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

Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

theblockcrypto.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

601–610 of 1001 posts

Re: Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

#601

Post by f00zz »

Barrin92 wrote: post #483
subsubzero wrote: post #465

I may want to apply to coinbase. I am really fed up with 'activist' employees and the toxic environment they bring. All I want is to just focus on engineering and ship features/improvements. Bringing politics to the office(thanks Google!) has been one of the worst things to happen in the 21st century for tech companies. Interestingly enough google has been going through absolute hell with these cancerous employees an…

>All I want is to just focus on engineering and ship features/improvements. Yeah if there wasn't the pesky world around all the engineering and we could all just stare at our stock options while we sit in our gentrified neighbourhoods and pretend the world doesn't exist. You can ignore politics but politics doesn't ignore you. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil is an unworthy attitude for a democratic citizen.…

"Everything is political"

"Being apolitical is a political stance"

"If you don't take a stand you're part of the problem"

Gosh, this is tiresome.

Re: Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

#602

Post by [deleted] »

subsubzero wrote: post #465

I may want to apply to coinbase. I am really fed up with 'activist' employees and the toxic environment they bring. All I want is to just focus on engineering and ship features/improvements. Bringing politics to the office(thanks Google!) has been one of the worst things to happen in the 21st century for tech companies. Interestingly enough google has been going through absolute hell with these cancerous employees an…

[deleted]

Re: Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

#603

Post by itsoktocry »

vmception wrote: post #493
flyinglizard wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guys who’d go on public platform to denounce Coinbase probably intersect with the type of people Coinbase wants to rid itself of. I fully support what Coinbase is doing. It seems very fair to all sides.

It doesn't change my stance on what I would prefer companies do but it seems like a multilayered issue on the tides to pay attention to here and at the very least makes me not want to espouse my own thoughts about "Yeah! mission focused companies!" publicly. Here are quotes from my feed: "The path to an IPO is to purge Black and Brown people from Coinbase ... this is very unbecoming of a federal contractor" "Over a d…

>"The path to an IPO is to purge Black and Brown people from Coinbase ... this is very unbecoming of a federal contractor"

Do normal people actually believe stuff like this???

Re: Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

#604

Post by sieabahlpark »

andy_ppp wrote: post #434

I am caught in two minds on this, I’m personally extremely political, but I want to clearly understand both sides of arguments as deeply as I possibly can. For example I often argue things in my own mind from a conservative, let’s keep everything stable, work hard, individual responsibility POV even though I firmly believe probably 80% of people’s success is down to luck and consequently think a strong welfare state…

> I firmly believe probably 80% of people’s success is down to luck and consequently think a strong welfare state and 99% inheritance tax is the correct way to run things.

So you think wealth is based on 80% luck and your solution is to reset the family wealth every time?

So a family who isn't "lucky" can't pass on their little wealth to their children and have that compound over time? You'd prefer the children get the reset button?

You have some flawed understanding of how people can actually increase the probability to generate wealth.

Re: Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

#605

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

purple_ferret wrote: post #549
subsubzero wrote: post #465

I may want to apply to coinbase. I am really fed up with 'activist' employees and the toxic environment they bring. All I want is to just focus on engineering and ship features/improvements. Bringing politics to the office(thanks Google!) has been one of the worst things to happen in the 21st century for tech companies. Interestingly enough google has been going through absolute hell with these cancerous employees an…

Have you considered Raytheon, Huawei, the Turkish government, etc?

Huawei and the Turkish government very much require their employees to endorse specific political expressions. It's my understanding that Raytheon does not and I think they're an entirely reasonable company for a SWE to consider.

Re: Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

#606

Post by thisisbrians »

j4nt4b wrote: post #542

If employees want to influence a company's political stance, then they've already lost, because employees are not shareholders. It's not their call to make. They would have a leg to stand on if they were part of a worker's cooperative, because then they'd be owners. The juicy job market for tech workers may obscure this fundamental fact, but when the rubber hits the road any overpaid engineer is still considered hire…

I came here to say basically this. An employer is responsible for its own political positions because of how corporate governance is organized. Employees who disagree with said positions, whatever they may be, are free to terminate their employment if management doesn't agree to be lobbied by employees to assume certain positions. True say comes with ownership.

Re: Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

#607

Post by hackerfromthefu »

ryandrake wrote: post #586
kleinsch wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked for companies on the east coast, then moved to SF and now work at a big tech company. The companies I worked for on the east coast were mostly B2B, so we were focused on making a good product for businesses so they’d pay us more money. Big tech companies recruited for a long time with the pitch that we’re changing the world. That has brought in a bunch of employees who joined bc they want their employment to…

I've worked on the east coast for the early half of my career, and no company has ever mentioned "making a positive change in the world" as a pitch for the job. I was hired to fix bugs and connect two API layers to each other so that a set top box could ship or so we could release the next version of a display driver. There was plenty of political diversity in the office: people from all across the political spectrum…

I yearn for the return of that attitude, polite conversation of differences and the tolerance and rational discussion of nuanced issues which makes it possible.

Re: Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

#608

Post by Apocryphon »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #599
tshaddox wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wanting to separate engineering work from reality is precisely what Barrin92 is saying should not and can not be done. Engineering work isn't just some insulated game that gives you tokens to buy things you need in the real world. The engineering work is itself part of the real world.

Everything is part of the real world. Would you go to a mattress company and demand that they make it harder for your political opponents to get a good night's sleep?

Wouldn't be the first time a mattress company got involved in that space. Casper sponsors the Slate Political Gabfest podcast, or used to at least.

Re: Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

#609

Post by tshaddox »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #599
tshaddox wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wanting to separate engineering work from reality is precisely what Barrin92 is saying should not and can not be done. Engineering work isn't just some insulated game that gives you tokens to buy things you need in the real world. The engineering work is itself part of the real world.

Everything is part of the real world. Would you go to a mattress company and demand that they make it harder for your political opponents to get a good night's sleep?

No, I wouldn't, but I don't know how that is relevant. If a mattress company refused to sell mattresses to gay people, I wouldn't do business with that mattress company, and I would also approve of employees of that mattress company taking part in political activism to oppose that practice.

Re: Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

#610

Post by paxys »

ptero wrote: post #513
Barrin92 wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>All I want is to just focus on engineering and ship features/improvements. Yeah if there wasn't the pesky world around all the engineering and we could all just stare at our stock options while we sit in our gentrified neighbourhoods and pretend the world doesn't exist. You can ignore politics but politics doesn't ignore you. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil is an unworthy attitude for a democratic citizen.…

The comment author does not advocate ignoring the world, he wants to separate his engineering work from politics and thus wants to look for employers who do not push a particular political program on him. Which seems a perfectly valid (and attractive to me) view. You cannot ignore your dreams, your health, your family, social ills, the air quality, politics and a myriad of other things in the world around you. But if…

While it isn't possible to separate engineering from politics in general, the sentiment is doubly hilarious when your goal is to enable a new global monetary system.
Post reply on HN