1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

https://twitter.com/brian_armstrong/status/1443727729476530178

by dsr12 • 5 years ago

333 496 5 years ago

The biggest lesson I took away from the whole ordeal is that if you believe something is the right path, it's worth speaking up about it, even if it's controversial.

Unless you work at Coinbase, right?

afavour6• 5 years ago

Yeah that made me laugh, too. Feels like the word “politics” is very effective when used to limit your employees: you have something you feel strongly about in the workplace? Fantastic! Oh, it’s “political” (and yes, I’ll be the one determining what qualifies)? Well then no bueno, sorry. We’re mission focused.

rglover7• 5 years ago

He's not being political, he's getting his company to focus.

woodruffw14• 5 years ago

Precisely what I thought, thank you. What a stunning lack of awareness.

ohazi2• 5 years ago

Unless you're labor. Capital can speak up about whatever it wants (so long as it doesn't start sympathizing with labor, of course)

ianbutler• 5 years ago

You're paid to do a job. Politics is for your personal time. We need to work on getting more personal time for people so people can focus on those passions instead of further blending work and personal life.

rglover7• 5 years ago

I'm going to take a wild guess and say if you work at Coinbase—voluntarily—you're extremely well paid. You're the farthest thing from a victim. Just because you can't raise your fist and scream at your coworkers doesn't mean you're oppressed.

emsy6• 5 years ago

Why do people think work is an appropriate place for political activism?

vkou• 5 years ago

Because managers and directors feel that it is. They generally feel that it's an appropriate place for pushing their politics. (And complain loudly when employees do the same.)

fullshark4• 5 years ago

Why do companies try to inspire employees with things beyond purely mercenary motivations?

tptacek2• 5 years ago

Because that's part of the premise of a society governed in large part by the free market. That's an idea I support, but it only makes sense if market power isn't amoral. Tech company employees wield some of the most important power in our markets.

malermeister9• 5 years ago

Everything you do is implicitly political. To say you're non-political is just another political position itself - complicity with the status quo.

cortesoft2• 5 years ago

It is impossible to remove politics from your work. If you try to ignore everything except the mission of making money at work, that ALSO is a political choice…

kasey_junk2• 5 years ago

Because it’s historically been one of the most important parts of the political sphere?

It’s a very new thought that work should be apolitical.

throwawaysea3• 5 years ago

It's not that anyone thinks it is appropriate - they know it is inappropriate. It's more that they don't care, and are willing to do whatever it takes to leverage the power of institutions (such as companies, universities, and government agencies) to fulfill their personal political and ideological goals. This is a well-known strategy for activism, particularly on the left, and even has a name - "long march through the institutions" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_march_through_the_institu...). Some call it "entryism" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entryism). As we've seen in American tech companies, once a foothold is gained, these motivated activists immediately start to loudly push for the aggressive exclusion of opposing views, and cancellation of all who belong to a different political group. Signaling consequences for opposition leads to self-censorship from others, which in turn helps further cement the perceived institutional consensus around the activists' platform. This strategy is ultimately effective, both because institutional takeover can build silently and become visible suddenly, and because company leaders are often too timid in exercising their power to shut down or fire such disruptive employees.

Cthulhu_2• 5 years ago

Because work equals social mobility, and if a workplace excludes certain demographics they will remain socially immobile.

xibalba4• 5 years ago

Because liberal arts higher education has been completely usurped by Postmodernism and Marxism, and it indoctrinates students with the belief that everything everywhere is politics, always. This mentality has infected "liberal" intellectualism outside the academy, to the point where it is, essentially, the "culture" of much of the Left in the U.S.

jiscariot• 5 years ago

If I had to pick one cause, it is google's "bring your whole self to work" policy.

m_ke• 5 years ago

It’s only ok on Twitter https://mobile.twitter.com/brian_armstrong/status/1445604556...

augustl• 5 years ago

He said this on Twitter, and I believe Coinbase employees are allowed to say whatever they want on Twitter?

young_unixer• 5 years ago

You wouldn't go to a PETA meeting and complain that there's no meat.

In that same vein, if you join Coinbase, you should know what you're getting into, maybe it's political, but it's a kind of political that you knew beforehand. The problem comes when you try to shoehorn a different set of political beliefs onto something that didn't have them in the first place.

xibalba4• 5 years ago

It's pretty easy to dunk on people when you divorce their words from the surrounding context.

This statement was within the context of advising organizational leaders who are trying to "keep the peace" (and thus, inadvertently enabling distraction and morale rot) instead of creating clarity and focusing the mission.

tshaddox4• 5 years ago

That's exactly what the parent commenter is saying: that this principle apparently holds true unless it's in the context of certain things that Coinbase doesn't want its employees talking about.

asabjorn7• 5 years ago

You are still free to speak up about anything relating to work responsibilities. However, if your goal was to do activism to institutionalize and enforce critical social justice (CSJ) dogma into the company you are correct that is not allowed.

Coinbase certainly made itself more viewpoint inclusive by making it impossible to act within the company as a CSJ procelyte is required to do. An CSJ procelyte is expected to try to institutionalize the faith by enforcing the Diversity (hiring activists of all identities - a black conservative is not diverse), inclusion (censorship of people resisting CSJ DEI initiatives), and Equity (redistribution of outcomes based upon identities and adherence to CSJ) agenda.

I work at a company that has heavily institutionalized CSJ, and CSJ procelytization is quite distracting from our core mission and is actively creating a non-inclusive culture to other viewpoints&faiths. Almost every day I get emails about this faith, there are almost daily meetings (services) about it, almost every company-wide meeting spends time preaching about it, every facet of the buerocracy enforce CSJ dogma, and we are demoralizing the workforce by hiring as well as promoting based upon DEI principles instead of trying to achieve meritocracy.

jokethrowaway• 5 years ago

You missed the point, he doesn't want employees to bring political activism (I seem to remember BLM was the trigger), controversial company politics is well accepted

sergiotapia• 5 years ago

"We have a much more aligned company now, where we can focus on getting work done toward our mission. And it has allowed us to hire some of the best talent from organizations where employees are fed up with politics, infighting, and distraction."

BIG takeaway. The people on your team attract similar kinds of people to your team. Good for Coinbase. Lots of good lessons here.

teg4n_• 5 years ago

This man spends way too much time on Twitter and not enough time learning the rules and regulations of the industry the company he leads participates in.

randomhodler848• 5 years ago

The mission is off track. He should stop listing garbage and stick to Bitcoin.

Crap like that shiba inu token are absolute scams, like most EVM tokens. They do nothing, add nothing, and trading them on chain just enriches the miners, or off chain, the exchange. Say what you like about dogecoin, at least it’s a long standing L1 blockchain with developers and history/transactions.

arcticbull3• 5 years ago

They're all basically the same. All the arguments you have against anything not-bitcoin apply to bitcoin except bitcoin is older and way more power intensive. Doge is a better currency for a lot of reasons. Also its funny. List one, may as well list 'em all.

hnxs• 5 years ago

“sir this is a casino”

metalliqaz• 5 years ago

They are in on it. Listing it on the exchange automatically causes a surge in value, what wouldn't you know it, the exchange had just bought a whole lot of coins in preparation.

Melting_Harps• 5 years ago

This man spends way too much time on Twitter and not enough time learning the rules and regulations of the industry the company he leads participates in.

I can't think of a more hated CEO in the Cryptospace since Jihan Wu, who also spent quite a lot of time on social media/Twitter lambasting his users and detractors. A few years later he would be ousted by the CCP from his own company and was licking his wounds from his failed attempt to hi-jack Bitcoin after having loss majority hashing power and near exclusive manufacturer of miners. (Maybe Mark Karpeles, but even then he served his time in prison and after having his life ruined by the Japanese legal system and most just feel bad for the guy.)

To be honest, Strike is going to disrupt Coinbase business model sooner than later and the valuation of Coinbase is the very definition of froth.

In all seriousness, I can't wait to see Coinbase's and Armstrong's collective demise,

NelsonMinar• 5 years ago

My favorite thing is when he tweets his own ignorance of the regulations of his industry. https://twitter.com/brian_armstrong/status/14354392917153587...

fshbbdssbbgdd3• 5 years ago

I think the reality is that Coinbase is so obviously a rocketship that the CEO could say anything and they’d have no trouble with recruitment or retention. Existing employees have stock grants worth millions, and new employees are getting great offers. The people who will take these jobs are generally going to be bullish on crypto. If you expect crypto to become a bigger piece of the economy in the future, it would be crazy to give up the opportunity to own a bunch of Coinbase stock. I’d spend a year listening to Brian Armstrong tell me that my thetans need adjusting for 5000 shares of Coinbase.

joshuamorton7• 5 years ago

COIN has lost 25% since IPO (in that time, GOOG, FB, MSFT, AAPL, HOOD are up, PP is even, and SQ is down marginally), and their offers aren't particularly better than <anywhere else>, so it doesn't seem like this is true.

