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‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

nytimes.com

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

#81

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

cbthrow91 wrote: post #55
chandra381 wrote: post #6

> One Black employee said her manager suggested in front of colleagues that she was dealing drugs and carrying a gun, trading on racist stereotypes. Another said a co-worker at a recruiting meeting broadly described Black employees as less capable. Still another said managers spoke down to her and her Black colleagues, adding that they were passed over for promotions in favor of less experienced white employees. The…

I find this hard to imagine without someone getting reprimanded. Not disbelieving the person's quote, but not accepting it as fact either. Seems like it would be easy to get corroborating witnesses for a situation that inappropriate. The only group I've seen it be permissible to make stereotyped observations about in the last decade in an SF tech office is european/indian/chinese workers. FWIW I don't think that's ok…

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.

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

#82

Post by ygjb »

treis wrote: post #69
yunohn wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NYT are not the police/FBI. They do not have access to those things, unless employees are able to exfiltrate said info at significant personal risk.

Seems a bit incongruous to suggest that people willing and able to accuse Coinbase of racism in the NYTimes are not willing or able to exfiltrate evidence of those accusations.

It's only incongruous if you evaluate it in the context of people who expect to be treated fairly when they report mistreatment.

There is a pattern of behavior minimizing the scope and impact of abusive or discriminatory actions across the tech industry, and it is very prevalent on this site as well.

The simple reality is that unless an employee is able to obtain clear, slam-dunk evidence of directly legally actionable abuse or misconduct, then it is a huge personal risk to come forward. Most businesses that are large enough to have systemic problems have enormous resources to litigate against those claims.

In contrast, for employees to collect and use evidence, it is required that they: a) experience the abuse or discrimination, repeatedly b) collect evidence and documentation of that behaviour c) exfiltrate that evidence in contravention of legal contracts that can include NDAs, binding arbitration clauses, morality/non desparagement clauses, etc d) be in a strong enough financial position to defend against litigation e) be confident enough in their own skills, reputation, and network to be able to give up future career prospects based on A-D.

And this is just from the 5 minutes it took me to compose this message.

I get that HN is a bastion of support for meritocracy, and that founder worship is a strong bias for many on this forum, but as a community, and as an industry we have got to stop undermining and destroying the folks trying to hold people and firms accountable for bad behavior.

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

#83

Post by polartx »

tptacek wrote: post #67
polartx wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re truly ignorant to the social pressures the black community places on each other (specifically the prevailing majority on the ‘dissident’ thinkers), than it’s a topic I suggest you read in to.

Black Democrats (most Black people are Democrats, something for which there is some social pressure) are generally more conservative, and significantly more religious, than other Democrats. So: no, this isn't responsive to what I said. (One good source: White & Laird).

All that means is that social pressures (in this case) weren’t exerted using the lever of religion or political affiliation.

That doesn’t at all mean that other levers don’t exist or weren’t leveraged. Such as the common, ‘uncle tom’ or ‘not black enough’ social pressure commonly applied in the black community.

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

#85

Post by treis »

pvg wrote: post #75
treis wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems a bit incongruous to suggest that people willing and able to accuse Coinbase of racism in the NYTimes are not willing or able to exfiltrate evidence of those accusations.

These are right in the article: wrote in a Slack message that was viewed by The Times. according to a copy of the message seen by The Times according to a copy reviewed by The Times.

None of those are messages/documents contain racist action by anyone at Coinbase. They are (1) a reaction to a blog post, (2) a reaction to a letter, and (3) a conclusion in a report. They are not concrete evidence of racism.

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

#86

Post by seibelj »

slg wrote: post #5

This is in the wake of Coinbase decision to be a "mission focused company" and prevent their employees from speaking out about political issues at the workplace. It shows the dangers of being apolitical when saying "Blank employees should feel safe and welcome at their job" is apparently still a political statement.

I don’t see why we need to be debating politics all day in the work place. I can guarantee you my politics (libertarian / capitalist / corporatist / anti-collectivism) will do nothing but enrage you and debates in public chats, lunch, etc. will serve nothing of purpose. Isn’t it better if we save the philosophical debates for beers and the ballot box? I don’t want to hear your soap box and you don’t want to hear mine.

