A follow up to Coinbase being a mission focused company • Hacker News Board

Re: A follow up to Coinbase being a mission focused company

#131

Post by dmurray » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 7:35 PM UTC

RangerScience wrote: post #49

thedevil wrote: post #11

One thought: If you see a resume with Coinbase until October 2020, that's probably someone who prefers political activism in the workplace. That might be seen in a positive or negative light, depending on your stance. I personally am afraid to associate myself too publicly with a political stance, lest I be wrong and/or the environment changes.

Any circumstance in which someone is looking at that is a circumstance in which they could also be treating you like a specific individual; aka, if it matters to them, you're there to ask. Ironically / IMHO, the irritant at the center of the pearl that is many of these ('social justice') issues is people treating other people as a member of an imagined group rather than a specific human they can talk to.

Asking specific people about their political views during the hiring process (even general questions like "do you think tech workers should be politically active in the workplace?") is dangerous even if not necessarily illegal. Making hiring decisions based on the applicant's experience and employment history is pretty much best practice.

Re: A follow up to Coinbase being a mission focused company

#132

Post by dudul » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 7:35 PM UTC

anoncareer0212 wrote: post #53

shuckles wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Healthcare was also part of the severance package, and the market for software engineers in the Bay Area remains strong.

It wasn't

What do you mean? It's one of the headline items. COBRA paid for 6 months.

Re: A follow up to Coinbase being a mission focused company

#133

Post by protomyth » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 7:36 PM UTC

areichert wrote: post #4

> “I’m worried that the severance package was too good” Yeah... I'm genuinely curious how many people actually quit over the "apolitical" stance, vs employees that were just unhappy with the job in general and took this convenient opportunity to leave with a pretty sweet deal.

They obviously wanted to make sure it was a sweet enough deal to serve its purpose. I would imagine there were employees that took the deal for non-political reasons. It would make a heck of a bonus, if you were already heading out the door.

Frankly, giving the non-offended but unsatisfied employees a ready out is probably good for Coinbase in the long run.

Re: A follow up to Coinbase being a mission focused company

#134

Post by djsumdog » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 7:36 PM UTC

rllearneratwork wrote: post #71

asdfman123 wrote: post #12

I mean, I usually look for another job every year or two. If someone is also willing to pay me lavish amounts of money to do that and take a trip across Europe in between, please sign me up.

why? typically RSUs/signing bonus vest over 4 years period

My longest stay at one job as been 2.5 years. By changing jobs, I get a lot more experience in a lot of different things. I've worked in five different markets:

https://battlepenguin.com/tech/tech-culture-shock-from-ameri...

I know people who've been at the same job for 6~7 years and they are totally getting paid way under market. A company might give you a 2~3% cost of living increase, or a $5k promotion every few years, but switching jobs let's you ask for $10k or more.

On the downside, I would NOT recommend anyone else change jobs almost yearly like I did. My job loyalty is shit and it's hard for me to take on other jobs when people are concerned I could just leave.

That being said, the good jobs with good pipeline engineering, tests and CI/CD flows allow people to flow in and out; quickly pick up things and move with fast/good deploys. Those shops are the best, but they are rare. They tend to not care as much weird resumes because they want to hire people who are innovative.

Re: A follow up to Coinbase being a mission focused company

#135

Post by vonmoltke » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 7:36 PM UTC

heavyset_go wrote: post #25

It's interesting to hear Coinbase management insist that they're apolitical when the company makes significant political contributions itself[1]. [1] https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/?...

Something is off about those listings. The majority of the transactions went to "Brian Forde for Congress" and have the memos like " .03533216 BITCOINS SOLD VIA COINBASE - PURCHASER UNKNOWN". I don't think these are contributions by Coinbase, but Bitcoin contributions that went through Coinbase. There is probably some byzantine election funding rule that allowed or forced these recipients to list Coinbase as the"source" of anonymous Bitcoin donations.