Like, even if you think crypto is going to be super relevant, there's tons of other cryto startups. Coinbase has or had first mover advantage, but that's no longer an enormous advantage.

jcliff2• 5 years ago

Something that I don't think is widely appreciated enough is that Coinbase Ventures holds chunks of many of these startups.

fshbbdssbbgdd3• 5 years ago

Coinbase’s stock is currently approximately equal to the IPO price and the IPO was six months ago. Coinbase and Robinhood (another rocketship) both experienced a pop after their respective IPOs and later dropped back down near IPO price. This isn’t a particularly relevant metric, in my view. At the IPO, the rocketship factor is already priced in. Look at the company’s trajectory over the decade it has existed.

mbesto2• 5 years ago

there's tons of other cryto startups.

Where in your analysis do you talk about how these other crypto startups have (1) easier onboarding/KYC than COIN, (2) access to more coins to trade (3) better tooling (4) better fees (5) etc. etc. ?

Cthulhu_2• 5 years ago

If you got stock for free because you work for coinbase, does it matter much it went down? I mean it's still around $250 each, that quickly adds up.

their offers aren't particularly better than <anywhere else>

citation needed, I mean 'anywhere' is a big space. I'm seeing north of $100K on a quick google, that's a lot more than most places pay. Or are you speaking from a privileged, SF-blinkered position?

meowtimemania• 5 years ago

Coinbase has an rsu policy where you are not granted some number of shares each year but rather some dollar amount. So if my offer letter says I get $50k worth of rsus each year, and then Coinbase’s stock increases 10x, i’m still just going to receive 50k

jimmydorry• 5 years ago

If you are bullish on crypto, 50k of Coinbase stocks should have a significant pay off, like buying 50k of Google stock a decade ago.

satvikpendem• 5 years ago

Is that not the case for most companies? At FAAMG I've seen yearly stock grants be in dollar figures and not number of shares.

aiisjustanif5• 5 years ago

50k is the grant amount and usually reflected by a 30 day average look back from grant date. From grant date your 50k worth of stock can go up on down based on the stock price.

This should be explained in any offer letter.

greenie_beans7• 5 years ago

it's so ironic to me that he prides himself over the "no politics" policy, yet calls his company "mission-focused". the mission is cryptocurrency, which is very political.

malermeister9• 5 years ago

"No politics" (that don't match mine, that is).

jiveturkey• 5 years ago

indeed. akin to "data driven"

Aunche2• 5 years ago

It's not ironic. It's literally the point of why he's calling it "mission-focused" and not "apolitical." If the almost all members of the NAACP happened to be pro-crypto, do you it's reasonable for it's members to pressure its leadership to spread the adoption of crypto?

greenie_beans7• 5 years ago

you missed my point. i'm arguing that coinbase is in the business of pushing their own politics, via cryptocurrency, which is very much a political thing at this point. yet, their workers can't discuss other politics. it's very ironic and hypocritical.

and yes, i think the members of NAACP would be pushing crypto if that's what they felt was a priority for their cause. i don't understand your logic?

edit: i believe that being apolitical is just as a political stance as being political.

ryan93• 5 years ago

Whats political about using coinbase to buy and sell bitcoin?

greenie_beans7• 5 years ago

crypto is political

throw_m2393395• 5 years ago

it's so ironic to me that he prides himself over the "no politics" policy, yet calls his company "mission-focused". the mission is cryptocurrency, which is very political.

"Political" is a meaningless buzzword at that point.

What you really mean is "partisan". Should Coinbase just be an extension of the democratic party? No according to its CEO, but that's what a lot of people here wants it to be.

chairmanwow1• 5 years ago

Love that Armstrong did this at Coinbase. I want to work at work, not worry about the political opinions of my coworkers.

skadamat• 5 years ago

Can we just all talk about ... how poorly designed the map visualization they chose was?

What are these clown colors, so many different ones.

gorwell3• 5 years ago

Every company that continues to let itself get embroiled in Twitter's Political Topic of the Week is at such a distinct disadvantage it will ultimately fail. It's inevitable if you extrapolate. They won't survive the evolutionary process and will get selected out, only earning themselves a Darwin Award.

Imagine a rowing team where half the team rows in one direction and the other half rows another direction. They never agree on which direction to row and the direction constantly changes. Even if it's just a dedicated 5% rowing somewhere else, it's going to throw the whole boat off course. Or they're not rowing at all and just yelling at each other on Slack all day. Compare with a team that focuses on the mission, all rowing in the same direction. It's not hard to see who is most likely to reach the finish line.

The age old wisdom of not bringing your personal politics and religion into work is wisdom for good reason.

emsy6• 5 years ago

At least they would be rowing, but political activism is not work. Imagine going to the barber and instead of cutting your hair he would lecture you on the hardship of Guatemalan shepherds.

notafraudster2• 5 years ago

Barbers famously talk about politics while cutting your hair. This is like a quintessential part of barber shop culture. Barbers that don't talk about partisan politics normally talk about some parapolitical thing, like cultural gripes, or sports, or other things that have a pretty similar valence.

I've had my hair cut in like 5 different countries by dozens of different barbers who speak different languages, come from different generations, the barber themselves are male or female, and I don't remember the last haircut that didn't bring up something that was either explicitly or expansively political.

cf• 5 years ago

I don't know what barbershops you go to, but most I have been in involve lots of spirited discussion about politics.

BoorishBears2• 5 years ago

This is backwards, and the crux of why it's backwards lies here:

Or they're not rowing at all and just yelling at each other on Slack all day.

I have never seen an office where you will not be fired for turning politics (or anything really) into a flamewar. Period.

And that's because companies past a certain size know they always have multiple "5%ers" rowing in the wrong direction.

If it's not politics it will be pay, if it's not pay it'll be the tech stack, if it's not the tech stack it'll be an exec everyone hates, it's not an exec it'll be a client that sucks, if it's not a client it'll be the...

So a company needs to be resilient to those disjointed efforts anyways, and being "mission focused" will never let you escape that.

That's why even just pretending to care about these social issues puts you in a better place than a company like Coinbase.

Making statements for social causes costs nothing at all and those who don't agree with the statements generally have apathy towards them, while those agree are affirmed by the statements.

So it's a win-win vs alienating those who would have been affirmed by playing it off as a distraction from the mission.

Why would you not do it and just enforce the fact that people need to be civil?

skybrian• 5 years ago

A specialized forum where some subjects can simply be ruled off-topic will be easier to moderate than a forum where you can talk about anything. That’s not to say there are no controversies left, but it’s easier.

Agreeing on a mission is a form of specialization. In the case of Coinbase there are likely plenty of debates about cryptocurrencies, and that’s controversy enough.

wbl2• 5 years ago

And if my boss isn't giving me Yom Kippur off but the company is closed Christmas how does that work?

rsj_hn3• 5 years ago

You ask for a day off for religious reasons so you can observe Yom Kippur.

That there is no company-wide shutdown for a holiday observed by 2% of the population is not some great injustice that requires waging a culture war in the office to remedy.

brodo2• 5 years ago

FAANG are de-facto monopolies and have created their own markets so market forces work on them only to a small extend.

mritchie712• 5 years ago

Monopolies die too, see railroads.

silexia• 5 years ago

Basecamp did this too and they were 100% right to focus on their mission. If people are constantly having Twitter cancel culture virtue signaling wars, your company will surely fail.

chroem-• 5 years ago

The amount of frothing vitriol in this thread makes it clear that Armstrong made the correct choice. Public discourse in the Bay Area has become completely toxic.

emsy6• 5 years ago

Not only that, but you can see why places like Twitter need 4 years to change a font. It looks like tech in general is undermined by highly unprofessional people and this whole thread is a testament to that.

philosopher12342• 5 years ago

Frankly: Good. Tech needs some undermining.

motoboi• 5 years ago

People have no idea how social networks really work. And what makes a successful one.

Maybe it’s the font, we just don’t now. Maybe one more character can totally kill Twitter.

Better keep the changes to a minimum until you figure out what to do.

strategyanalyst• 5 years ago

This nation is extremely divided. I don't think you can run any organization that is political effectively.

