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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

#471

Post by pcthrowaway »

doopy1 wrote: post #469
refenestrator wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"For no benefit" is not an objective read. A lot of folks are benefitting. IMO the environmental impact of crypto is also completely overstated. There are issues so much bigger than crypto's energy consumption that it's basically just a rounding error.

1% of global energy consumption is hardly a rounding error.

I'm massively excited for the potential of cryptocurrency, but there's a reason ETH is moving to PoS, and newer PoW projects aren't getting the same kind of traction.

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#473

Post by cortesoft »

urda wrote: post #255
cortesoft wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is impossible to remove politics from your work. If you try to ignore everything except the mission of making money at work, that ALSO is a political choice…

> It is impossible to remove politics from your work. It absolutely is and this statement is either not informed enough or is being argued in bad faith. Unless your job is involved in direct politics or government you can keep the politics out and focus on the work. I do not need my peers or coworkers bringing in politics to the workspace. Politics is a disease that seems to be seeping in everywhere because a vocal m…

Give me any job, and I am certain I can think of a way politics is inextricably involved.

If you are a website and you host user comments, and the government requests information about a commenter. Do you give it to them right away, or do you fight it? What if the country is a known violator of human rights? What if the request is to try to track down a pedophile? What if it is to track down a journalist?

Either decision is political. If you comply, that is a political decision. If you decline, that is a political decision. If you fight it in court, that is a political decision.

What about deciding what to do with user data. Do you sell it to the highest bidder? Do you protect privacy? Do you sell it, but only to certain people? Do you use it internally? Do you store it at all? How much effort do you put into securing your users data? Is that decision purely financial, or do you believe you have a responsibility to protect your users data even if it costs you more than you would lose in a breach?

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#474

Post by gorwell »

gwelson wrote: post #252

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…

As an atheist that grew up in a religious environment, the techniques and patterns of religions are recognizable. You may not realize it, but you are introducing religion into the workplace.

A Christian posts on HN: merely saying "we as a company believe thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" or "we as a company believe you shall not steal" are just...basic things you need to do in 1952.

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#475

Post by [deleted] »

remarkEon wrote: post #327
vkou wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It must be nice to have the privilege to not need to worry about the political opinions of your coworkers. I take it most people don't see your existence, as you are, as a political problem?

>I take it most people don't see your existence, as you are, as a political problem? I want to point out that this is a perfect example of how absolutely mind numbing and toxic it is to interact with a lot of these "woke" types. OP made an benign comment ("I want to work at work, not worry about the political opinions of my coworkers.") and its taken in the maximally worst way possible . There's no nuance, and no roo…

[deleted]

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#476

Post by joshuamorton »

rafale wrote: post #458
AgentME wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

One could argue that the BLM slogan, being intentionally divisive and exclusive, is designed to provoke from day one rather than bring up constructive change. It's a heavily politicized movement. Since Biden was elected for example, the issue of BLM and police brutality is not mediatized nearly as much as before. It's not that the problem was fixed overnight, it's just that there is no use for it right now by the pro…

The slogan is only divisive if you make it so. It certainly isn't "intentionally" divisive.

> Since Biden was elected for example

Looking at Google trends, there's basically no correlation between Bidens election and "Black Lives Matter". You're reaching to creating a narrative that doesn't fit the facts.

> even if I support the general idea that our police force and judicial system need reform to infuse them with more humanity and empathy.

Do you support any group or organization that does policeor criminal justice reform?

> It's not like the issue is so obvious and simple (i.e. all people have equal rights, women should be able to go to school, ...) that it's okay employers take a side. The simple stuff is usually written in the US constitution.

The stuff you mentioned doesn't start out in the constitution (and arguably actually still aren't). It only got there due to activism by people and organizations, some of which happened in the workplace. Were they wrong to do so? Concretely, you're making an argument from status quo in a conversation about how we change norms. That misses the point, unless your point is that the norms shouldn't change.

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#477

Post by tootie »

krrrh wrote: post #226
tootie wrote: 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…

He defined mission-focused in the original memo pretty clearly and succinctly. > What is the scope of our mission? > Coinbase’s mission is to create an open financial system for the world. This means we want to use cryptocurrency to bring economic freedom to people all over the world. This is difficult and important work, and every employee at Coinbase signed up because they are excited about this mission. It's not o…

I think saying that work and politics are completely separate is naive and a cop out to avoid responsibility. You joke about pillow companies but as far as I'm concerned MyPillow is run by an insurrectionist and an undemocratic authoritarian. Similarly I will not participate in an organization that doesn't value diversity, honesty, and our environment. I would not, for example, feel comfortable working somewhere like Chick-fil-A knowing the owner opposes human rights. Some people have decided that basic decency or acceptance of reality (ie vaccines or climate) are a political opinion when they're not. And companies who think it's not their problem are also wrong.

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#478

Post by xyzzyz »

Zababa wrote: post #346
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…

I think that's the system working as intended. Coinbase decided to focus on consensus rather than pure raw technical competence (which is also what companies do when they try to meet diversity quota). You don't agree with their consensus, so you explain them so they have data and a chance to reconsider, and you can go in a company that aligns more with your values. While I don't doubt at all your technical competence…

Coinbase decided to focus on consensus rather than pure raw technical competence (which is also what companies do when they try to meet diversity quota).

Companies trying to meet the diversity quota very much do not focus on pure raw technical competence. In fact, to suggest so, borders on gaslighting.

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#479

Post by ergocoder »

throw_nbvc1234 wrote: post #269
ergocoder wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My anecdote: Someone mentioned they didn't agree with looting during BLM, and you could see the disgust coming from their coworkers. The political activism gets so ridiculous that we have to cheer for looting because it is tied to BLM... for whatever strange reason. And this is looting shops in Seattle, which overwhelmingly supports BLM. You can bet those shop owners probably won't support BLM anymore...

or not tied to BLM; just a bunch of white teenagers running around trying to set starbucks on fire and getting into fights with the police to start a revolution. which is even worse because it shows the lack of sense-making on both sides. Even when they set that construction site on fire, the stark difference between the front of the march which went peacefully by and the trail of destruction from the end of the marc…

I can guarantee you that a lot of BLM supporters tie looting to BLM.

Noah Trevor went on a long monologue how looting was justified because police broke social contracts first.

A lot of people applauded him for saying this.

And I would consider Noah Trevor to be an highly influential BLM leader.

It still makes absolutely no sense to me to loot random shop owners (who support BLM) because police breaks social contract.

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#480

Post by xyzzyz »

kimmeld wrote: post #457
zarkov99 wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, I, a fairly good Engineer, would favor Coinbase over many other tech companies precisely because their CEO had the courage to say what every other CEO is thinking, that is that a company is a place where money is exchanged for labour not a venue for promoting one's political agenda, no matter how righteous that agenda might feel.

Because the CEO shares your politics and is only allowing your brand to express themselves at work you want to work there. I mean I understand the feeling but can we stop pretending that this isn’t entirely political?

I have no idea what is Coinbase’s CEO politics. The beautiful thing is that I neither have to know nor to care.
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