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A follow up to Coinbase being a mission focused company

blog.coinbase.com

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

#581

Post by matsemann »

sergiotapia wrote: post #515
JPKab wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife is mostly liberal from a US political perspective, but happens to be opposed to abortion. I happen to disagree in nuanced ways with her on this topic. My business. According to my coworkers, who discovered this because they saw her bumper sticker when she picked me up one day, this is because she is "ignorant and doesn't know the facts" and "if she knew the facts she wouldn't think that way" and that I "need…

It's so bonkers that your coworkers would actually bring this up to you lol what kind of lunatics do you work with?!

But driving around with a bumper sticker and flashing one's view is not "bringing things up"?

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

#582

Post by buildstatements »

Pfhreak wrote: post #145
krzyk wrote: post #123

Is "apolitical" stance a bad thing? Isn't it the default, safe? I lived in country where you had to be "political" to be in management, it didn't end up well (East Europe, Soviet Union), I always (naively?) thought that West countries were wiser. So I prefer companies to not mess with politics.

"Apolitical" is the default. It's another way of saying, "The way things are is fine". The problem is that this is, in itself, a political stance. An example could be climate change. If Coinbase is doing nothing to make energy more green (even if that's just writing amicus briefs or blog posts), then they are effectively saying, "The way things are is fine."

The problem with this view is that it is hopelessly uncomprehensive. When you start on the politics stuff, where do you stop?

Should Coinbase have a political opinion on native rights in South Australia? What about the status and social standing of Burakumin in Japan? What about the Indigenous goups in Taiwan: the Ami, Atayal, Paiwan, Bunun, Puyuma, Rukai, Tsou, Saisiyat, Tao (Yami), Thao, Kavalan, Taroko (also Truku), and Sakizaya?

I think Coinbase should have said "we are a deeply political company concentrated on a single issue to the exclusion of all else. If you want to work where there is more than a single political focus, we are not a good fit".

You can't optimise in all directions, and being clear about what is in scope and out of scope is vital, not just in tech but in life.

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

#583

Post by EdwardDiego »

JPKab wrote: post #167
krzyk wrote: post #123

Is "apolitical" stance a bad thing? Isn't it the default, safe? I lived in country where you had to be "political" to be in management, it didn't end up well (East Europe, Soviet Union), I always (naively?) thought that West countries were wiser. So I prefer companies to not mess with politics.

My wife is mostly liberal from a US political perspective, but happens to be opposed to abortion. I happen to disagree in nuanced ways with her on this topic. My business. According to my coworkers, who discovered this because they saw her bumper sticker when she picked me up one day, this is because she is "ignorant and doesn't know the facts" and "if she knew the facts she wouldn't think that way" and that I "need…

I'm bemused she needs a bumper sticker on this subject.

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

#584

Post by EdwardDiego »

matsemann wrote: post #581
sergiotapia wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so bonkers that your coworkers would actually bring this up to you lol what kind of lunatics do you work with?!

But driving around with a bumper sticker and flashing one's view is not "bringing things up"?

That's what I don't get.

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

#585

Post by matthewmacleod »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #533
davorak wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a reasonable interpretation in my experience. I have definitely seen people told not to talk about what you might call controversial because it is political. Don't talk about your abortion and how it made your life better or worse. Don't talk about your birth control. Don't talk about how you were explicitly told by an authority figure you were not worthy of a job because of your sex/gender. Easy for me to…

I’ve never heard anyone told not to talk about those things because they’re political , but I could believe they were told not to talk about them because they’re controversial .

And that is in itself a political act.

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

#586

Post by yokaze »

jariel wrote: post #436
yokaze wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see it the other way around. (Almost) everything is political. The mission of the company is not disjoint from the society it is embedded in. Things have become divisive by being able to ignore and blend out the opposing views. By not talking and listening to one another. This is just one more step in that direction. Funnily enough, I think it has been extrapolated by Neal Stephenson in Diamond Age. We will end up…

" (Almost) everything is political. " Serving coffee is not political. Planning the network installation is not political. Code reviews, cleaning your office, optimizing the VM, getting a bandwidth deal, negotiating the SaaS pricing, choosing ingredients for the new dish, figuring out how many loads of gravel are needed for the landfill, picking a guy to fix the fence ... It's 99% not political. Google search is bare…

What I understand from what you are saying, and with what I can agree is, that not everything you do, has to be or should be a political statement.