Even completely political organizations will have to control political discussions at workplace. US Government is moving into that direction and we are seeing a far less political Senate and Congress that is rarely focussed in any discussion as a joint entity. The two teams in legislative bodies rarely 'talk' to each other on political topics. Most discussions are now procedural and political debate in almost all public forums is completely dead.

ergocoder2• 5 years ago

My anecdote: Someone mentioned they didn't agree with looting during BLM, and you could see the disgust coming from their coworkers.

The political activism gets so ridiculous that we have to cheer for looting because it is tied to BLM... for whatever strange reason.

And this is looting shops in Seattle, which overwhelmingly supports BLM. You can bet those shop owners probably won't support BLM anymore...

throw_nbvc1234• 5 years ago

or not tied to BLM; just a bunch of white teenagers running around trying to set starbucks on fire and getting into fights with the police to start a revolution. which is even worse because it shows the lack of sense-making on both sides.

Even when they set that construction site on fire, the stark difference between the front of the march which went peacefully by and the trail of destruction from the end of the march; it's no wonder the people at the front were confused when the police confronted them. unless they were staring at their phones the entire time, they'd have no idea what the "pacific youth liberation front" was doing behind them.

Unless you went actively searching for both sides, the passive social media and MSM would just show you whatever half of the story aligned with your political views; any conversation was just 2 sides completely talking past each other because they only saw their echo-chamber and refused to acknowledge the other side's echo-chamber.

The best/dumbest example was video of a (dismounted) cop who rolled his bike over some guy's head. And then the time-lapse video of that guy spending 15+ mins following the cops around and laying down in front of them; only getting his head rolled over on the 5th time. The immaturity of all parties in that video is just mind-boggling to me.

throw_m2393395• 5 years ago

The amount of frothing vitriol in this thread makes it clear that Armstrong made the correct choice. Public discourse in the Bay Area has become completely toxic.

He was correct, so was Shopify, so was Basecamp and all these businesses that told their employees to leave their partisan politics and social justice concerns at the door.

I'm not sure what HN has turned into but the litany of disingenuous comments from people claiming a tech company has the duty to mend society the way they believe is the best makes me believe that a lot of people here don't understand what running a business is about and It is not being a PAC.

I'm also amused with the people claiming that all these companies "are bleeding talent". No, a lot of us here just want to write programs or manage teams or products, nothing more. Certainly not be involved in any social justice activity.

I would absolutely love to work at Coinbase given these work conditions.

Zababa10• 5 years ago

I'm also amused about the the people claiming that all these companies "are bleeding talent". No, a lot of us here just want to write programs or manage teams or products, nothing more. Certainly not be involved in any social justice activity.

It's not even only about politics. I like being able to go to a place, work, chat a bit about superficial things with my collegues and go back home. I don't need to expose my whole self and soul when I go to work, and in fact I prefer not to. Some people are not like me, and feel the opposite. Great! I just want places to exist for both of us.

throwawaysea3• 5 years ago

Glad to see leaders showing a spine and taking a stand against the institutional takeover (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_march_through_the_institu...) we've seen elsewhere from activists, particularly at tech giants like Google or Facebook or Amazon. I often see vague claims that "everything" is political, but it is pretty easy to use one's common sense and separate out what is political and what isn't. Bringing politics to work makes it hostile towards large cohorts of employees and customers, and distracts from the mission, which is to provide utility to customers in a viewpoint- and politically-neutral manner. Other companies need to revert to that neutral way of operating again, and get rid of employees who spend more time on personal advocacy than doing their job.

lettergram• 5 years ago

My favorite is the recruiting page for coinbase. Which imo is overtly political

https://www.coinbase.com/careers

krrrh2• 5 years ago

I don't see any political statements on that page that aren't aligned with creating an "open financial system for the world & increasing economic freedom". The point isn't to not be political, it's about not being political about stuff that isn't related to the mission.

adamgordonbell2• 5 years ago

Brian Armstrong was on Tyler Cowen and Tyler asked him if bitcoin was a zero sum game, in a round about way:

    COWEN: I’ve seen estimates that about 20 percent of bitcoin has been lost, or people don’t have their passwords, or it’s somehow abandoned or whatever. Let’s say that 20 percent were found. Those people would be better off, right? They’d have more wealth. Who is then worse off?

    ARMSTRONG: Yes, I suppose you have dilution, and you have inflation if you’re increasing the money supply somehow like that.

    COWEN: Then if we ask the general question that the social value of bitcoin — bitcoin in general — again, clearly a benefit to the people who bought at low prices. They in essence found bitcoin. But if someone else in the system is losing an equal amount, why think that the social value of bitcoin is positive?

    ARMSTRONG: Who’s losing the equivalent amount in this case, just so I understand?

    COWEN: I don’t know exactly who, but someone else has less purchasing power, right? Bitcoin isn’t apples. You can’t eat it for lunch.

    ARMSTRONG: It’s not clear to me that bitcoin is a zero-sum game.

    COWEN: But what is that? When do I get my apples, so to speak? Where do they come from?

    ARMSTRONG: Well, anybody can participate of course. I think, now, about probably 10 percent of Americans and maybe 60 or 70 million people globally have crypto, at least. So it’s been growing a lot.

Brian didn't seem to understand the question and it left me a bit unimpressed.

https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/brian-armstrong/

extr• 5 years ago

Very interesting. Similar theme to a point Tyler made awhile ago, that I think he touches on even explicitly in this interview, about how if BTC gets to $100K or $200K, you have a bunch of billionaires running around that have essentially done "nothing" to earn it. Seems like it would just exacerbate inequality. Anyone can participate, as long as you're reasonably tech-savvy, and have disposable income to invest (gamble) with.

boc• 5 years ago

It's hard to find a serious economist who doesn't see major flaws with bitcoin. It's because bitcoin was designed by engineers, not economists.

Bitcoin could only have been created by engineers - it misses a few fundamental tests of currency that any practicing economist would have "fixed" during the design phase. So we are left with bitcoin, which looks silly to most experts but is basically a religion to those who only see the technical merits of the project.

If we run the experiment all the way out, we end up with a ruling class based simply on time and fervor of adoption of a random piece of tech that appeared 10 years ago.

If we run it allll the way out we have a bunch of bitcoin billionaires constantly fearing for their lives because they are essentially walking piggybanks, ripe for kidnapping and torturing their wealth away via rubber hose cryptography.

philwelch5• 5 years ago

Well, it's too bad Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency in existence and that nobody will ever invent a better one.

motohagiography2• 5 years ago

Not a bitcoin fan, but this question of eating it for lunch or backing it with apples misunderstands that the fundamental liquidity backstop of bitcoin is risk. So long as you can take it to a casino (real or notional) and bet it, it has value. For it to go to zero, it would mean no two people could make a bet where one benefits from the result.

Even random shitcoins have a non-zero value so long as there are participants who can use it as a proxy for risk of any sort. The the value is a function of the risk the exchange represents. If we bet 20 randocoins on tomorrow's high temperature in a city, we've created potential value. The bitcoin bet is that its value is non-zero, and an infinite number of people can trade in and out of positions in that bet and create and extract value from it.

The only real downside risk is a bunch of smart contract derivatives that hoover up bitcoin, rehypothecate and leverage it and give you some higher risk platform token/scrip instead that has a much higher likelihood of being worthless when it defaults, but with some additional personal security.

Using Cowen's analogy, bitcoin isn't apples, it's the game token you use to play the game to win the apples.

adamgordonbell2• 5 years ago

Interesting! But isn't betting is a zero sum game? Betting on apples means some lose and some win, but the world is not better off as a result, because they cancel out.

Or that is my understanding.

tomp8• 5 years ago

To be honest, the questions were a bit stupid and/or dishonest. It's like asking, "if gold price goes up, who's losing?" I guess anybody that didn't invest in gold, but, so what?

ctur• 5 years ago

I wrote this in an email turning down a chance explore opportunities at Coinbase.

To me, diversity and social justice are critically important. I have the luxury of being selective in where I put my time and energy and it is important those values align with my career. I appreciate aspects of being "mission focused" but I think that there is a gulf between my personal values and Coinbase's values such that I would not be comfortable in the environment.

I can't speak for anyone else but I think I'm not a terrible engineer and I definitely ruled them completely out of the realm of places I'd be willing to work.

jamiequint• 5 years ago

Sounds like their policy of discouraging wokes, who want to use their job as a cudgel for their own political views, from applying to their company is working.

philosopher12342• 5 years ago

What do you know about OP? What if OP is an extremely productive programmer who lives to build product and has a huge impact, but also cares about black people or LGBTQ+ people? So he's worthless to coinbase? Thats insane.

