61–70 of 699 posts
The question of our era! Certainly "every" is misapplied in his quote, but his core message of overwhelming private positivity in light of negative press is worth pondering.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do people think work is an appropriate place for political activism?
Everything you do is implicitly political. To say you're non-political is just another political position itself - complicity with the status quo.
> The biggest lesson I took away from the whole ordeal is that if you believe something is the right path, it's worth speaking up about it, even if it's controversial. Unless you work at Coinbase, right?
I think the reality is that Coinbase is so obviously a rocketship that the CEO could say anything and they’d have no trouble with recruitment or retention. Existing employees have stock grants worth millions, and new employees are getting great offers. The people who will take these jobs are generally going to be bullish on crypto. If you expect crypto to become a bigger piece of the economy in the future, it would b…
COIN has lost 25% since IPO (in that time, GOOG, FB, MSFT, AAPL, HOOD are up, PP is even, and SQ is down marginally), and their offers aren't particularly better than , so it doesn't seem like this is true. Like, even if you think crypto is going to be super relevant, there's tons of other cryto startups. Coinbase has or had first mover advantage, but that's no longer an enormous advantage.
This man spends way too much time on Twitter and not enough time learning the rules and regulations of the industry the company he leads participates in.
The mission is off track. He should stop listing garbage and stick to Bitcoin. Crap like that shiba inu token are absolute scams, like most EVM tokens. They do nothing, add nothing, and trading them on chain just enriches the miners, or off chain, the exchange. Say what you like about dogecoin, at least it’s a long standing L1 blockchain with developers and history/transactions.
My controversial opinion is that companies like Apple and Amazon did well in spite of their leaders' quirks. AWS would have been a great business even if Jeff Bezos didn't fire people recovering from cancer. The iPhone still would have been a hit if Jobs didn't bring someone to tears over a bug in their code.
I think you can make great products AND be nice to your employees, and maybe even let them discuss how black lives matter at work.
The commentary that I find frustrating is about the "retaliatory and intellectually dishonest hit pieces." The press does suck in many ways, but when you're own a massive chunk of a $65B company you should expect some negative press and be prepared. It makes him sound like he isn't open to dissent which is an incredibly privileged stance.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everything you do is implicitly political. To say you're non-political is just another political position itself - complicity with the status quo.
Hard disagree. Sometimes being apolitical is just a desire to not get involved and has nothing to do with supporting status quo.
To think otherwise is just an expression of privilege. There is no being apolitical.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do people think work is an appropriate place for political activism?
Because that's part of the premise of a society governed in large part by the free market. That's an idea I support, but it only makes sense if market power isn't amoral. Tech company employees wield some of the most important power in our markets.
I disagree and have a much more simple explanation. Activists naturally want to involve as many people as they can in their cause/struggle. By framing everything as political, they open up opportunities to proselytize in areas traditionally not appropriate for 'politics'.
If you couple that with a cultural expectation that people must take a side, and, that simply not being a [bad thing] is not enough, you must be actively anti-[bad thing], and you've got the current climate Brian Armstrong is trying to avoid.