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‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

nytimes.com

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Re: ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

#161

Post by hvaoc »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #80
pjc50 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why wasn't that treated as an emergency? Companies can be incredibly callous about retention issues, especially if fixing them involves noticing which managers are responsible for behaving badly towards their staff.

"Callous" would mean it's about you, but think about it from the viewpoint of the company. If the aggrieved employee leaves, the problem is solved.

Diversity in team pays off, you are missing if you don’t have a diverse team. It’s not a charity anymore it’s more of a science in getting quality output from your team.

Re: ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

#162

Post by [deleted] »

dstola wrote: post #159
slg wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What else can they do if they are really innocent? Innocent of what exactly? At a certain point whether the leadership of Coinbase is racist or not doesn't matter. What matters is their actions. The article says "roughly three-quarters of the Black employees" left the company over a 6 month span due to feelings of being discriminated against. That isn't an accusation. It is a fact. It also isn't something that will…

Babysitting employees is not really a function of the employers. If people wish to leave it's their choice

[deleted]

Re: ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

#163

Post by xoxoy »

cbthrow91 wrote: post #117
xoxoy wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah it’s unfortunate even at a finance startup that CX is so disregarded. Coinbase doesn’t exactly have a great CX reputation eg lots of horror stories plus it seems to go down every time there’s a big move up or down.

CX folks at CB are doing God's work. Nothing but respect for them on my eng team at CB. At past companies I had to do a lot more legwork to dive into an issue; our CX folks are incredibly technical and have great instincts on identifying, grouping, and triaging issues as well as providing just the right amount of context.

I’m speaking from the perspective of the customer. They might be top knotch but if it’s understaffed and underesourced then no one can be set up for success when they have to face the wrath of a million customers when the site goes down on the slightest uptick in volume due to a large move.

Re: ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

#164

Post by username90 »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #20

11 of then ~20 Black employees by early 2019* had complained to HR about racism. That's over half! And that's only the people with the fortitude or optimism to talk to HR (HR is notoriously useless at many companies). That's a complete disaster. 15 of that 20 quit! Why wasn't that treated as an emergency? *At the end the article says at the end of 2019 there's 31 Black employees of 1000. At the beginning of the artic…

The cynical view is that you can either kick out your racists or those who complains about racists. And given how "diverse" tech is I wouldn't be surprised if the company would have a bigger problem if the racists left instead of the black people.

Re: ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

#165

Post by ardit33 »

whoknew1122 wrote: post #154

Hmmm. A 'mission focused' company that bans discusses political and societal issues also has issues with diversity and how it treats its non-white workers? I'll go ahead and file this in the 'In other news, water is wet' category.

It can go two ways:

1. Coinbase has real problems of discrimination

2. Coinbase is being targeted at a smearing campaign, for not playing ball with the ideology of de-jure of some circles. It is kinda like a repeat of 2003: "if you are not with us (for the Iraqi war), then you are with the terrorist" mantra of conservative circles to justify their war.

The truth, is probably somewhere in between. Also, NYT has become heavily biased/activist type of journal. While they don't straight up lie, they often omit many important details in their story, in order to justify their conclusion.

Re: ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

#166

Post by mempko »

seibelj wrote: post #86
slg wrote: post #5

This is in the wake of Coinbase decision to be a "mission focused company" and prevent their employees from speaking out about political issues at the workplace. It shows the dangers of being apolitical when saying "Blank employees should feel safe and welcome at their job" is apparently still a political statement.

I don’t see why we need to be debating politics all day in the work place. I can guarantee you my politics (libertarian / capitalist / corporatist / anti-collectivism) will do nothing but enrage you and debates in public chats, lunch, etc. will serve nothing of purpose. Isn’t it better if we save the philosophical debates for beers and the ballot box? I don’t want to hear your soap box and you don’t want to hear mine…

You can't separate work from politics. The fact that you have a job in the first place is political.

Re: ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

#168

Post by seibelj »

mempko wrote: post #166
seibelj wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see why we need to be debating politics all day in the work place. I can guarantee you my politics (libertarian / capitalist / corporatist / anti-collectivism) will do nothing but enrage you and debates in public chats, lunch, etc. will serve nothing of purpose. Isn’t it better if we save the philosophical debates for beers and the ballot box? I don’t want to hear your soap box and you don’t want to hear mine…

You can't separate work from politics. The fact that you have a job in the first place is political.

And your “everything is political even the apple you eat” post-modernist schlock is the attitude I want to avoid.

Re: ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

#169

Post by mempko »

polartx wrote: post #78
demarq wrote: post #7

> I know it’s frustrating and distracting. Let’s keep focused on building an amazing company together. One would hope an amazing company that doesn't cover it's ass when it turns out the executive couldn't give a hoot about the treatment of black people and now everyone knows

One could argue that it would be unethical to use your investors’ money as a political (or even idealogical) bullhorn. Notwithstanding, such a position places zero restrictions on doing the same with your own money..but corporations make for more interesting headlines than the individuals that run them.

The fact that there are investors in the first place is completely because of politics. Other politics might have different ownership models.

Re: ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

#170

Post by 2-tpg »

slg wrote: post #129
cbthrow91 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without the additional context from the article, I think citing 75% is a bit misleading. "When Coinbase announced it would be opening an office in Portland, Ore., several Black employees in the compliance department who worked remotely were told to move there or reapply for new jobs, four former employees said." "All of the Black workers in the compliance division ended up among the group of 15 who left." Without con…

Ok, let's accept what you say as fact and ignore that an exception was made for the single White employee in that department which wasn't made for any of the Black employees you are referencing. Let's also ignore the weirdness of 40% of the company's Black employees being on a single seemingly small team. That still leaves 7 other employees in other departments who left the company in a 6 month window due to feeling…

> ignore that an exception was made for the single White employee

Let's not ignore that this exception is being positioned as being based on skin color (racist motives), not job role, tenure, exceeding expectations, caregiving responsibilities, or any other plausible reason for an exception. That's a laughable, yet dangerous take. Incredibly inflammatory and accusatory.

Either Coinbase is an incredibly racist and black-unfriendly company, or some people would like you to believe that, and these accusations can all be unravelled to crying wolf, accusing others of downright illegal acts, without even filing a formal complaint to help others not suffer the same fate.

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