Zababa10• 5 years ago

That's not a fair interpretation of their comment. There are lots of middle ground between "wokes, who want to use their job as a cudgel for their own political views" and the people that Coinbase wants to recruit. Pretending that there is no middle ground is a tactic often used by the people you describe as "wokes". They were reasonable in their answer to Coinbase, I don't see why you need to peg them as an extremist.

refenestrator9• 5 years ago

Honest question, what do you do at your presumably more enlightened workplace instead to pursue your political beliefs?

From what I've seen, these people typically just want to treat the company slack like Twitter and persecute political enemies while still cashing their paycheck and doing nothing of material value for the disadvantaged.

jdhn• 5 years ago

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.

jmeister• 5 years ago

A counterpoint: I’m actively seeking out “mission-based” or “anti-woke” workplaces in AI/ML. I’m not interested in crypto, so not Coinbase though.

This pluralism is what makes America great, right? As the beloved slogan goes: “It’s a free country”.

TigeriusKirk• 5 years ago

This is the outcome he wanted, so it sounds like everybody wins here.

b9a2cab53• 5 years ago

Considering Coinbase isn't seeing any attrition above normal for tech and isn't having issues recruiting, I think nobody really cares.

Also, if you're white and claim diversity and social justice to be "critically important" then why don't you give up your job so that a minority can take it?

Aaronstotle• 5 years ago

Shows that this strategy is working as intended

tesselator2• 5 years ago

Sounds like joining a charity that is mission focused on diversity and social justice could be worth considering?

Zababa10• 5 years ago

I think that's the system working as intended. Coinbase decided to focus on consensus rather than pure raw technical competence (which is also what companies do when they try to meet diversity quota). You don't agree with their consensus, so you explain them so they have data and a chance to reconsider, and you can go in a company that aligns more with your values. While I don't doubt at all your technical competence, I doubt your are irreplacable (I'm not irreplacable too, and most people are not of course, this is not "against" you), so that's just the market doing its thing.

I have a biais for people that are honest about their values, so I'm glad about their move, but I understand not everyone shares my biais.

xyzzyz2• 5 years ago

Coinbase decided to focus on consensus rather than pure raw technical competence (which is also what companies do when they try to meet diversity quota).

Companies trying to meet the diversity quota very much do not focus on pure raw technical competence. In fact, to suggest so, borders on gaslighting.

jollybean5• 5 years ago

That's your choice, but I think the ratio is maybe 4 to 1 the opposite way, with most people somewhere in between, leaning a bit towards the Coinbase side.

I think most of us want to see people treated very fairly, but that it's not any one group's job to distort their situation so much as to hire people on the basis of race or gender or to worry about it that-that much.

The first time you hire A over B due to a very obvious ideological reason, and you come face to face with the plight of the bloke you didn't hire ... it becomes more visceral.

I think we can be pretty good citizens, and maybe even say a few words of empathetic to BIPOC etc (which I think Coinbase should have done) - but without going full woke.

I think that's what most people probably prefer.

I don't think there are really that many truly racist places in tech (most wouldn't want that of course), but I think most people also don't actually want to work in a 'fully woke' environment if they really had the choice. Definitely some. But a minority.

sneak4• 5 years ago

I did the same when I saw them hiring infosec staff directly out of the military-industrial complex.

zarkov993• 5 years ago

On the other hand, I, a fairly good Engineer, would favor Coinbase over many other tech companies precisely because their CEO had the courage to say what every other CEO is thinking, that is that a company is a place where money is exchanged for labour not a venue for promoting one's political agenda, no matter how righteous that agenda might feel.

kimmeld• 5 years ago

Because the CEO shares your politics and is only allowing your brand to express themselves at work you want to work there. I mean I understand the feeling but can we stop pretending that this isn’t entirely political?

aiisjustanif5• 5 years ago

I love how HN threads can have both pure capitalism view of jobs and the concern for worker’s rights.

sershe• 5 years ago

Aren't you privileged?! :) I used to be 95% apolitical but now that the recent events have re-energized my old hard-libertarian stance, with a new addition of a big dose of anti-wokeness, I cannot have the same luxury as you do. If I were to shun woke companies, I'd have nowhere left to work :P

tmule3• 5 years ago

Such self-selection is good, and serves the intended purpose (much like the Netflix culture deck). The folks that work at Coinbase wouldn’t want colleagues like you, and you wouldn’t want colleagues like them - so this is a clear win-win.

temp89642• 5 years ago

This is a win win. They don’t want you and you don’t want them. There’s nothing wrong with it. It would only seem wrong to people with authoritarian desire to force everyone to align with themselves.

jollybean5• 5 years ago

I would argue maybe it's a lose-lose.

There's no reason on god's green earth that a reasonable person should not be able to work at Coinbase, and in reality, Coinbase probably has pretty much the same level of inclusivity at the end of the day as every other tech company. Moreover, there's no reason why Coinbase can't at least acknowledge some of the social ills flaring up, it's not 'unfair' I think to staff to do so.

It's a sad war of words.

brailsafe2• 5 years ago

Startups are still doing this mission thing? When is the lie that they're not just awful companies like every other going to stop working?

scop• 5 years ago

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.

sagichmal2• 5 years ago

Yes. All of the "private" correspondence he's received, which of course he cannot share, has been overwhelmingly positive. Indeed.

rockbruno• 5 years ago

I actually think this has a pretty obvious answer. The "press" consists of the same people rambling on Twitter: woke anxious 20 year olds who, instead of going to therapy, insist that instead that's who they are and it's the entire world who needs to change. At the same time, the people who can see through the bullcrap are happy that they can finally do their work.

marcus_holmes• 5 years ago

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.

tootie2• 5 years ago

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 our role in society". I think the latter is what younger employees are increasingly embracing to some degree. The former is still creating the most successful companies because they operate without a conscience.

krrrh2• 5 years ago

He defined mission-focused in the original memo pretty clearly and succinctly.

What is the scope of our mission?
Coinbase’s mission is to create an open financial system for the world. This means we want to use cryptocurrency to bring economic freedom to people all over the world. This is difficult and important work, and every employee at Coinbase signed up because they are excited about this mission.

It's not operating with total blinders on the wider world, becoming profitable as a startup often requires having a vision of positively changing the world. Armstrong wants people who care about the mission quoted above, period. There are people who are passionately committed to this, yet have totally different opinions on abortion, marginal tax rates, racial politics, bail reform. There's no reason to think you can predict any of these for an individual based on adherence to the mission statement.

Achieving change on the one thing that matters to everyone also requires that you have viewpoint diversity on the things that don't, because your current and potential customer base sure does. To the extent that mission creep enforces conformity across a range of issues, you narrow the range of people who would be comfortable working at your company to an increasingly small pool, and you limit access to the sort of insights that lead to a better product.

The alternative is to have separate pillow companies for conservatives and liberals, which is ridiculous.

tootie2• 5 years ago

I think saying that work and politics are completely separate is naive and a cop out to avoid responsibility. You joke about pillow companies but as far as I'm concerned MyPillow is run by an insurrectionist and an undemocratic authoritarian. Similarly I will not participate in an organization that doesn't value diversity, honesty, and our environment. I would not, for example, feel comfortable working somewhere like Chick-fil-A knowing the owner opposes human rights. Some people have decided that basic decency or acceptance of reality (ie vaccines or climate) are a political opinion when they're not. And companies who think it's not their problem are also wrong.

refenestrator9• 5 years ago

Cryptocurrency mining consumes the same amount of power as Argentina or whatever the figure is, for no benefit.

If wrapping a rainbow flag around it and studiously noting everyone's pronouns made that "ok", it'd frankly be even more perverse.

seoaeu2• 5 years ago

An easier comparison: cryptocurrency uses nearly 10x the amount of power Google does!

doopy15• 5 years ago

"For no benefit" is not an objective read. A lot of folks are benefitting.

IMO the environmental impact of crypto is also completely overstated. There are issues so much bigger than crypto's energy consumption that it's basically just a rounding error.

jhhh• 5 years ago

This kind of post only works if you get to judge their mission statement as insincere. Could you, without looking it up right now, identify what Coinbase's mission statement is? What specific actions do you think they've taken that you read as being misaligned with their stated mission and caused you to only believe they care about profit?

poorjohnmacafee• 5 years ago

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 a political establishment or party, and it is divisive to our society. You should not want to divide our society even if you think you're obviously right and they're obviously wrong. America does this more than any other nation, arguably because their media constantly does it. Shoving politics at others is still fundamentally divisive.

BigRedDog16692• 5 years ago

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.

MadeThisToReply• 5 years ago

The goal in Western capitalism is to create wealth for stakeholders.

