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1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

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Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basecamp's angry worker faction was demanding the company apologize for contributing to a white supremacist, genocidal culture... because some customer service folks had a funny customer name list that included names from all backgrounds. That had absolutely nothing to do with basic dignity for marginalized groups. It was simply a grab for power and status. One of many. We who have been watching are very familiar wit…

At least a third of the company quit. That is not something that happens over something “deeply disingenuous”. I’ve got a timeline put together on it https://schneems.com/2021/05/12/the-room-where-it-happens-ho... the post also goes into detail about Rails governance internals from my experiences as a contributor over the last decade.

> At least a third of the company quit. That is not something that happens over something “deeply disingenuous”.

You leave out that basecamp gave 6 months of salary to each person quitting. I'd assume that most of those would have quit under those conditions even if there wasn't an incident at all. As we can see here at the Coinbase incident where they didn't give a ton of money basically nobody quit, basecamps case would probably look similar.

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#402
post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one possibility. Sure. The fact that you feel comfortable stating it and implicitly dismissing the very real concerns of marginalized peoples is both part of the problem and ironic evidence that for some people it's not only useless to complain, it's actively counterproductive and will draw attacks against them.

I’m all for addressing concerns. But how is anyone supposed to address a concern like “there are vague imperceptible threats to my existence all around me which I can neither articulate nor provide evidence of”? What, exactly, are you proposing Coinbase or any or company should do, specifically?

[deleted]

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#403
post #300

The thing I hate about this line of thinking is the supposed "distractions" of being mission-focused are nearly all related simply to basic rights/dignities for marginalized groups. I don't think anyone is saying companies need to take a strong stance on every political issue, but merely saying "we as a company believe the lives of our Black employees matter" or "we as a company welcome and accept our LGBTQ+ employee…

What if a bunch of white male employees ask the company to make s statement that their lives matter too? After all they are overrepresented in suicide statistics, drug addiction and homelessness. You now this shit will make a lot of leftists lose their mind and show up at ur company offices trying to cancel you out of existence. In a society going mad like ours, opting out of the madness like Coinbase did is the best…

"Black lives matter" is a slogan that largely refers to a desire to solve issues related to police brutality and black people. "White lives matter", as it's commonly said and understood, is merely a contrarian pushback against that desire to fix those issues.

Obviously white lives do matter like others, but making a statement of something communicates something other than the literal meaning: it asserts that there's part of the meaning that the receiver isn't demonstrating knowledge of, and it evokes connections to things people have encountered before. If you say "white lives matter", intending it to mean something about suicide statistics, and other people interpret it as racist pushback against solving police brutality, the other people aren't doing something surprising or wrong. You would just be fruitlessly rebelling against how language actually works.

If you want to raise awareness about suicide, go ahead, but don't use a slogan that already has a meaning that will be misinterpreted in your context, and certainly don't do it competitively against people raising awareness for a different issue.

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#404

Love that Armstrong did this at Coinbase. I want to work at work, not worry about the political opinions of my coworkers.

Work, including who you work for, is an inherently political act.

The set of coworkers you have is a result of their and your political opinions.

He didn't simply ban politics at work, however: he just refused to acknowledge the Black Lives Matter movement. Prior to that Coinbase had Black History Month events they conducted; now they don't.

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#405
post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone wants to work at a place because of ideology, then the might be worse than worthless, they might have negative worth. That said, I'll bet there's far more agreement among all of us than not on these issues, it's just that they get all blown up. Outside of Twitter wars and the most radical voices in a company, I strongly believe we would just all get along pretty darn well actually.

I agree with all of your points, but also point out that a small vocal minority can really ruin the culture at a company and be quite divisive. That is true even if most of us would get along and most of us just want to focus on work. So you have to do something about the social justice crusaders. In some sense, this type of widespread culture wars within companies is only possible because we have so many monopolies…

That's a good point as well, though I'll bet the 'ruinous minority' may not screw everything up along classically ideological lines. More likely bad acting, corruption, general toxicity.

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#406
post #397

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…

What you are talking about is Microsoft in the Balmer years. No focus on delivery, no focus on perfection, churning out half assed products. See where it got them? Lost out on mobile, lost out on Cloud, Playstation is still a better gaming console, etc. Leaders inspire, letting things slide is bad for the culture of succcess.

