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‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

nytimes.com

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

#91

Post by xoxoy »

polartx wrote: post #72
xoxoy wrote: post #53

this seems like it’s also a struggle between different teams at the same company. Customer Service teams are very often looked down upon as “less than” other teams like engineering, and this article states that a disproportionate number of the black employees were on that team.

Customer Service is often regarded in companies like insurance is regarded by most people—you gotta have it, in a perfect world you’d never need it, and very few people brag about how much they pay for it. That’s why Customer Service isn’t treated like the Rock Stars that Sales or Engineering is treated like in a company. It also tends to have the most natural turnover, and tends to be the lesser skilled positions in…

yeah it’s unfortunate even at a finance startup that CX is so disregarded. Coinbase doesn’t exactly have a great CX reputation eg lots of horror stories plus it seems to go down every time there’s a big move up or down.

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

#92

Post by an_opabinia »

AlanYx wrote: post #9
an_opabinia wrote: post #4

> [Brian Armstrong] attributed [bad stuff] to being “on the spectrum,” according to a recording of the event. Ah, the ol’ James Damore defense.

There's nothing in the article alleging that Brian Armstrong attributed "bad stuff" to being on the autistic spectrum. The only allegation in the article is that Brian Armstrong did not speak or make decisions at meetings, and attributed this to being on the spectrum. The full quote is: >"Mr. Armstrong rarely spoke or made decisions in meetings, the current and former employees said, leaving them uncertain about his…

Obviously they were talking about decisions regarding the treatment and complaints of black employees.

I mean honestly what is there to think about? What are the other stakeholders he’d need to consult, racists? What other considerations, what is the other side, what downside is there about being against harassment?

Every educated person could issue a quick decision: reprimand the people harassing your black employees! So surely you can see why it makes “the inability to quickly condemn and reprimand harassers” is bad.

He adopted some really fucking stupid, untested, non mainstream cultural policy. Of course there are going to be consequences. Am I the only person who sees he’s bad at this job? And that it is a complete and utter insult to people with actual social disabilities when he blames “being on the spectrum” for being bad at his job?

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

#93

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

pvg wrote: post #88
treis wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an…

For example, the article talks extensively about Layllen Sawyerr's case. So I'd expect corroboration to look something like "we talked to suchandsuch other people who confirmed she was treated unfairly", "we read this email in which she was treated unfairly", or perhaps "we heard about this specific personnel decision which was unfair to her". A lack of corroboration doesn't mean her accusations are false, but a lack of attempt to corroborate is very troubling from a national newspaper, especially when the subject of the article is going on the record to say the accusations aren't true. Either Milosevich and Coinbase are lying about their investigation or Sawyerr's story is false - isn't the NYT curious to figure out which one?

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

#94

Post by ergocoder »

slg wrote: post #79
zpeti wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about the CEO refusing to align with far left politics? Whether you think that is good or bad, that could well be the reason for them leaving, but it doesn't actually mean that there was overt racism.

Can you expand on what you mean by "far left politics"? Reminder, this happened in late 2018 and early 2019. It was before this year's round of Black Lives Matter protests. It was also before Coinbase issued its no politics edict. I am really struggling to think of what "far left politics" you are referring to here that would be important enough to the Black employees of Coinbase that it results in 75% of them leavin…

Far left politics is an extremist. For example, if you criticize BLM for looting, you will be labeled racists.

Looting small shop owners makes no sense. Many shop owners are even black. This happened in Seattle where many shop owners support BLM.

You might say, well, that was an exception. But Noah Trevor (an influential person) also justified looting because police breaks social contract first. Now why would you loot random shops because of that? The fact that Noah hasn't been canceled makes me think a lot of BLM supporters see looting as positive.

To sum up, you basically can't say anything bad about BLM. Otherwise, you would be labeled as racists and canceled.

This is a trend in the far-left politics. They would force you to personally sacrifice to better society. Another example is homeless people camping in front of your shop. If you try to make them go away, you will also be canceled. This far-left politics is just evil, IMO.

