Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

471–480 of 717 posts

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

#471

Post by xenihn »

evan_ wrote: post #468
xenihn wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conspiracy theory time: That's not a quirk with our language, there's a deliberate lack of distinction between the country and the people. During the Cold War, you could say "Soviet" instead of "Russian" to clearly demarcate between the nation and the nationality. We don't have a modern equivalent for the PRC, and that's because someone wants it that way. It'd be trivial for a new term to be pushed through media, but…

> you could say "Soviet" instead of "Russian" to clearly demarcate between the nation and the nationality. The demonym for the people who lived in the Soviet Union was “Soviet.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union

Sure, but if you had neighbors who immigrated to the US from Moscow in the late 80s, would you refer to them as "Soviet" or "Russian"?

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

#472

Post by secondcoming »

o-__-o wrote: post #314
0-_-0 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police are mostly peaceful

I have an imposter! But friendly reminder that police are not your friends and you should not talk to the police unless it is absolutely necessary and even then stay tight lipped. Figure I’ll add a story about being black and driving a nice car. One day I had a flat tire and pulled into a gas station after hours to change the tire. I didn’t have a lug wrench and the kid working in the store didn’t have one either. So…

So the white guy also had bad encounters with the police? Maybe they're just dicks to everyone?

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

#473

Post by arolihas »

bra-ket wrote: post #254
tptacek wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to dispute something another commenter says, do so. The guidelines ask you specifically not to snark like this.

some comments cross over to the realm of outrageous and ridiculous to an extent they cannot be acknowledged in any reasonable and guidelines-compliant way.

Thats not true at all. Just because you don’t feel like you can follow the guidelines, doesn’t mean it’s impossible. For example, I think your comment is ridiculous coming from a grown adult I assume, but I am still able to reply in a compliant way.

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

#474

Post by enumjorge »

bra-ket wrote: post #459
enumjorge wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither the parent nor the GP said anything about Coinbase violating laws. I’m not sure how the legality of their actions is relevant to the discussion. I don’t think employees recounting their personal experiences while at the company is rumors or hearsay. And the article mentioned many of them had to sign an NDA in exchange for a severance package so I don’t think “reparations” are the goal.

if the legality is not questioned so what are we talking about? Public shaming? Making the world a better place via baseless accusations and media witch-hunt? Coinbase is pre-IPO, considering early 2021 public debut. This case stinks of extortion of settlement money via very well timed smear campaign.

Several black employees claim to have experienced racism at a noteworthy tech company. It’s been posted to HN for the same reason all the other stories, discussion. Do these employees need to ask you for permission before they can go to the press to talk about what they experienced? You complain about baseless accusations and then make a claim about this being extortion for settlement money.

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

#475

Post by arolihas »

xvector wrote: post #398
aspaceman wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But no one is being forcibly shut down here. The debate is happening. It occurs. But then someone makes a comment like above: “is all this debate really necessary?” and the response is “this is censorship”. I would agree that some viewpoints are silenced in public contexts. But insofar as this conversation, I don’t see anyone being cancelled or shut down for an opinion. That just seems like a defensive reaction to me…

> But no one is being forcibly shut down here But they are. If you are skeptical of the claims in the article, then apparently you have taken a “depressing” (incorrect/intolerant) stance.

That’s not what being forcibly shut down means. Somebody disagreeing with you isn’t oppression.

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

#476

Post by [deleted] »

bra-ket wrote: post #459
enumjorge wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither the parent nor the GP said anything about Coinbase violating laws. I’m not sure how the legality of their actions is relevant to the discussion. I don’t think employees recounting their personal experiences while at the company is rumors or hearsay. And the article mentioned many of them had to sign an NDA in exchange for a severance package so I don’t think “reparations” are the goal.

if the legality is not questioned so what are we talking about? Public shaming? Making the world a better place via baseless accusations and media witch-hunt? Coinbase is pre-IPO, considering early 2021 public debut. This case stinks of extortion of settlement money via very well timed smear campaign.

[deleted]

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

#477

Post by [deleted] »

adjkant wrote: post #334
jlokier wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From those actions alone you can't determine if Coinbase rejected George Floyd/BLM, or rejected all kinds of slogan chanting that the CEO was pressured to chant by strikes. It was, after all the first time he was pressured that way.

I disagree from my interpretation of what we do know. They could have made the case about that specifically if they wanted to, but they decided to deflect with a blanket policy on politics. To say we can't determine anything is silly - we're making best guess judgements, not trying Coinbase in court for murder. I've made this comment elsewhere, but I really would love to know why people are digging in so hard here. L…

[deleted]

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

#478

Post by acituan »

slg wrote: post #51
RestlessMind wrote: post #33

From Coinbase's preemptive rebuttal[1]: "we hired an external consultant in August of this year who specializes in data science and diversity and inclusion to cull through all of our historic data related to diversity ... and conduct a high volume of interviews with employees representing all background, functions, and tenures to understand the employee experience. The independent investigation concluded that there w…

>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…

> 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.

I am not comfortable with promoting the framing of the article to an automatically established fact. The only solid fact here is people leaving and the inferred reason is racial discrimination. I am not saying this inference is likely to be wrong or not, but that it is nonetheless an inference and not a fact. The article also doesn't let the reader know how those numbers compare to the baseline attrition of the company, i.e. what percentage of the other demographic groups have left in the same time period, which tends to be pretty high in the startup scene. Racial discrimination at workplace being pretty seriously illegal in the US these employees would have a strong recourse against it and NYT can not possibly provide a superior standard of factuality for those accusations.

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

#479

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

erik_seaberg wrote: post #326
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people traffic in blatant stereotypes in the guise of some kind of positive statement, which makes reprimands less likely. I once had a speaker tell us - in a diversity seminar! - about specific racial groups he thinks are too timid to speak up for themselves.

I think it’s much less an issue with people who have relocated and spent a few years adapting to us, but to succeed with foreign cultures you have to know how directly they prefer to communicate. Dave Barry tells this story: (Beth) “… and then we want to take a plane from Point A to Point B.” (Japanese travel agent) “I see. You want to take a plane?” “Yes.” “From Point A?” “Yes.” “To Point B?” “Yes.” “Ah.” “Can we do…

Yeah, for working with non-American employees this kind of training would make a lot of sense. This guy in particular was talking about American Latinas, though.
Post reply on HN