From GP:

> if you're in the right industry, you can be the worst manager on the planet and your company can still do okay.

Has Coinbase ever had a culture of success, or were they just in cryptocurrency during the cryptocurrency explosion where everyone made money?

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#407
post #62

This seems like a gross abuse of the phrase "mission focused" to mean "operating for profit with total blinders on to the wider world". With a very appropriate photo of the 90s Bulls being a group of self-serving egomaniacs who put winning above everything else. My current employer (a non-profit) uses the term "mission focused" to mean "we are serving the public good even when it isn't profitable and acknowledging ou…

Cryptocurrency mining consumes the same amount of power as Argentina or whatever the figure is, for no benefit.

If wrapping a rainbow flag around it and studiously noting everyone's pronouns made that "ok", it'd frankly be even more perverse.

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#408
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…

I did the same when I saw them hiring infosec staff directly out of the military-industrial complex.

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What do you do in an apolitical workplace and you’re going to engage in controversial medical intervention to align your body with your believed gender? You just do it? In an apolitical workspace that isn't a political act, what you do in your free time is up to you. And if you change your legal name people should update how they call you. Nothing of that is political. If people make a fuzz they are dragging politi…

That’s what I don’t understand, because my understanding is that being conservative or progressive when it comes to trans people is no middle ground. Choosing to go with a trans persons new name and pronouns when they are early or mid transition is a political choice. There are laws passed explicitly around their bathrooms for example.

> Choosing to go with a trans persons new name and pronouns when they are early or mid transition is a political choice.

It's not, at least not for me. I think what people do with their bodies is not my business. I think that if people want to be called a certain way, I'm fine with it. All I'm asking is a bit of forgiveness in case I make a mistake, as I'm bad with names. But most of the time it will be not remembering someone's name, not using the one they would prefer me not to use. I don't consider any of this political. My grandmother doesn't like her name, so everyone calls her by her nickname. I was a bit surprised when I saw her full name when I was young, but that's about it. I don't see any difference with trans people. Sure, the stuff behind is very different, the "why" is not the same. But that's not really my business. I think accomodating people, up to a certain degree, shouldn't come with conditions about the "why".

I think people tend to forget that it's normal to accommodate to some degree people that you work with. I have two vegetarian colleagues, so if I bring some food to work, I make something that they can eat. I would try the same if someone was vegan or allergic to nuts. I don't know why they are vegetarian, and I don't need to know why to respect them and try to accommodate them. On the other hand, they've never lectured me about what I eat.

The sibling comment about being overweight is also very true. I am overweight. I've never had any comments about it in the workplace. At my last job, all of my colleagues were very physically active. Sure, sometimes I felt a bit left out, but that's on me. They never made me feel uncomfortable about my weight. I was allowed to exist as a person, and not a fat person. That personally means a lot to me.

I don't have any good answers for the bathrooms. Individual unisex bathrooms would solve that, but not all offices are equipped with that, and adding them may not be possible. You're right that here, it may be a bit harder to accommodate them, depending on who you are. On the other hand, I'm fine with unisex bathrooms, as I'm not comfortable with urinals.

I realize that it's not everyone's cup of tea, and that some people will prefer a workplace where everyone is strongly aligned with them on almost everything. That's fine too.

All of that may be just an expression of privilege/luck/something, as I realize that not all workplaces are like mine. But these places do exists. I'm trying to raise awareness about them, in hope that some people will go look for them, instead of being abused by employers and colleagues that don't deserve them.

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#410
post #394
post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a caricature of the “mission-focused” mindset. I’ll preface this message by saying that I am brown, raised in relative poverty in the third world, and left of center on most issues. I’ll also say that I have materially contributed a substantial portion of my income helping educate poor brown kids, which most of my preachy white colleagues haven’t and won’t. The discourse at work in SV tech is not about, “hey,…

Bunch of presumably white folk downvoting away. Sigh - utterly predictable, unfortunately. If you feel so strongly about a good world/society, please indulge in effective altruism or donate a large chunk of your money to help poor brown and black folks in the poorest nations of the world. Your signaling is useless.

This sounds like "other people have it much worse in the world, suck it up or help them instead of trying to do things you think will improve things in your own life".
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