporations and other entities, and the people themselves , using this kind of technology, which it is claimed toge…

Nope just that there’s nothing at all incongruous with that quote identifying an underserved market and libertarian politics.

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

#816

Post by andymoe » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 11:38 PM UTC

andymoe wrote: post #427

The cool thing is that while Coinbase gets to use its inherent power/leverage over workers to get a certain outcome (capital is a form of power btw) workers can use their inherent power (withholding labor, negotiating as a unit, building consensus etc) to get their desired outcome and behavior from the company. No one owes anyone anything and there are not really any rules here. Consequences and outcomes yes but no r…

I think perhaps Marco’s thread on this more clearly articulates what I was trying to get at. Maybe y’all disagree but it does not really matter... it only matters how the power is wielded and who benefits and how.

https://twitter.com/polotek/status/1311431871474003968?s=21

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

#817

Post by edouard-harris » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 11:38 PM UTC

A few comments have asserted that if an existing company chooses to be apolitical, that may itself be a political act. This sounds clever, but it's not correct.

At the highest level, a company is a group of people who get together to 1) set an impactful goal, and then 2) work very hard to achieve it. The first part — the setting of the goal — is the political act. Disagreements at this level are good, and broadly healthy.

But the second part — the achieving of the goal — is purely a practical act. Here, your guiding principle is to take those actions, and only those actions, which you believe will give you the highest chance of achieving your goal.

Politicizing a company contradicts this principle: to the extent that you make the act of achievement more political, you are also making it less practical. To the extent that you allocate more budget, focus, and optimization power to X, you are also taking it away from Y.

If you make the act of achievement less practical, someone else may beat you to your goal. Your company will be less impactful than it could have been, and may even die as a result.

What Brian is saying here is: we set our goal in 2012 when we started Coinbase. We are now engaged in the practical act of achieving it. If you have a goal that's different from the one we set, no problem. Here is some money: you may use it, if you choose, to find an organization whose goals you support.

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

#818

Post by retox » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 11:39 PM UTC

johnyzee wrote: post #669

hackerfromthefu wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Sorry for the meta hijacking, but now that we're here, HN developers: Please penalize comments that jump the queue by responding to the top comment. There are frequently topics with hundreds of comments, where almost all are replies to the first comment, or the first comment of that comment, ad inifinitum. Reddit does it right by auto-folding comment trees once they reach a certain depth vs. upvotes.

I regularly read the first 30-40 replies to the top comment then collapse the thread as they tend to splinter off into unrelated discussions.

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

#819

Post by rdiddly » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 11:41 PM UTC

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #3

I agreed with what Brian Armstrong said in his blog post and thought it was admirable to publicly take that position, but now I have even more respect for his dedication. I don't know if the severance package is good or not, but it seems generous and it gives employees who aren't aligned with the company an easy way out.

Reminds me of the band Fugazi who used to charge $5 admission to their shows, and if you were causing problems and asked to leave, you would be escorted out and handed an envelope with $5 in it. In other words, anyone not "comfortable with the mission" (i.e. there to cause a ruckus and not for the music) was "offered a separation opportunity" but still treated fairly and with dignity.

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

#820

Post by refurb » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 11:42 PM UTC

eli wrote: post #800

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…

You will build a less diverse and necessarily worse company this way.

Really? I'd say it would be more diverse since people wouldn't feel like their opinions were verboten or that they had to "play along" in order to get along.