An upcoming story about Coinbase • Hacker News Board

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#21

Post by dmix » Thu, Nov 26, 2020, 4:44 AM UTC

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #10

It's really really hard to prove your not racist. If anyone has any clue as how to do so, please share. They could have waited until the story was published I guess to share this statement, but publishing it preemptively makes sense too I believe (it's an always open entity that is incredibly easy to switch away from). But truly, when you get accused of racism, what can you even do?

Being as transparent as possible and investigating complaints as they come up.

> three of these people filed complaints during their time at Coinbase. All of those complaints were thoroughly investigated, one through an internal investigation and two by separate third-party investigators

Using third parties sounds like a good idea here.

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#22

Post by ntsplnkv2 » Thu, Nov 26, 2020, 4:45 AM UTC

> Let’s keep focused on building an amazing company together; we are hitting amazing new records on users, volume and revenue, and we have so much great work to do together.

Ignore any potential negativity, everything we do is great, all that matters is revenue, nothing bad ever happens hear, blah blah blah. Don't focus on the bad part, those are all lies!

The NYTimes article isn't released so I can't comment on the substance there, but this quote struck out to me, and makes me less likely to believe Coinbase.

EDIT: Adding this to clarify for later readers, apparently the above quote I took from the post has been removed from the main post.

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#23

Post by markdown » Thu, Nov 26, 2020, 4:45 AM UTC

I thought I was on Coinbase... and then I wondered why there were some completely ridiculous ads at the bottom of the page.

Is this company so cheap they can't even build themselves a website?

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#24

Post by goldenManatee » Thu, Nov 26, 2020, 4:45 AM UTC

ve55 wrote: post #9

>Overall, we expect the story will paint an inaccurate picture that lacks complete information and context, despite our best efforts to fact-check details of the story with the reporter. Probably the most important line from this; those that have been through it before know it better than anyone. Likely best to apply healthy levels of skepticism to both parties.

Hard to judge without the story published, but it also sounds like the company is frustrated it didn’t get line-editing power. This is in contrast to even showing gratefulness for being alerted about the story’s imminent publishing and probably being contacted for sources from all views. The company has invited more scrutiny; like a kid running up to parents saying, “Whatever my brother says, it’s not true.”

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#25

Post by ntsplnkv2 » Thu, Nov 26, 2020, 4:45 AM UTC

avolcano wrote: post #17

This is an odd thing to see widely published. I'm at a company that had a rather detailed negative article written about us, and we were warned about it internally shortly before it was published, after the reporter had contacted us with details and questions. However, we didn't go public with a reaction until after it was out, since it seemed rather pointless to respond to something that hadn't been published yet, e…

> It is odd to me that they would preemptively go loud on this

"This is gonna be really bad, so we need to get out in front of it." That's what it sounds like to me.

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#26

Post by peteretep » Thu, Nov 26, 2020, 4:46 AM UTC

> We are committed to maintaining an environment that is safe, supportive and welcoming to employees of all backgrounds

I don’t think this is compatible with dismissing the struggle for human dignity in America as “politics”

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#27

Post by drewbug01 » Thu, Nov 26, 2020, 4:46 AM UTC

Well, the whole press release / internal email smells of a company desperately trying to spin what they expect to be a very, very bad article. But this line jumped out at me twice:

> To be specific: Although the story will likely allege that a number of Black employees and contractors referenced in the story filed complaints with the company, only three of these people filed complaints during their time at Coinbase.

This is the kind of thing that really leads me to distrust everything Coinbase is saying. Reading between the lines, I imagine that the complaints workers claim to have filed were ignored by management at some level of the process, or not filed on the right paperwork or something.

And so Coinbase can probably claim on a technicality “they didn’t file a complaint.”

But being “technically correct” is only what you reach for when you don’t have any other leg to stand on. It’s a really telling move that they repeated this line multiple times.

I’m speculating, obviously. The article isn’t out. But this isn’t my first rodeo, and this kind of corporate speak isn’t new. This kind of desperate spin only serves to underscore the fundamental truths of whatever the NYT is going to publish.

Otherwise... why bother dignifying it with such a response?

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#28

Post by Damorian » Thu, Nov 26, 2020, 4:46 AM UTC

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #10

It's really really hard to prove your not racist. If anyone has any clue as how to do so, please share. They could have waited until the story was published I guess to share this statement, but publishing it preemptively makes sense too I believe (it's an always open entity that is incredibly easy to switch away from). But truly, when you get accused of racism, what can you even do?

I don't waste my time trying to appease people who are satisfied with nothing. The mob is more concerned with being outraged then the truth. Best to ignore it, which is where Coinbase made its mistake, imo.

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#29

Post by hnracer » Thu, Nov 26, 2020, 4:46 AM UTC

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #7

Is this is what the CEO gets for rejecting corporate social activism?

Pretty much. They're going to pay the price for not being on-board with the woke agenda. We all knew this was coming. I do not expect any good faith coverage from the NYT (on any wokeness related topic they have no remaining journalistic integrity), although I hope to be pleasantly surprised.

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#30

Post by cle » Thu, Nov 26, 2020, 4:46 AM UTC

lrae wrote: post #11

ve55 wrote: post #9

>Overall, we expect the story will paint an inaccurate picture that lacks complete information and context, despite our best efforts to fact-check details of the story with the reporter. Probably the most important line from this; those that have been through it before know it better than anyone. Likely best to apply healthy levels of skepticism to both parties.

Only problem is that they don't offer that complete information or context either?

They don’t need to. They just need to plant some doubt.