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A follow up to Coinbase being a mission focused company

blog.coinbase.com

41–50 of 774 posts

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

#41
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software seems to be doing okay, jobs-wise. The number of recruiters showing up in my inbox hasn't changed. I think health insurance is included in the severance.

It isn't, the generosity is allowing you to pick up COBRA

I believe COBRA is available for up to 36 months after your employment ends in California by law. As a result, I don’t know how to read “6 months COBRA” from the excerpt of the severance email besides “we will pay 6 months of employer premiums.”

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

#42

> “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.

> 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. Getting people who are unhappy (politics aside) to leave sounds more like "the severance package was a nice move" than "the severance package was too good."

Hmm that's a pretty interesting way of thinking about it, I didn't even consider it from that angle.

Might be a silly idea, but I wonder if more companies would benefit from doing something like this on a semi-regular basis, i.e. giving unhappy employees the opportunity to leave with a decent "severance" package?

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

#43
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.

Coinbase didn't say "no politics" or "we support the status quo". They just said that the company is focused on cryptocurrency, and won't engage in political causes other than supporting cryptocurrency.

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

#44
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it necessarily? Social media has amplified polarization. Is it really the case that everyone must support one or other of the poles?

Something being a political statement doesn't necessarily mean it is directly in support of one pole or the other. It's still political. Saying "my business supports whatever the current US government's stated opinion is on all issues" is a political stance. It may not be partisan, but it absolutely is political. Those aren't synonymous.

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.

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

#45
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.

This idea of "everything is political" is why the discourse went to shit, now nobody can catch a break from politics, and if you had enough and don't want to take part then you instantly gets attacked for "supporting the status quo".

I prefer to not be lectured on political issues by my orange juice brand. Their mission should be to sell high quality orange juice and make a profit.

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

#47
post #35
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.

You are correct in your "understatement" claim, though I suspect unintentionally so. Yes, "avoiding politics" cuts into time you could be spending advancing progressive politics. So does writing software. So does watching a movie with your spouse. So does sleeping. So does every single thing that isn't literally "advancing progressive politics." "No politics = politics" is an utterly vacuous statement.

He's not passively stating no politics he's actively discouraging any politics. There is a slight difference.

If you become friendly with a person in the workplace you'll eventually learn their politics, right? Either through how they act or what they say. How do you limit how much a person reveals about themselves at work?

The CEO is saying Coinbase won't take political stances. That's fine in theory but in practice it's not. The whole idea of cryptocurrency itself is political.

There is a difference in being passively apolitical and actively apolitical for sure.

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

#48
post #39
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.

That’s a very paranoid way of looking at things. Signalling support for the status quo would involve something more active, eg “wooo, go status quo!!” on a banner. Maybe they have different priorities than you and just want to make money. Not everything is political.

Just wanting to make money is political because it means the environment has been configured in such a way that you can do so. If you make money in the position of a manager or boss, it is even more strongly political as you are using the configuration of the political system to direct societal resources at your whim to make money.

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

#49

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.

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

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That employee is distanced enough from the idea that people would genuinely want to leave that I kinda laugh when I read their quote. COBRA alone would eat up most of the severance. Either people managed to get through a _whole interview process_ in a week, or they're fine with the idea of being jobless during the worst economy in 12 years, or they price the benefit of not being there fairly high. Which then leads us…

> COBRA alone would eat up most of the severance. A single software engineer paying for full price for high premium plan on COBRA would be spending around $400[1], over the whole 18 months of doing that it would be $7,200 which would be less than one month's paycheck on a $160,000 salary. A cursory look at h1bdata.info shows that Coinbase pays plenty of H1B's that much, on the low side. Your view is a little exaggera…

You're right, if you don't have a family and don't have _any_ paycheck deductions, don't pay _any_ taxes, and use numbers 33% below the average cost, it seems small.

Survey of purported 2019 data shows $570 * 12 = $6,840 for individual, $19,000 for family (for some reason, no monthly cost there)

So lets say you only pay the feds income tax, and don't bother with medicaid, social security, state income tax, 401K, any other witholdings whatsoever - you'll earn 85% of $160,000, or $136,000. Divided into 26 paychecks, $5230 biweekly.

If you're single, yearly premium would be covered by 2.6 weeks of work, or 11% of your severance. If you have a family, 7.26 weeks of work, or 30% of your severance.

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