*shareholders.

mensetmanusman• 5 years ago

People define mission and public good differently.

temp89642• 5 years ago

No. You are mission focused to profit and at the same time you are also serving public good. This is how the society works.

You don’t have to care about any social issues at all to contribute to the society!

jrockway2• 5 years ago

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 your company can still do okay. He's just saying that his household name company in a booming industry did all right last year. We all kind of expected that, it would be nearly impossible to not make money in Coinbase's position. (Like what if nobody merged any code last year and didn't launch any features? They'd still be doing great!)

My controversial opinion is that companies like Apple and Amazon did well in spite of their leaders' quirks. AWS would have been a great business even if Jeff Bezos didn't fire people recovering from cancer. The iPhone still would have been a hit if Jobs didn't bring someone to tears over a bug in their code.

I think you can make great products AND be nice to your employees, and maybe even let them discuss how black lives matter at work.

refenestrator9• 5 years ago

Noisy echo chambers are uninclusive to anyone who doesn't hold that precise political viewpoint.

We both know that the program goes way beyond "black people shouldn't be indiscriminately shot", its driven by people who are addicted to social media and perpetually pushing for another rush of outrage. I'd prefer not to be around that, personally.

fancifulfiend• 5 years ago

It seems like Brian Armstrong is the only person using social media to push for fabricated outrage. Anyone complaining about “wokeness” is talking about an issue that only exists in the minds of true bigots. It’s a boogeyman that they use to punch down. No one is forcing Armstrong to say stupid shit constantly.

mvc2• 5 years ago

We both know that the program goes way beyond "black people shouldn't be indiscriminately shot"

I say we call their bluff and stop shooting black people indiscrimately anyway. That'll show 'em.

disneygibson3• 5 years ago

Did you read the tweets? He said that most stakeholders told him they were very happy with the mission focus.

jrockway2• 5 years ago

I just want to know what the mission was.

Did they launch more features? Make more money?

staysafeanon4• 5 years ago

What mission did they focus on and how did it go?

RTFA: https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-is-a-mission-focused-comp...

Talanes2• 5 years ago

If you could tell me what point you think I should be drawing from that link, it would be lovely.

Because all I see is the first half devoted to the sort of generic PR speak that any company does about having an aligned vision, and the latter half is about what they're not doing.

Where's the big reveal? What makes being a 'mission focused' company different than just... actually not making political statements? What did the big meta-political statement add to their company?

fullshark4• 5 years ago

So many words until this:

Coinbase’s mission is to create an open financial system for the world. This means we want to use cryptocurrency to bring economic freedom to people all over the world.

Basically sounds like “mission focused” = “do your job”

websap• 5 years ago

What you are talking about is Microsoft in the Balmer years. No focus on delivery, no focus on perfection, churning out half assed products. See where it got them? Lost out on mobile, lost out on Cloud, Playstation is still a better gaming console, etc.

Leaders inspire, letting things slide is bad for the culture of succcess.

sneak4• 5 years ago

From GP:

if you're in the right industry, you can be the worst manager on the planet and your company can still do okay.

Has Coinbase ever had a culture of success, or were they just in cryptocurrency during the cryptocurrency explosion where everyone made money?

cxzaq• 5 years ago

let them discuss how black lives matter at work.

That is not how it works. In practice, there is a bigoted, mostly fresh from college activist group that considers themselves morally superior. Some Gen-X and Boomers join for their careers.

The group looks down on everyone else, treats them with suspicion. Gen-X, who wore Greenpeace and anti war buttons and helped introduce women quotas in the workplace is lectured by brats with $250,000 salaries (which for some reason the little angels don't give away to Black people).

The whole movement is deeply hypocritical and self-serving. It is NOT merely discussion!

native_samples• 5 years ago

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"

alentist3• 5 years ago

You need to take your blinders off and get some reading glasses.

What is the scope of our mission?
Coinbase’s mission is to create an open financial system for the world. This means we want to use cryptocurrency to bring economic freedom to people all over the world. This is difficult and important work, and every employee at Coinbase signed up because they are excited about this mission.

More details here: https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-is-a-mission-focused-comp...

The fact that you immediately jumped to calling it a "screed"—not once, but twice—despite allegedly not knowing this reveals your motives quite clearly. You are simply ideologically opposed to the message, not its form, and in favor of the imposition of a woke monoculture.

Your dishonest use of an obvious motte-and-bailey in your last sentence is just the cherry on top.

tims332• 5 years ago

I think it is great the company went the direction they did and I'm glad Brian is happy with it.

The commentary that I find frustrating is about the "retaliatory and intellectually dishonest hit pieces." The press does suck in many ways, but when you're own a massive chunk of a $65B company you should expect some negative press and be prepared. It makes him sound like he isn't open to dissent which is an incredibly privileged stance.

onelovetwo• 5 years ago

does it mean he should not point out the obvious dishonest hit piece simply because the company is valued at x amount?

tims332• 5 years ago

It doesn't come off as simply pointing out. How does he know it's obviously dishonest? The author likely felt otherwise. It just comes off as an entitlement that wasn't necessary.

alentist3• 5 years ago

Criticizing retaliatory and intellectually dishonest hit pieces makes him sound like he isn't open to dissent

Non-sequitur.

fleddr18• 5 years ago

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 Twitter playground.

If you do have something political to say, a grave social justice error in the company's policy for example, you can still be reasonable about it. To mention it respectfully and proportional to the issue, rather than going nuclear.

I work in a tech hub in Europe that has 80 nationalities, people from all walks of life. Any ethnicity, sex, gender, sexuality, religion and political conviction you can think of and we all get along just fine with zero tensions.

It's a joy actually, to work with people wildly different from yourself, whom you normally might not meet if it wasn't for work. We don't even have rules on politics, because they're not needed. Nobody brings politics or activism to work.

This brand of aggressive identity-based political activism really is a manifestation of the deplorable state of US politics. It's really quite rich to take home 200K a year and feel oppressed. Such a thing is only possible in the US, the rest of the world laughs at you.

afavour6• 5 years ago

As a European living and working in the US: your comparison is very shortsighted.

European countries literally have no legal concept of at-will employment. They have strong social nets that make quitting your job much easier, and more prevalent unions that fight to improve working conditions (all of these things are, gasp, political! incidentally)

By comparison employment in the US is messed up enough that if you leave your job you lose your health insurance. Companies with great policies can sometimes retain employees on that basis alone! Is it really any wonder that “politics” ends up being an issue in the workplace when your employer literally controls your access to healthcare?

All of this stuff is emblematic of a deeply unhealthy relationship with employment in the US. Despite widespread agreement that this arrangement is bad, the US political system is broken enough that changing it feels all but impossible. CEOs like Brian are taking a hard stance against the effects while ignoring the causes.

You’re right that such a thing is only possible in the US, you’re just wrong about the reasons why.

5560675260• 5 years ago

Is it really any wonder that “politics” ends up being an issue in the workplace?

It's still a wonder for me, I don't follow your reasoning at all. How does this force people into being antagonistic and fighting over politics in the workplace? If anything, this should put a pressure on workers to not stand out and keep their mouth shut, so that they wouldn't risk loosing coveted employer-provided insurance.

fleddr18• 5 years ago

I think we're mixing up different political topics here.

The one I think you're talking about is the US workers' struggle to defend or increase basic worker rights. Which indeed is a political struggle of workers versus management.

If I'm not mistaken, the Coinbase case is about social justice types of topics like feminism, BLM, trans rights, colonialism, the like.

dntrkv2• 5 years ago

I don't see how at-will employment is related here.

This is Coinbase. The vast majority of the employees there are not stuck in a job they wish they could leave but can't. These are some of the most privileged employees in the world.

The bigger issue is like the OP stated, the state of politics in the US. How does at-will employment relate to issues like not working with certain government institutions because you disagree with their purpose?

Coinbase isn't trying to avoid political arguments over healthcare, they're trying to avoid employees rallying together and changing the company to further their personal political beliefs.

jsiepkes• 5 years ago

Aside from that your comparison with Europe is quite flawed (there are plenty "at-will employment" type of constructions possible here, you don't get unemployment benefits if you quit yourself, etc.) these are all tech workers who have new employers lining up to hire them. They are not blue collar workers in an Amazon warehouse who have to relieve themselves in a bottle and get terminated by an algorithm for failing to meet quota's.

But besides all that I fail to see how any of what you just said are arguments to make the workplace a political Twitter-style fight pit?

gruez• 5 years ago

I don't get it. You argue that employment is more tenuous at US companies for various reasons... therefore employees want to stick their necks out by engaging in politics? Shouldn't we expect the opposite?