Re: A follow up to Coinbase being a mission focused company

#136

Post by orangecat » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 7:37 PM UTC

dangus wrote: post #90

I can’t think of a worse way to handle this situation. Sure, I’m not sure what the answer is. Then again, I’m not a professional HR person who is supposed to be trained in handling these issues. Having 5% of your workforce quit over nothing more than messaging is a catastrophic failure in people management. Outright political speech bans at companies may be perfectly justified, but it’s usually the case that work env…

And while the movement is in some way political, in most ways the organization and the phrase simply stands for the idea that, well, Black Lives Matter

That's just wrong. "Black lives matter" encompasses at least three separate categories of claims:

1. The lives of black people are inherently as valuable as the lives of others.

2. The US and western civilization in general is based on white supremacy at its core, and all disparities that disfavor minorities are solely due to present-day racism.

3. Radical change is necessary in order to solve the problems of racism, including reparations, abolishing the police, and ending capitalism.

BLM often ends up being a motte-and-bailey where anyone who isn't totally on board with #2 or #3 is accused of denying #1.

This is where HR comes in to help train and guide around keeping those conversations productive and beneficial to everyone, because people grow by having their viewpoints challenged and expanded

I suspect there are certain viewpoints that can be challenged and others than cannot.

Re: A follow up to Coinbase being a mission focused company

#137

Post by heimatau » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 7:38 PM UTC

blck wrote: post #15

I don't think it can be understated how much saying 'no politics' is a political statement. Supporting the status quo is a political statement. And supporting the status quo in this political climate is a strange hill to plant your flag on.

All businesses that want to survive are political. Whether they admit it or not.

How many defense contractors are there? These people do have a vested interest to vote for candidates that increase govt contracts with the private sector. This is a massive industry.

Now that govt is getting more involved in health care, we're seeing that too.

These are trillions of dollars we're talking about.

This is also valid for small businesses too. How taxes are done in a given community. Etc.

I can't emphasize enough the vested interest a business has to be selfish. I'm indifferent on if this is a drawback.

I just wish there was more competition/choices for everyone and like you, I wish people would be more upfront (or self aware) of what they're doing.

P.S. When it comes to Coinbase. What stops them from backing a racist KKK member whom backs Bitcoin/crypto? What stops them from backing an anarchist whom backs Bitcoin/crypto? Etc...etc... This silencing of discussion...it a bit disgusting.

Re: A follow up to Coinbase being a mission focused company

#138

Post by sprt » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 7:38 PM UTC

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #23

thedevil wrote: post #11

One thought: If you see a resume with Coinbase until October 2020, that's probably someone who prefers political activism in the workplace. That might be seen in a positive or negative light, depending on your stance. I personally am afraid to associate myself too publicly with a political stance, lest I be wrong and/or the environment changes.

Alternatively, if you see a resume with Coinbase through 2020-2021, that person probably prefers the opposite, which may also be seen in a positive or negative light, depending on your stance.

Which, as your parent seems to not realize, is also a political stance. This dichotomy is exactly what MLK refers to in the Letter from a Bermingham Jail (i.e. positive vs negative peace).

Re: A follow up to Coinbase being a mission focused company

#139

Post by djsumdog » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 7:38 PM UTC

thedevil wrote: post #11

One thought: If you see a resume with Coinbase until October 2020, that's probably someone who prefers political activism in the workplace. That might be seen in a positive or negative light, depending on your stance. I personally am afraid to associate myself too publicly with a political stance, lest I be wrong and/or the environment changes.

I dunno. I wonder how many people they lost, not because they were political, but they wanted a break for 4~6 months.

Re: A follow up to Coinbase being a mission focused company

#140

Post by zepto » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 7:38 PM UTC

joshuamorton wrote: post #55

zepto wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying ‘we don’t want to be an activist organization beyond our business goals, therefore we want to keep political discussions out of the workplace’ is not the same thing as saying ‘my business supports whatever the US government’s stated opinion is’. Nobody supports the status quo.

Correct, but both are political statements. "We don't want to be involved in the political discussion" is just as political as "we want to be involved in the political discussion".

True, but your two statements in this comment aren’t really representative of anything being discussed here.

The statements we were talking about upthread don’t reduce to these ones.