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

#87

Post by treis »

ygjb wrote: post #82
treis wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems a bit incongruous to suggest that people willing and able to accuse Coinbase of racism in the NYTimes are not willing or able to exfiltrate evidence of those accusations.

It's only incongruous if you evaluate it in the context of people who expect to be treated fairly when they report mistreatment. There is a pattern of behavior minimizing the scope and impact of abusive or discriminatory actions across the tech industry, and it is very prevalent on this site as well. The simple reality is that unless an employee is able to obtain clear, slam-dunk evidence of directly legally actionab…

Thinly veiled insults aside, you didn't address my actual point. The people in the article risked all the repercussions you mentioned by formally reporting the abuse and speaking with the NYTimes. Saying that they would do that but not risk snapping a pic of a racist e-mail, as an example, doesn't make any sense.

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

#88

Post by pvg »

treis wrote: post #85
pvg wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are right in the article: wrote in a Slack message that was viewed by The Times. according to a copy of the message seen by The Times according to a copy reviewed by The Times.

None of those are messages/documents contain racist action by anyone at Coinbase. They are (1) a reaction to a blog post, (2) a reaction to a letter, and (3) a conclusion in a report. They are not concrete evidence of racism.

I'm not sure what your standard is, you said 'corroborating evidence'. This is evidence that corroborates what the employees told the NYT. Now you're at 'concrete evidence'. What would that be? That someone yelled racial slurs at employees and then handed out signed receipts? The coinbase 'prebuttal' doesn't concretely dispute much either, it says you're going to see some stuff in the NYT that's 'hard to read'. If anything, it's striking how little both pieces disagree about the employees' allegations.

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

#89

Post by aparsons »

9HZZRfNlpR wrote: post #74

When minorities get hired just because companies want to show they are doing their part, doesn't it make sense people hired because of their skin color have harder times to get promotions?

You will get downvoted because HN reflects SV groupthink, but you are absolutely correct. This is a well-studied phenomenon analogous to the Peter principle, and has been observed in workplaces (as you described) and schools (black students who get in to meet an arbitrary target struggle more and have a worse college experience).

We are doing these people a disservice. Even in the most “socially forward thinking” companies like Google, this sentiment prevails. The loudest non-black advocates for black hiring are privately the owners of the strongest fences. But when its time to virtue-signal, they’re at the front of the line. Hire a black employee directly into their team in eng/sales? No thanks - but they’ll gladly advocate for the customer service, recruitment and “diversity officer” roles to go to a black individual. Direct result of the push to hire disproportionately many black people which has led to them having a worse experience at these jobs as the psyche of existing employees is they’re automatically a lower bar hire (very unfair to these people!).

Good job big tech - you have once again turned a target into a measure and completely missed the point. Except now the people you supposedly tried to help are hurt the most.

Look at Coinbase - the exec team is largely women and minorities, yet NYT takes every opportunity to point out the percent of black employees (with no context on the number in the hiring funnel and at target colleges) as if CB has an obligation to hit a certain number.

Disclosure: I worked at Coinbase for a brief period.

Ready for the downvotes, but look around at those in your team and within yourself, and ask yourself if there is anything untrue in what I said before hitting that button.

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

#90

Post by [deleted] »

slg wrote: post #71
oh_sigh wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can think of contexts, especially when n=15(if this was a statistical study on insulin response to artificial sweeteners, people would be saying the sample size is too small to draw conclusions), but I don't know if developing hypothetical scenarios is useful. Learning the true context is most important. This could be done by corroborating allegations for example.

>I can think of contexts, especially when n=15(if this was a statistical study on insulin response to artificial sweeteners, people would be saying the sample size is too small to draw conclusions), but I don't know if developing hypothetical scenarios is useful. N = 15 while p ≈ 20. It has been a while since I have taken a stats class, but that sample seems plenty large enough to me. >Learning the true context is mo…

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