KKKKkkkk1• 5 years ago

Companies with great policies can sometimes retain employees on that basis alone!

So I recently quit a FAANG and they sent me a COBRA notice with the cost of their insurance benefit. You can get great FAANG insurance for about $10k a year, which is peanuts for a Silicon Valley engineer. We need to dispel the myth that Silicon Valley engineers are working for health insurance.

danans• 5 years ago

I was going to post this, but couldn't have said it better.

The stakes of a job are quite a bit higher in the US, and it goes beyond healthcare.

The quality of a great many social foods in the US, from primary schooling to transit access and many others, are governed by your job. The social safety nets that exist kick in only at the extremes, of destitution (Medicaid) or age (Medicare).

throw_m2393395• 5 years ago

European countries literally have no legal concept of at-will employment. They have strong social nets that make quitting your job much easier, and more prevalent unions that fight to improve working conditions (all of these things are, gasp, political! incidentally)

This isn't what is debated here. What is debated is whether Coinbase should display a Black Lives Matter flag on its website and whether employees should be debating about Black Live matters, "Free Palestine", ICE and immigration policies or other wedge issues on the clock.

In Europe the very premise of that question would be completely absurd, and thanks to that both right wingers and left wingers can coexist in the same workplace by behaving professional. This is almost impossible today in the tech sector in USA.

philwelch5• 5 years ago

European countries literally have no legal concept of at-will employment. They have strong social nets that make quitting your job much easier, and more prevalent unions that fight to improve working conditions...
By comparison employment in the US is messed up enough that if you leave your job you lose your health insurance. Companies with great policies can sometimes retain employees on that basis alone!

I think this is an argument in favor of what Brian is doing at Coinbase, though. The problem is that in the current political climate, people are intimidated and discouraged from becoming politically engaged out of fear that if their views are unpopular enough, even many years in the future, their coworkers will circulate petitions to get them fired.

If we as a people were capable of civil disagreement and didn't do things like circulate petitions to get our coworkers fired, maybe it wouldn't be necessary for Coinbase to do what they did.

Zababa10• 5 years ago

You make at least three times as much as people in Europe, while the cost of living isn't three times higher. You can save this money in case something bad happens. If you're a minimum wage worker that's a different story. But we're talking about software engineers here. A standing desk and wrist exercises solve most of your possible work-related injuries.

slownews45• 5 years ago

I used to work with kids in an international program. I had a hard "mission focused" rule. Most of the social justice type advocacy talk about political topics would be banned under this rule (along with a lot of other stuff about back home like what they owned etc).

Kids whose parents would have hated each other getting along well, making friendships, etc. In the long run, seeing this humanity in each other (I think) will contribute more to some large benefits than always going to war on every issue.

Some examples - Student (jewish) whose dream was to join IDF to kill "terrorists" vs kid whose parents were palestinian (and hated jews). The kid who talked trash about blood transfusions for some reason - with a friend whose medical form had a history of them. Some crazy wealth disparities (the private jet kids with the extended passport filled with stamps vs kid who saved mowing money to go on program).

Stripped of all the baggage from back home (and with no cell phone / internet access etc), working together (outdoor program), no parents spoiling them (for the spoiled ones) or whaling on them (one or two parents from south still do this) - very cool to see what happens (in most cases).

fleddr18• 5 years ago

A beautiful story, thanks for sharing.

I can only attest from both travel and work that exposure to other cultures and peoples destroys any and all bias.

Zababa10• 5 years ago

Thank you for sharing that. It's nice to see examples of what we can do when we focus on what unites us, vs what divides us.

olegious• 5 years ago

Having worked in both (EU and US) I have seen both sides. I saw the trend (identity based politics) starting to appear in tech in Europe, for example "we shouldn't try to win business from company X due to their stance on issue Y" came up multiple times in company all hands (500 person company).

throwawaysea3• 5 years ago

That’s disappointing but I suppose it is to be expected since the Internet allows cultural exports at light speed. I am reminded of the recent warning from the French education minister (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/09/world/europe/france-threa...):

French politicians, high-profile intellectuals and journalists are warning that progressive American ideas — specifically on race, gender, post-colonialism — are undermining their society. “There’s a battle to wage against an intellectual matrix from American universities,’’ warned Mr. Macron’s education minister.

saurik3• 5 years ago

If you do have something political to say, a grave social justice error in the company's policy for example, you can still be reasonable about it. To mention it respectfully and proportional to the issue, rather than going nuclear.
Any ethnicity, sex, gender, sexuality, religion and political conviction you can think of and we all get along just fine with zero tensions.

This really sounds like you are blaming the black employees at Coinbase for standing up for themselves, and that if they just sat back down and took whatever hand they were being dealt that there would be "zero tensions"... which I guess hinges awkwardly on what you mean by "tensions"?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/technology/coinbase-crypt...

I encourage you to read this article--which, FWIW, I'm sure is one of the articles Brian Armstrong here is calling a "hit piece" in his Twitter thread--as this wasn't merely some abstract issue of "politics": black employees at Coinbase felt they were being actively discriminated against.

fleddr18• 5 years ago

Sorry, I lack the privilege to read that article.

tayo42• 5 years ago

This is interesting, never saw this article.

I don't get why people struggle so much dealing with black people? Like just be empathetic and assume the best. I guess so many people are just racist. It's just crazy.

tinyhouse• 5 years ago

Just want to say how ridiculous this is from a European perspective.

What is ridiculous? What Brian said? the response? I'm not following.

fleddr18• 5 years ago

Saying you're a mission focused company and this being somehow controversial is ridiculous. Every company should be mission focused.

As his post demonstrates, it turns out to not be controversial at all. A handful of people left and after a few weeks the Twitter mob stops. Then you're left with reasonable people to do the job, which is the point of any company.

president• 5 years ago

Just know that there is a large majority of Americans that hold this view but don't speak up due to potential of being cancelled or fired.

fleddr18• 5 years ago

I wouldn't expect anything else, and the article basically confirms the point.

It shows the massive divide between the Twitter world and the real world. Nobody wants real life Twitter.

femiagbabiaka3• 5 years ago

I work in a tech hub in Europe that has 80 nationalities, people from all walks of life. Any ethnicity, sex, gender, sexuality, religion and political conviction you can think of and we all get along just fine with zero tensions.

I’m sure this statement is not true, (racism and sexism don’t exist in Europe now?) but even supposing it is, there are very few companies in the U.S. that are this diverse. And the state of our labor rights in comparison to the EU is atrocious. In the first place, at-will employment, a right wing policy, is to be blamed for how easy it is to fire people for political reasons.

It’s easy to strawman an anonymous group of “aggressive identity-based political activists”, much more difficult to reckon with the real differences in the political economy of the EU vs the U.S.

b9a2cab53• 5 years ago

Sure there are. Have you walked into any FAANG office? There are a huge variety of West/East European nationalities and East/Southeast Asians. That's representative of over half the world's population right there. You can probably find an engineer from every single one of the ex-Soviet countries in an NYC Google office.

I suppose by diversity you mean the right kind of diversity then?

Aunche2• 5 years ago

One thing that I've noticed is that Americans are hyper-focused on raising awareness. Most people should realize that Coinbase making a statement about BLM would lead to zero progress towards the advancement of Civil Rights. However, for some people, it's so important that they'd sacrifice their job for it.

ayngg• 5 years ago

Coinbase hits a unique intersection of outrage here since it provokes vitriol from both people who hate cryptocurrency, and those that are outspoken progressives, both of which are large demographics on HN.

Like when you think about it, how is this a big deal in any way? I think the fact that people are making a big deal out of it is a bigger deal than whatever Coinbase's internal practices are here.

sneak4• 5 years ago

I love cryptocurrency and don't care much for american progressivism.

It's still pretty obvious to me that Coinbase is run by scumbags, like Uber and Google are.

renewiltord2• 5 years ago

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.

saurik3• 5 years ago

One of the biggest concerns around our stance was that it would impact our diversity numbers. Since my post, we've grown our headcount about 110%, while our diversity numbers have remained the same, or even improved on some metrics.

My understanding is that they started off really bad, right? They had 3/4s of their black employees resign before that post and were at 3%. I guess they could have gotten worse, but being proud to be where you were when this whole thing started is a bit awkward.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/technology/coinbase-crypt...

One by one, they left. Some quit. Others were fired. All were Black. The 15 people worked at Coinbase, the most valuable U.S. cryptocurrency start-up, where they represented roughly three-quarters of the Black employees at the 600-person company. Before leaving in late 2018 and early 2019, at least 11 of them informed the human resources department or their managers about what they said was racist or discriminatory treatment, five people with knowledge of the situation said.

