1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company • Hacker News Board

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#111

Post by arcticbull » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 7:43 PM UTC

randomhodler84 wrote: post #105

qeternity wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’d rather folks bought BTC Why? Presumably because you're long BTC. With all due respect, you make a lot of handwavy comments about ERC-20 scams and I agree with you, but aside from a highly speculative investment, BTC is nothing. It failed as a currency. It failed as a unit of account. Now the narrative has shifted to "store of value" which only anyone without an understanding of what that means could say. What d…

It’s the energy. Energy usage means security. ArcticBull will argue it’s bad, I’ll argue it’s the best thing ever. Follow the energy. Why has it failed? Works fine for me and many others…

I'd argue that it has no negative feedback mechanism. More security isn't always useful. There's a reason you don't wear 25 seatbelts in a car or drive a tank to work. At some point more security is ineffective, and then eventually detrimental.

Yes, more energy is more security in this case - which of course you can obtain in alternative ways. But so is driving a tank. So is living in bubble wrap in a missile silo in the middle of an open field. We don't do those things, though, because we have negative feedback mechanisms. Bitcoin does these things (analogous versions) because it doesn't.

And as for why it's failed as an L1, it set out to be a digital cash. 2-3tx/sec isn't enough to support a mid-sized Costco or a flea market let alone a global currency. 1 transaction per person on earth today would take over 75 years and cost 1/3 of a trillion dollars, and 100% of the remaining block reward. It's like a soviet-era phone line - better put in your order early, I guess.

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#112

Post by malermeister » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 7:43 PM UTC

rglover wrote: post #108

rglover wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So quit.

I'm not allowed to reply to you directly but responding to your response to "so quit," okay, go live on a commune then. Live your values and demonstrate to the world why your way of life is better.

Living on a commune is giving up. The current order must be overthrown, everything else is just implicitly endorsing exploitation.

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#113

Post by disneygibson » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 7:44 PM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #67

What mission did they focus on and how did it go? All I see here is "I wrote a controversial screed and many people tolerated it and kept showing up to work." That's great and all, but what sort of new things did it unlock? How do you compare it to the world where you didn't write the screed? It all feels like a heap of bullshit to me -- if you're in the right industry, you can be the worst manager on the planet and…

Did you read the tweets? He said that most stakeholders told him they were very happy with the mission focus.

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#114

Post by afavour » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 7:44 PM UTC

fleddr wrote: post #71

Just want to say how ridiculous this is from a European perspective. I know nothing better than for any company to be mission focused. You go to work to do work. And you do so with a degree of neutrality, as you can't pick your colleagues, yet still need to cooperate with them. This doesn't mean you can't say anything at all, it means you shouldn't be overly divisive or confrontational. A company isn't your personal…

As a European living and working in the US: your comparison is very shortsighted.

European countries literally have no legal concept of at-will employment. They have strong social nets that make quitting your job much easier, and more prevalent unions that fight to improve working conditions (all of these things are, gasp, political! incidentally)

By comparison employment in the US is messed up enough that if you leave your job you lose your health insurance. Companies with great policies can sometimes retain employees on that basis alone! Is it really any wonder that “politics” ends up being an issue in the workplace when your employer literally controls your access to healthcare?

All of this stuff is emblematic of a deeply unhealthy relationship with employment in the US. Despite widespread agreement that this arrangement is bad, the US political system is broken enough that changing it feels all but impossible. CEOs like Brian are taking a hard stance against the effects while ignoring the causes.

You’re right that such a thing is only possible in the US, you’re just wrong about the reasons why.

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#115

Post by tshaddox » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 7:44 PM UTC

xibalba wrote: post #109

justinsaccount wrote: post #3

> 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?

It's pretty easy to dunk on people when you divorce their words from the surrounding context. This statement was within the context of advising organizational leaders who are trying to "keep the peace" (and thus, inadvertently enabling distraction and morale rot) instead of creating clarity and focusing the mission.

That's exactly what the parent commenter is saying: that this principle apparently holds true unless it's in the context of certain things that Coinbase doesn't want its employees talking about.

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#116

Post by slownews45 » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 7:44 PM UTC

fleddr wrote: post #71

Just want to say how ridiculous this is from a European perspective. I know nothing better than for any company to be mission focused. You go to work to do work. And you do so with a degree of neutrality, as you can't pick your colleagues, yet still need to cooperate with them. This doesn't mean you can't say anything at all, it means you shouldn't be overly divisive or confrontational. A company isn't your personal…

I used to work with kids in an international program. I had a hard "mission focused" rule. Most of the social justice type advocacy talk about political topics would be banned under this rule (along with a lot of other stuff about back home like what they owned etc).

Kids whose parents would have hated each other getting along well, making friendships, etc. In the long run, seeing this humanity in each other (I think) will contribute more to some large benefits than always going to war on every issue.

Some examples - Student (jewish) whose dream was to join IDF to kill "terrorists" vs kid whose parents were palestinian (and hated jews). The kid who talked trash about blood transfusions for some reason - with a friend whose medical form had a history of them. Some crazy wealth disparities (the private jet kids with the extended passport filled with stamps vs kid who saved mowing money to go on program).

Stripped of all the baggage from back home (and with no cell phone / internet access etc), working together (outdoor program), no parents spoiling them (for the spoiled ones) or whaling on them (one or two parents from south still do this) - very cool to see what happens (in most cases).

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#117

Post by xibalba » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 7:45 PM UTC

emsy wrote: post #12

justinsaccount wrote: post #3

> 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?

Why do people think work is an appropriate place for political activism?

Because liberal arts higher education has been completely usurped by Postmodernism and Marxism, and it indoctrinates students with the belief that everything everywhere is politics, always. This mentality has infected "liberal" intellectualism outside the academy, to the point where it is, essentially, the "culture" of much of the Left in the U.S.

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#118

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 7:45 PM UTC

fleddr wrote: post #71

Just want to say how ridiculous this is from a European perspective. I know nothing better than for any company to be mission focused. You go to work to do work. And you do so with a degree of neutrality, as you can't pick your colleagues, yet still need to cooperate with them. This doesn't mean you can't say anything at all, it means you shouldn't be overly divisive or confrontational. A company isn't your personal…

[deleted]

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#119

Post by jdhn » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 7:45 PM UTC

ctur wrote: post #56

I wrote this in an email turning down a chance explore opportunities at Coinbase. > To me, diversity and social justice are critically important. I have the luxury of being selective in where I put my time and energy and it is important those values align with my career. I appreciate aspects of being "mission focused" but I think that there is a gulf between my personal values and Coinbase's values such that I would…

Not to be mean, but I'd say that Brian Armstrong took the actions he did to weed out people like you from working at Coinbase.

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#120

Post by celeduc » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 7:45 PM UTC

saurik wrote: post #75

> One of the biggest concerns around our stance was that it would impact our diversity numbers. Since my post, we've grown our headcount about 110%, while our diversity numbers have remained the same, or even improved on some metrics. My understanding is that they started off really bad, right? They had 3/4s of their black employees resign before that post and were at 3%. I guess they could have gotten worse, but bei…

> the reaction both from employees and people I spoke to in private was overwhelmingly positive.

Overwhelming positive reaction from subordinates (whose paychecks he signs), and peers who are also tech/finance bros. Sounds like a statistical universe to me!