1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company • Hacker News Board

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#581

Post by renewiltord » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 10:17 AM UTC

fleddr wrote: post #71

Just want to say how ridiculous this is from a European perspective. I know nothing better than for any company to be mission focused. You go to work to do work. And you do so with a degree of neutrality, as you can't pick your colleagues, yet still need to cooperate with them. This doesn't mean you can't say anything at all, it means you shouldn't be overly divisive or confrontational. A company isn't your personal…

I mean, that makes sense. Culturally, that society has, at crucial times, decided to “just follow orders” even when the orders were reprehensible. It is not particularly surprising that Europeans don’t rock the boat.

Nobody brings politics or activism to work and that has yielded certain outcomes over the last century.

I actually prefer the mission-focused thing but I wouldn’t be convinced by the Europeans who are notorious conformists.

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#582

Post by marcus_holmes » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 10:19 AM UTC

scop wrote: post #61

> How could something be so negative in the press, but turn out to be incredibly positive with every stakeholder. The question of our era! Certainly "every" is misapplied in his quote, but his core message of overwhelming private positivity in light of negative press is worth pondering.

The press are trying to tell a story. If that story will sell better taking a negative angle on an event, then the story will be negative. It's not personal, or even political (depending on the organisation). It's just business.

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#583

Post by throwanem » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 10:22 AM UTC

tomp wrote: post #556

throwanem wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Elective" in "elective procedure" doesn't mean "optional and potentially frivolous." It just means "not emergent", or put differently it means you won't die if you don't have it right now . Kidney stone surgery is elective. Cancer resection is elective. Most heart surgery is elective. Most brain surgery is elective. I assume you're not arguing that health insurance shouldn't cover these things, because that would be…

What’s the correct term?

To the best of my knowledge, there exists no term in the medical lexicon denoting the category of "interventions 'tomp believes should not be covered in some or all cases by health insurance."

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#584

Post by BigRedDog1669 » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 10:27 AM UTC

throw_m239339 wrote: post #572

bradlys wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kinda misses the whole point about how America has almost no social safety nets and this is why these critiques come up so much in the workplace... If everyone was not so worried about their wellbeing - these critiques wouldn't be as charged. Socially - there might be some conservative people in Europe but end of the day - people aren't dying in the streets the same way. In the USA - people die all the time due to th…

No I'm not missing any point. You are making up a point that has absolutely nothing to do with the actual situation at Coinbase. The political debate at Coinbase was never about "safety net" at all. It's about petty identity politics. You are trying to make the discussion about "safety net" when that discussion has nothing to do about "safety net" at first place. What do employees demanding a company makes a statemen…

Black Lives Matters is important because companies discriminate against black people and there is police discrimination and brutality against black people and whoever the police deem undesirable in the US, not just in one or two regions, but in every sizeable city in the US. So it's hard to see your friends discriminated against and employers (the only entity with enough political power to effect change in the us) making the problems worse. And amazon and other tech companies fund city council seats and fuel tons of money to defeat referendums that hurt their profit. Yes, ideally politics would be fought over outside the corporate sphere but due to politicians mostly only listening to corporations in the US at the federal and city level, that isn't possible.

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#585

Post by BigRedDog1669 » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 10:36 AM UTC

moosedev wrote: post #514

muench wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

COBRA means you’re still getting insurance through your (former) employer. How much does the same insurance benefit cost if you buy it fully on your own? In my experience you can’t even buy a similar plan as an individual. And definitely not at the same price.

This matches my recent experience. I researched plans on Washington state's health marketplace and found that while the available plans were generally much cheaper than COBRA, their coverage for out-of-network or out-of-state care was limited (e.g. "emergency" care only, where the definition of emergency is vague and up to the insurer). And even if you are careful to get taken to an "in-network" hospital, there are p…

I got a plan from the marketplace in Washington state for around 550/month. It was called a Silver plan, but it didn't cover very much. I kept getting bills a year after my services for things that I thought were covered and that my doctor said would be covered. And I looked into the benefits sheets while choosing my healthcare. Yes, I didn't get the highest priced one, but if Silver doesn't cover very much, I'm not confident "Gold" will. Also my experience with some corporate plans is that even though technically things are covered, sometimes the waiting times of a few months for urgent things mean they basically aren't.

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#586

Post by BigRedDog1669 » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 10:53 AM UTC

poorjohnmacafee wrote: post #451

tootie wrote: post #62

This seems like a gross abuse of the phrase "mission focused" to mean "operating for profit with total blinders on to the wider world". With a very appropriate photo of the 90s Bulls being a group of self-serving egomaniacs who put winning above everything else. My current employer (a non-profit) uses the term "mission focused" to mean "we are serving the public good even when it isn't profitable and acknowledging ou…

The goal in Western capitalism is to create wealth for stakeholders. Those stakeholders can then get involved in politically impactful projects as wealthy individuals if they have a conscience. As competitive, innovative companies they will bring wealth and better lives to their communities long term. There are many good reasons for this system. Wanting companies to play politics means they will be choosing sides of…

You are assuming only the wealthy should drive politics. The employee driven politics is happening because they don't have money to shape politics and this is the only way they see of having an effect. Not saying it is good, but the idea the money buys politics kind of leads to this.

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#587

Post by chaoskanzlerin » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 11:02 AM UTC

tomp wrote: post #352

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Birth control is prescribed by a doctor for a wide variety of things, including chronic health conditions. If you think insurance shouldn’t cover birth control because it’s consistent, do diabetics also not deserve to have insulin covered, or high blood pressure people their statins?

Sure, in that case if it’s medically indicated and not elective, that’s a different situation.

I'm not sure whether you include trans healthcare among "shouldn't be covered", so here's my 2 cents:

- Most of Europe prescribes hormones upon a medical indication. This leads to bad gatekeeping; I've been told to see 3 different professionals before starting hormones.

- Anecdotally, I'm on grey market hormones while waiting, without any bloodwork - before starting those hormones, I've had suicidal ideations on a daily basis.

- This seems to be backed by data as well: Ideation rates are reported to be 37-83% and attempt rates are reported to be 9.8-44%. [0]

Given the frequent outcomes of depression and suicide, I think it's fair to say that trans healthcare is not optional and should be fully covered.

[0] https://doi.org/10.1037/sgd0000235

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#588

Post by tomp » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 11:06 AM UTC

throwanem wrote: post #583

tomp wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the correct term?

To the best of my knowledge, there exists no term in the medical lexicon denoting the category of "interventions 'tomp believes should not be covered in some or all cases by health insurance."

what category does "beauty plastic surgery" fall under, if not "emergency" or "elective"?

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#589

Post by native_samples » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 11:11 AM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #67

What mission did they focus on and how did it go? All I see here is "I wrote a controversial screed and many people tolerated it and kept showing up to work." That's great and all, but what sort of new things did it unlock? How do you compare it to the world where you didn't write the screed? It all feels like a heap of bullshit to me -- if you're in the right industry, you can be the worst manager on the planet and…

> what sort of new things did it unlock?

Talent: "it has allowed us to hire some of the best talent from organizations where employees are fed up with politics, infighting, and distraction"

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#590

Post by native_samples » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 11:13 AM UTC

sagichmal wrote: post #148

jdhn wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be mean, but I'd say that Brian Armstrong took the actions he did to weed out people like you from working at Coinbase.

"People like [the OP]" are in my experience consistently better at what they do than the sort of folks which Coinbase is now apparently soliciting.

Brian disagrees, he opened his discussion of the benefits by saying: "it has allowed us to hire some of the best talent from organizations where employees are fed up with politics, infighting, and distraction".