But the point I trying to make is, that "apolitical" is not the absence of political. It is a political choice. Here a definition of apolitical: "not interested or involved in politics"

> Serving coffee is not political.

Which coffee do you serve? If you don't care, you are apolitical, but you can either serve coffee with child labour or not.

> Planning the network installation is not political.

So, it will include equipment from Huawei? Or Cisco?

> Code reviews,

If someone puts in there a "joke", do you address it? Should you?

> cleaning your office, optimizing the VM,

Yeah, probably not.

> getting a bandwidth deal, negotiating the SaaS pricing, choosing ingredients for the new dish,

To which standard do you hold your suppliers? Are they subscribing to any social corporate responsibility standard? Are you? Are you trying to make a vegan dish or not? (Not that I care, I am apolitical there, but I do not think, it is not political)

> figuring out how many loads of gravel are needed for the landfill,

Probably not.

> picking a guy to fix the fence ..

Are you rejecting the guy who has a MAGA bumper on his truck?

> Google search is barely political,

Really? There was just recently a case of republicans complaining about how they are ranked. What about Google in China? Or Hong Kong?

> It's 100% fine for you to 'work on something consistent with your political views' but at the same time just 'pick the place' instead of 'making the place' inherently political.

Here I think, I can understand that you want to say, that all the points I just made, are likely to be unproductive to be discussed at the workplace. And I would agree. You may say, you are tired of hearing those issues, and I can understand.

But I would say, one doesn't make a place inherently political, it is. Being apolitical doesn't make it go away, that decisions have an impact on the public affairs of a country. In a small and intangible way probably, but so does a vote.

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

#587

Post by beaunative »

I've seen plenty comments saying 'everything is political'. I don't doubt that, but not every political issue, important maybe, should be the top priority for every company, there are a lot of NGOs created just for that. A company should notice the importance of politics, but should also not forget the reason of its existence, which is to provide services or produce commodities of some kinds.

As citizens and organizations, we surely deserve our right to engage in politics, but that doesn't mean it should what we discuss about on every nights' dinner table. A large fraction of those conversations will be, as it should, devoted to what's going on in the lives of our own and people around us. It's easy to lose focus in the mountains and seas of all those issues that matter, things just won't change in a blink, but we simply can not afford to let those issues to be the entirety of our lives, no matter how important they are, as much as one hope for otherwise. Call it the downside of democracy, but we just don't yet live in a time where everyone can devote all parts of their lives to discussions on fairness and justice, regardless how beautiful it sounds.

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

#588

Post by mckirk »

mola wrote: post #575
notSupplied wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I certainly agree that the mission of a company can (and preferably) be more than just for profit. However, "to be political" is still a pretty wide range of possible missions. Who calls the shots about what you're going to be political about, and which side you take? And when a group of employees disagree with the shots being called, what kinds of reactions are appropriate or not? I'll take a shot: - I think compell…

Companies that have a mission "to change the world" attract employees on the basis of activisism in the world. Heck this company is trying to overhaul the entire monetary system. If succeeded this will effect the lives of billions of people. Recruiting people with this premise, and then telling them actually, you don't have any say in what the company actually does, and the ways it changes the world, that actually it…

It would be entirely possible to 'change the world' just by transforming the monetary system though, would it not? Yes, that is in itself a goal with political undercurrents and ultimately would clearly involve political decisions, but they are not at that stage yet and therefore I think it's quite reasonable to want to stay apolitical, where possible.

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

#589

Post by rbanffy »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #458
joshuamorton wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that's true now, it wasn't true 10 (or even 5 in some places) years ago. It's arguably not even true in some places today. Just this week , the Supreme Court denied cert on a lawsuit about same sex marriage (Kim Davis).

You’re confusing “controversial” with “political”. Someone’s marriage may be controversial to someone, but talking about it isn’t political (at least not in the sense we’re discussing here). It becomes political when someone is arguing for or against gay marriage.

Being open about something that can land you in jail in some countries is taking a political stand. If I am an Atheist and I keep that to myself, I can travel to places I wouldn't be able to safely go if I were open about my religion.

And before anyone says anything, when religion informs lawmaking, it becomes political.

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