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

#95

Post by pjc50 »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #80
pjc50 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why wasn't that treated as an emergency? Companies can be incredibly callous about retention issues, especially if fixing them involves noticing which managers are responsible for behaving badly towards their staff.

"Callous" would mean it's about you, but think about it from the viewpoint of the company. If the aggrieved employee leaves, the problem is solved.

Hiring and onboarding costs money. Having people quit costs money in replacing them. Allowing managers to drive them out and incur the cost of replacement is basically allowing them to light money on fire for their entertainment.

Not from the POV of the company, but from the individual actors within it, is the problem solved. Principal-agent dilemma, innit.

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

#96

Post by tptacek »

polartx wrote: post #83
tptacek wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Uncle Tom" and "Not Black Enough" have nothing to do with far-leftism. As I just said, with an academic source: Black people are relatively more conservative than other Democrats. To the extent that we're including Black Republicans in the mix, the analysis gets even weirder.

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

#97

Post by pjc50 »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #93
pvg wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an…

For example, the article talks extensively about Layllen Sawyerr's case. So I'd expect corroboration to look something like "we talked to suchandsuch other people who confirmed she was treated unfairly", "we read this email in which she was treated unfairly", or perhaps "we heard about this specific personnel decision which was unfair to her". A lack of corroboration doesn't mean her accusations are false, but a lack…

This isn't Scottish Law, you don't need to corroborate every single item with third parties.

(I wonder how many people apply this level of corroboration requirement to forward-looking statements about the benefits of bitcoin?)

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

#98

Post by slg »

ergocoder wrote: post #94
slg wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on what you mean by "far left politics"? Reminder, this happened in late 2018 and early 2019. It was before this year's round of Black Lives Matter protests. It was also before Coinbase issued its no politics edict. I am really struggling to think of what "far left politics" you are referring to here that would be important enough to the Black employees of Coinbase that it results in 75% of them leavin…

Far left politics is an extremist. For example, if you criticize BLM for looting, you will be labeled racists. Looting small shop owners makes no sense. Many shop owners are even black. This happened in Seattle where many shop owners support BLM. You might say, well, that was an exception. But Noah Trevor (an influential person) also justified looting because police breaks social contract first. Now why would you loo…

To repeat myself, this happened in late 2018 and early 2019. That was before the round of protests that you are speaking about. What far left political issue was Coinbase potentially fighting against during the relevant time window that would have pushed these employees out?

Also I think you mean Trevor Noah and not Noah Trevor.

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

#99

Post by pvg »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #93
pvg wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an…

For example, the article talks extensively about Layllen Sawyerr's case. So I'd expect corroboration to look something like "we talked to suchandsuch other people who confirmed she was treated unfairly", "we read this email in which she was treated unfairly", or perhaps "we heard about this specific personnel decision which was unfair to her". A lack of corroboration doesn't mean her accusations are false, but a lack…

The NYT didn't title their piece 'Coinbase is racist'. It's reporting on 'lots of Coinbase's black employees feel the company handles race and diversity issues poorly'. The reporting looks into that and, well, reports on why the employees think that.

The 'other side' of this is a Coinbase blogpost that says 'we hired a consultant who told us we don't have such problems'. You are certainly free to decide which of these is better supported.

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

#100

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

pjc50 wrote: post #97
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For example, the article talks extensively about Layllen Sawyerr's case. So I'd expect corroboration to look something like "we talked to suchandsuch other people who confirmed she was treated unfairly", "we read this email in which she was treated unfairly", or perhaps "we heard about this specific personnel decision which was unfair to her". A lack of corroboration doesn't mean her accusations are false, but a lack…

This isn't Scottish Law, you don't need to corroborate every single item with third parties. (I wonder how many people apply this level of corroboration requirement to forward-looking statements about the benefits of bitcoin?)

You don't need to do anything. Newspapers are free to publish whatever they'd like. But if the NYT isn't interested in discovering the truth of the accusations, that lends credence to the idea that their primary motivation is not the accusations but Coinbase's lack of support for racial justice politics.
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