‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

Many of the "issues" bought up in this article aren't even problematic. It says John Russ left because Armstrong took public stance that he wanted Coinbase to focus on crypto space stuff.

Coinbase's stance there is fair, reasonable and moral. It is desirable that some companies just do what it says on the tin. If Russ had a reason for quitting that was race-related then the NYT didn't uncover it.

I don't know the details of the story, but the thing is with baseless accusations of racism is that it's a perfect slander, one can never prove innocence once proclaimed guilty.

And you are arguing in bad faith; there are several parts of the article that detail exactly what you are looing for.

In the second paragraph, the article indicates that 11 of the folks who left notified HR or their managers.

In the third paragraph one of the named victims states she made several reports.

In the sixth paragraph 5 on the record employees and 18 off the record employees, and internal documents and recordings are claimed as evidence.

Despite this, Coinbase only reports three official complaints in the year many of these folks left.

Coupled with the stream of hot garbage that Brian Armstrong has proposed trying to position as being "Mission Focused", in the middle of a pandemic, massive, ongoing riots, and political instability just illustrates how utterly tone deaf the leadership at Coinbase is.

> Susan Fowler blew up Uber with a single blog post.

Yes, you correct. You also have to look at the facts; Susan is an excellent writer, and based on her book, she already had some measure of experience speaking truth to power. Coupled with the fact that she was already recognized as a talented engineer and a published author, it's not surprising her blog post was as well received as it was.

Susan also wrote about her experience with her own voice and had receipts to show how bad it was. I certainly don't want to down play the issues that women in tech face, but it's also well known that people of color frequently have different social and economic circumstances than white or white-presenting folks (and it's not me saying this -- she calls out in her book the casual anti-semitism she faced from folks who didn't know she is Jewish).

IMHO, that theory is like many others today: It's attractive - it simplifies everything and even makes it quantifiable - but does not stand up to a moment's scrutiny.

Almost everything Coinbase has comes from their community: Liberty; peace; political functionality and stability; economic stability; the rule of law; property rights; the free market; the wealth of the market they sell to; the education and wealth of employees, customers, and partners (including the massive public education and healthcare systems - imagine how their company would survive Coronavirus without the public health system and eventual free vaccine); the physical infrastructure of housing, roads, food, power, etc., all kept functioning and safe; the incredible technology stack they build upon, from mathematics to basic literacy to electricity to materials to more proximate tech (the Internet, Web, TCP/IP, and of course the cryptocurrency technology). No matter what Coinbase does, they add only a sliver on top of what's come before.

It's just an absurd, transparent rationalization for selfishness to try to justify being a parasite, for not contributing to it and being responsible for making it work. Our community is us; nobody else will make it work. And it's sociopathic to say that, about part of our community, 'I don't care what happens to African-Americans'.

But being a sociopath and buying into this transparently false argument has become trendy and admired by a vast swath of powerful people in American business, as if ignoring problems will solve them. I used to wonder if they really were smarter than others, but recently I've concluded that they follow the herd and are easily manipulated as much as other people are (and I could have seen it earlier in financial bubbles, etc.). And as they've followed the herd in disparaging liberalism and postmodernism, rather than thinking critically about them, they've unilaterally disarmed themselves, willingly discarded the tools that would protect them from being deceived, confused, and led.

1. They are not mentioning that one reason is that a team had transfered regions/states, and that might be the main cause of attrition on that team, and not the actual treatment.

2. In a previous article, NYT failed to mention at all that Coinbase had provided severance of 6 months (which is very generous). NYT made it seems as these employees were forced out the company and lelft out in the streets

a) Omitting key details, is a very malicious type of journalism, and NY Times has been doing that for a while.

b) Also, NYTimes has been engaging in a smearing campaign against tech, since 2012, when they realized that new tech media companies are their direct competitor, and their old business is about to be disrupted. Again, this is just a journal doing a smear campaign against their direct competitors...

c) Most news organizations have been ramping up 'click-bait' type of stories to build narratives that are as controversial as possible, as it is good for their viewership stats, and ultimately their wallets.

If you believe the 'follow the money' mantra, it is very reasonable to believe that NY Times is very biased, and untrustworthy. Someone might say it is cynical, but the fact that they are omitting details, makes them very suspect in their motivations.