Numbers aside, this thread is really difficult to take seriously due to the (hypocritical) inclusion of this tweet, which seems to undermine the rest of his thesis (that speaking up for things you believe in is a distracting waste of time that is bad for business).

The biggest lesson I took away from the whole ordeal is that if you believe something is the right path, it's worth speaking up about it, even if it's controversial.

And also like, did anyone actually disagree that being a profit-driven company can be profitable? The tl;dr of this entire thread to me is "putting profits above people and morals was every bit as profitable as I thought it would be: thus, I'm vindicated".

I would expect to see the same thing from Big Tobacco, Big Oil, Big Copyright, etc.... we also see this same argument from companies like Apple and Facebook: "we are making tons of money, and so our actions are not only useful, they were justified".

While the media reports were mostly negative, and it even spawned some retaliatory and intellectually dishonest hit pieces, the reaction both from employees and people I spoke to in private was overwhelmingly positive.

Finally, the issue I have here is that the vast majority (again: we are talking 97%) of Coinbase employees are not black, which calls into question this entire metric: an "overwhelmingly positive" reaction from the overwhelming majority is... underwhemling.

celeduc• 5 years ago

the reaction both from employees and people I spoke to in private was overwhelmingly positive.

Overwhelming positive reaction from subordinates (whose paychecks he signs), and peers who are also tech/finance bros. Sounds like a statistical universe to me!

aaomidi2• 5 years ago

How has the diversity of talent changed in this one year?

RNCTX• 5 years ago

What's the mission?

Not being a reliable financial exchange, I hope, they already failed at that. (1)

[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/coinbase-says-hacke...

qqtt• 5 years ago

we're operating in an environment of virtue signaling and fear of speaking up.

Well, which is it? Are people speaking up too much (virtue signalling), or not enough (fear of speaking up)? Perhaps the people speaking up aren't saying what you want to hear, and you imagine a hidden majority of people who agree with you that you can convince yourself you are right, through a "invisible argument of authority" towards these abstract people who you know exist but don't speak up out of fear, but surely agree with you and outnumber the other voices.

I find the usage of the term "virtue signalling" a bit disappointing. Yes, there are a subset of opportunists who are dishonestly using social platforms for their own gain - but such people are in such a minority that pretending they should dominate the conversation is throwing the baby out with the bath water.

People are trying to organize to make society better, more inclusive, right the systematic wrongs of the past, and build a better future. Dismissing the majority of these people with a dismissive term like "virtue signalling" is not only being insensitive, it's callous and belittling.

The first thing you should realize is that the "virtue signalling" happening is due to voices being oppressed and voices not being heard for too long. There are uncomfortable conversations that need to happen and these voices should be heard.

It's all good and fair that you decided those conversations should not happen in the context of your company and to make the judgement as a leader that it serves only as a distraction, but to use a callous term like "virtue signalling" in the context of these conversations shows the true character of the person conveying this message - and personally, that is not a leader I would want to follow along with any mission.

fay59• 5 years ago

Charitably, “don’t want to be distracted by politics” means “the status quo works for me”. This doesn’t mean anyone at Coinbase is ill-intentioned, but given the status quo, there’s a lot of people it won’t work for.

bad_username• 5 years ago

No, it means "if the status quo doesn't work for me, I focus on changing it outside of my work". Like I work out outside of my dining room and sleep outside of my garage.

civilized4• 5 years ago

People bemoan the dissolution of boundaries between work and personal life, then go around passionately advocating for the further dissolution of those boundaries.

facet1ous• 5 years ago

So in fairness I haven't followed this in the news very closely, but after initially feeling negative about this decision I've started to come around to it.

US politics has become extremely draining, divisive, and aggressive - particularly in high partisan-lean areas. It's flat out exhausting talking with people about politics, even those who I agree with, and it just gets worse every year. Polling has shown people sort themselves by political ideology first and everything else in life second. I see fewer and fewer options available, but to just run from it. I don't see it getting better any time soon.

The company I previously worked for spent an enormous amount of time (and money) facilitating discussions appeasing these divides and focusing on social justice, etc. Not only is there no hope for any given company to realistically solve for societal-wide problems or find an approach that satisfies everyone in this manner, but it's painfully obvious they don't truly care about these topics either. Having people come "talk" about racism or putting on inclusion workshops doesn't result in real action. Things like "diversity" are mangled and manufactured into company metrics where data is awkwardly bucketed by "ethnicity". Are we expected to believe HR departments who group half of the world together as "Asian" as taking diversity seriously? I've come away from every company I've worked for with the cynical impression that that their "social justice" efforts are simply to minimize inner anger, strife, and liability. And for leaders, if you commit to being a "politically engaged" workplace it means everything you do is twice as vulnerable. You are walking on eggshells even if you aren't instigating any sort of animosity - what if you weren't paying attention to the news and didn't speak up about a particular political event? What if you didn't say enough? What if you were misinterpreted? I can understand why Coinbase doesn't want to go there anymore - they can achieve the same goal if nobody says anything at all.

I'm not arguing nefarious forces don't exist or aren't important. I care deeply about many of the commonly-discussed social issues that we're dealing with today. I've personally witnessed blatant racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination first-hand at work. But those things can be solved for at a company level - trying to treat our general political environment is well beyond anything any corporation can manage nor should we expect it to be their responsibility. Companies should focus on refining things that are in their control, like practicing transparent & fair hiring, enforcing anti-discrimination policies, and ensuring equal-opportunity internally. But I think you can fairly draw the line there.

wly_cdgr• 5 years ago

"Mission focused company" is just such a funny euphemism for "I don't want my serfs getting distracted from making money for me by more important things"

gwelson• 5 years ago

The thing I hate about this line of thinking is the supposed "distractions" of being mission-focused are nearly all related simply to basic rights/dignities for marginalized groups. I don't think anyone is saying companies need to take a strong stance on every political issue, but merely saying "we as a company believe the lives of our Black employees matter" or "we as a company welcome and accept our LGBTQ+ employees and don't tolerate anyone who doesn't" are just...basic things you need to do in 2021. They aren't a distraction, I would say not saying them is a distraction.

In all of the discussion around the blog post from Armstrong last year and the similar discussion around Basecamp, I never once saw an example cited of these so-called distractions from being mission-focused that wasn't just affirming the basic dignity of a group of people. I don't understand why doing so should be controversial. Anyone who doesn't fully and unambiguously support the right of Black people to not be killed randomly and of LGBTQ+ people to exist simply doesn't belong in polite, modern society. How is this controversial?

I simply cannot imagine working at a place that doesn't recognize the humanity of their workers. Utterly baffling and heartless mindset.

poszlem4• 5 years ago

There is a difference between people/companies that believe that lives of black people matter and those that claim that BLACKLIVESMATTER. There is a difference between people/companies that believe that women need to have the same rights as men and those that claim to be feminists. There is a difference between people/companies that believe that gays/lesbians are normal people and those who put rainbows everywhere.

saurik3• 5 years ago

There is a difference between people/companies that believe that lives of black people matter and those that claim that BLACKLIVESMATTER.

FWIW, in this case, that "difference" might be that Coinbase was simultaneously treating their black employees poorly--dare I say, as "second class citizens"--while actively refusing to take a few seconds to agree with something as banal/obvious as "black lives matter". The BLM statement struggle was merely a catalyst for what were already existing and somewhat long-standing racial tensions brewing inside the company that had led people to feel that, with its actions, the company did not in fact care about its black employees... context you can't just pretend didn't exist going into Brian's "let's not talk about this and everyone go back to work" post.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/technology/coinbase-crypt...

The tensions at Coinbase came to a head in June, after the police killing of George Floyd. As many tech leaders publicly voiced support for Black Lives Matter protests, Black employees at Coinbase said on the Slack messaging platform that they were hurt by the silence of Mr. Armstrong and other executives about the matter. They organized a meeting where several of them told executives, often through tears, about their difficult experiences at the company, eight people who attended said.

Take careful note: this wasn't "merely" "our difficult experiences in the world", this was "our difficult experiences at the company". Seriously: too much of this comment thread seems to be hyperfocused on BLM statements--as I guess y'all really think taking a few minutes and a couple sentences to acknowledge that in solidarity somewhere is somehow a horrible distraction--while ignoring that this had started in the background of "Coinbase is mistreating its black employees so much that it had already lost 3/4s of them" (and that's before Brian's post, so a lack of strong improvement since then is telling). This is way more concrete than these abstractions.

