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Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

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

#931

Post by t0mmyb0y »

koheripbal wrote: post #346
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #3

I agreed with what Brian Armstrong said in his blog post and thought it was admirable to publicly take that position, but now I have even more respect for his dedication. I don't know if the severance package is good or not, but it seems generous and it gives employees who aren't aligned with the company an easy way out.

There is a lot of value in removing political activists from your company, and so it's worth paying them to leave. Aside from the combative toxic environment they generate, they are also often the source of disgruntled rogue employees that will generally behave improperly, misrepresent coworkers, leak documents, raise alarms about operations they don't understand, and generally draw the company into litigation. In a…

Coinbase is owned by the federal gov.

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

#932

Post by matthewdgreen »

rjkennedy98 wrote: post #309
meheleventyone wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could also be a sign that people feel more empowered to express themselves in work and feel that a workplace that values their ideals is preferable to one that doesn't. Particularly in tech where we're all quite comfortably off we can worry about these things higher up the hierarchy of needs. It will be interesting to see where this takes the culture of Coinbase.

> It could also be a sign that people feel more empowered to express themselves in work The cynic in me feels like it's a casual way for engineers to feel better about themselves. It's no wonder to me that this "bring your whole self to work" nonsense sprung up at ad-tech companies like Google. And by the way - the political stuff never is about anything that Google does. I haven't seen any tax law, anti-trust, or pr…

> the political stuff never is about anything that Google does

Huh? https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/27/18114285/google-employee...

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

#933

Post by coryfklein »

lwansbrough wrote: post #748
coryfklein wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a difference between being aware of the negative externalities of your work, and using your position in your company as a platform to accomplish your own partisan political goals. The former should be encouraged and the latter discouraged. Much of the discussion here today is confused by the intermingling of so many concepts under the singular term "politics".

I feel that this is the same argument as the kneeling football players argument. People should be allowed to use their position of power - however limited or not it may be - as their platform for protest. If it becomes so burdensome that you have to put rules in place to prevent it, that's a very clear indication of an underlying problem with society. Creating policy to ignore the problems of society that impact your…

I think we probably agree in this. The extent to which you use your position of power as a platform for espousing your political views is the key. In my mind, a football player kneeling is akin to a colleague wearing a BLM pin in a prominent place on their clothing at regular company meetings. This kind of "activism" is acceptable in my mind; it doesn't interfere with the activities or purpose of the setting.

But if the football player interrupts the game and starts running around with a BLM flag in the middle of a play, that's inappropriate. Or if my manager decides to use the first 5 minutes of every standup to have a group discussion about libertarian ethics.

There's no bright line between which speech is appropriate and which in inappropriate and it's all subjective; and I would certainly oppose any sort of legislation that impinges on the expression of free speech in this area. Society can negotiate these rules in the course of social etiquette, not in the court of law.

But c'mon, when we're at work we're here to get shit done, just let us focus on that. If a group of coworkers wants to organize around common political goals, do it amongst yourselves. Go ahead and use a conference room and work laptops even, if it's after hours and not disrupting business.

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

#934

Post by flippinburgers »

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…

Just wanted to add my voice and say that I agree with you fully: people walking around with the "everything is politics and politics is everything" chip on their shoulder are exhausting to have to be around. They typically come across as insufferably holier than thou and generally just make me not want to have to interact with them. Case in point the number of times I have had to listen to "you are on the wrong side of history" condescendingly being made as rebuke to something I have said dulls my interest in any further interaction.

Besides, engineering problems and the solutions to those problems bring enough variety of opinion that you would think people would be able to fulfill whatever need this new religion of politics brings. Engineering is challenging and rewarding on several different levels.

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

#935

Post by pornel »

pornel wrote: post #56

This is going to work great for Coinbase. It's very helpful for employers to select for conformists who can be told to shut up, and not stand up for what they believe (unless they believe in the status quo and the company, which is called non-political). Selecting for groupthink^W mission is pretty important in the business of cryptocurrencies. Reduces chances of anyone having a different moral stance that would push…

Just as Poe's law predicted, it needs to be clarified: my comment was sarcastic.

Coinbase is full of shit. Cryptocurrencies are a political statement themselves. The policy is just an excuse to eject employees with any moral compass, and signal that Coinbase won't out people with abhorrent anti-social views. It's not a surprise that it comes from a business that is borderline illegal, and adjacent to scams, extortions, and money laundering. They've found a way to treat employees as obedient dumb cogs, and have them feel smart about it.

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

#936

Post by [deleted] »

human_person wrote: post #565

Erica Joy (Director of eng at Github) had an interesting take on this. https://twitter.com/EricaJoy/status/1311178025275289600 "coinbase engineers walked off [in June] because brian wouldn't say "Black Lives Matter," he posted it so they'd get back to work, now he's having an executive "YOU AREN'T THE BOSS OF ME!" meltdown* about it" and "this looks a whole lot like the play certain advisors tell CEO's to run when th…

[deleted]

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

#938

Post by pm90 »

jejeyyy77 wrote: post #919
pm90 wrote: post #899

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it speak worse of her?

She comes off, to me at least, as: Unprofessional, ideological, dogmatic, crazy-lady

What specifically did she say that made her come off that way to you?

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

#939

Post by tha0x5 »

human_person wrote: post #565

Erica Joy (Director of eng at Github) had an interesting take on this. https://twitter.com/EricaJoy/status/1311178025275289600 "coinbase engineers walked off [in June] because brian wouldn't say "Black Lives Matter," he posted it so they'd get back to work, now he's having an executive "YOU AREN'T THE BOSS OF ME!" meltdown* about it" and "this looks a whole lot like the play certain advisors tell CEO's to run when th…

Reading her Twitter feed made me shake my head in disgust.

The fact that someone as deranged as her can rise to the level of director of engineering at GitHub is simultaneously hilarious and sad. Not that this is out of line for GitHub (https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/02/08/report-anti-white-...), but I wonder how much value Erica Joy actually provides to GitHub's engineering team.

Wouldn't surprise me if they got her in as a diversity hire where she spends her entire day virtue signalling and complaining about racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. instead of actually spending time on engineering. None of her talks or writings have anything to do with actual engineering.

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

#940

Post by blaser-waffle »

cactus2093 wrote: post #540
koheripbal wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a lot of value in removing political activists from your company, and so it's worth paying them to leave. Aside from the combative toxic environment they generate, they are also often the source of disgruntled rogue employees that will generally behave improperly, misrepresent coworkers, leak documents, raise alarms about operations they don't understand, and generally draw the company into litigation. In a…

I saw this firsthand in May/June in the aftermath of the George Floyd killing. It was a pretty small company and there was one employee in particular who was very much an activist, though a number of employees of course felt very strongly about what was going on. The company genuinely tried to do their best to support them, encouraged this person to take a week off for mental health and from my perspective was making…

This very same thing happened at the non-profit where my wife works.

They released a statement. Kind of a milquetoast, bland statement, but still unambiguously supportive of BLM.

But not supportive enough for some employees, particularly those of color. Lots of complaints, and a lot of non-racial issues started boiling up to the fore as well. They've since amended and re-released the statement to be stronger, and included statements for battered women, Native Americans, and a full-on separate statement for at-risk immigrants.

It's utterly paralyzed the organization -- and is totally unrelated to their primary mission -- and will likely lead to at least one lawsuit. It sounds like a manager or two may be a rebuke or termination as well.

I ultimately agree with the parent and OP -- create a safety valve or squash the discussion, because there is no way to function as an org if you're 10 minutes from screaming at, or stabbing, or suing your coworkers

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