But according to 23 current and former Coinbase employees, five of whom spoke on the record, as well as internal documents and recordings of conversations, the start-up has long struggled with its management of Black employees.
“It was the first time I realized what racism felt like in the modern world,” said Layllen Sawyerr, a compliance analyst who is Black. “I felt like I was being bullied every day at work.” She said she filed a discrimination complaint with Coinbase’s legal department before quitting in 2018.

StanislavPetrov• 5 years ago

I never once saw an example cited of these so-called distractions from being mission-focused that wasn't just affirming the basic dignity of a group of people.

You are free to affirm whatever you want, and have all sort of discussions about society at large when your aren't being paid for your time by someone else to do a job that has nothing to do with affirming groups of people.

I simply cannot imagine working at a place that doesn't recognize the humanity of their workers. Utterly baffling and heartless mindset.

Its baffling to me that so many people feel entitled to espouse their social and cultural beliefs in the workplace instead of doing the job they are being paid to do. The way a workplace recognizes the humanity of their workers is by offering good wages, good hours and a generous benefits package.

hardwaregeek• 5 years ago

All of these statements are like when people comment their condolences or congratulations on social media. Yeah, it’s just a gesture, but the gesture is appreciated. And like a condolence, I don’t think it’s weird if a company doesn’t say anything, but I would find it weird if a person was really proud of how they didn’t give condolences or congratulations.

shapefrog• 5 years ago

I would find it weird if a person was really proud of how they didn’t give condolences or congratulations

I am proud I have never written RIP Celebrity on twitter when a celebrity died or sent my congratulations to a Kardashian on the occasion of the brith of their child. When I have offered condolences or congratulations it has been exclusively in person or in a non public broadcast message.

I guess that makes me weird, but personally I find posting that sort of shit on social media decidedly odd.

gfodor• 5 years ago

You say you’re baffled but conclude the people you are baffled by are heartless.

You’re not baffled: you have made up your mind.

thewakalix• 5 years ago

I now try to avoid using the English idiom "I just don't understand how..." to express indignation. If I genuinely don't understand how, then my model is being surprised by the facts, and I should discard it and find a better model.

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tWLFWAndSZSYN6rPB/think-like...

rafale4• 5 years ago

What if a bunch of white male employees ask the company to make s statement that their lives matter too? After all they are overrepresented in suicide statistics, drug addiction and homelessness.

You now this shit will make a lot of leftists lose their mind and show up at ur company offices trying to cancel you out of existence. In a society going mad like ours, opting out of the madness like Coinbase did is the best option.

AgentME4• 5 years ago

"Black lives matter" is a slogan that largely refers to a desire to solve issues related to police brutality and black people. "White lives matter", as it's commonly said and understood, is merely a contrarian pushback against that desire to fix those issues.

Obviously white lives do matter like others, but making a statement of something communicates something other than the literal meaning: it asserts that there's part of the meaning that the receiver isn't demonstrating knowledge of, and it evokes connections to things people have encountered before. If you say "white lives matter", intending it to mean something about suicide statistics, and other people interpret it as racist pushback against solving police brutality, the other people aren't doing something surprising or wrong. You would just be fruitlessly rebelling against how language actually works.

If you want to raise awareness about suicide, go ahead, but don't use a slogan that already has a meaning that will be misinterpreted in your context, and certainly don't do it competitively against people raising awareness for a different issue.

tuesdayrain• 5 years ago

It's disingenuous to pretend like "black lives matter" is merely a phrase that any decent person should agree to without question. BLM is a political group with a radical left-leaning agenda that encompasses much more than just "don't kill black people randomly" as you suggest. Discussing these things in the workplace inevitably leads to the accusation that if you don't support BLM, you must not think black lives matter. It's a very cheap tactic, akin to saying that you're not a patriot if you don't support the PATRIOT act.

civilized4• 5 years ago

Basecamp's angry worker faction was demanding the company apologize for contributing to a white supremacist, genocidal culture... because some customer service folks had a funny customer name list that included names from all backgrounds.

That had absolutely nothing to do with basic dignity for marginalized groups. It was simply a grab for power and status. One of many. We who have been watching are very familiar with the game.

The framing of it as merely about basic dignity is deeply disingenuous, but is itself familiar and another part of the game. What about the dignity of customer service workers? Is it upholding their dignity to frivolously condemn them for a mildly immature in-joke that showed no racial bias and harmed no one?

Some of us, you will find, are not so easily played for fools.

poszlem4• 5 years ago

Unfortunately it's a discussion tactic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy

The motte-and-bailey fallacy (named after the motte-and-bailey castle) is a form of argument and an informal fallacy where an arguer conflates two positions that share similarities, one modest and easy to defend (the "motte") and one much more controversial (the "bailey").[1] The arguer advances the controversial position, but when challenged, they insist that they are only advancing the more modest position

schneems2• 5 years ago

At least a third of the company quit. That is not something that happens over something “deeply disingenuous”.

I’ve got a timeline put together on it https://schneems.com/2021/05/12/the-room-where-it-happens-ho... the post also goes into detail about Rails governance internals from my experiences as a contributor over the last decade.

babyshake• 5 years ago

If you work in customer service, just don't make fun of your customers. It makes it harder to do your job well.

joshuamorton7• 5 years ago

This is a fantastically creative misrepresentation. No one demanded anyone apologize for contributing to a genocidal culture for anything. And yes I know you're referring to the pyramid. It also misses out on plenty of other content too, but that bit was fantastically creative, really.

brodo2• 5 years ago

The big problem with diversity in corporate settings is that it is often fake. It is not used to help marginalized people. It is used for internal power grabs and for “woke-washing” evil organizations. Like the “I’m a Latina with two moms” CIA ad.

tmule3• 5 years ago

This is a caricature of the “mission-focused” mindset. I’ll preface this message by saying that I am brown, raised in relative poverty in the third world, and left of center on most issues. I’ll also say that I have materially contributed a substantial portion of my income helping educate poor brown kids, which most of my preachy white colleagues haven’t and won’t.

The discourse at work in SV tech is not about, “hey, let’s not hang homosexuals”, which I am sure 99.99% of employees and employers fully agree with. It’s typically more in the vein of, “hey, why did we hire person Z, who the media has proven to be a bigot”.

As an explicit example: Antonio Garcia Martinez’s firing was, IMO, bizarre and unwarranted and a manifestation of this attitude (coming from a company that is okay with using Uyghur labor).

I actually do not want my colleagues to have a very narrow view of what’s right and wrong — or a very black and white view of the world. And surely, I don’t want to expend cycles at work having such conversations.

nxmnxm992• 5 years ago

This is such obnoxious virtue signalling. Do you issue statements decrying the 30 people murdered in a car explosion in Djibouti on a daily basis? Who decide which new social issue you're supposed to care about?

It's distracting, propagandist and politically charged bullshit. Just because I don't support BLM doesn't mean I don't have a problem with black people randomly being killed.

It's the exact same bullshit as shoving "support our troops or else you hate freedom" down people's throats.

zaroth• 5 years ago

“Anyone who doesn't fully and unambiguously support…”

Please, stop right there. If you find yourself in this line of thinking, consider for a moment that you’re being a zealot.

whymauri• 5 years ago

'Acknowledging discrimination in our industry is distracting, so to stop being distracted I'm going to focus on writing on how un-distracted we are because we're _mission focused._ I'm going to do this several times.'

I can't be the only person feeling a sense of irony, here. A big argument you see a lot is that people who raise concerns around equitable treatment only do it for clout, the ever popular 'virtue signaling' phrase. Is this not, to some extent or another, similar behavior but for a different audience?

Virtual signal* for thee but not for me? Is this something we've discussed yet?

* I've never been a fan of this term, anyway. Even if someone were 100%, consciously and purposefully 'virtue signaling', it has little baring on the validity of their argument.

proxyon• 5 years ago

What you've said makes no sense. Coinbase offered a bunch of employees the change to quit gracefully with an exit package rather than fire them. That's not virtue signaling, that's material reality.

_3u10• 5 years ago

Perfect. There are many companies that want to do these performative acts.

I like to work with companies and buy from companies that don’t make these statements but also don’t use slave labour to make their products. (Nike)

You can have your values and I can have mine.

baobabKoodaa• 5 years ago

merely saying "we as a company [...] don't tolerate anyone who doesn't [share our political stance]" are just... basic things you need to do in 2021
Anyone who doesn't fully and unambiguously support [our political stance] simply does not belong in polite, modern society

That's extremely divisive and intolerant. Also, it's a cheap rhetorical trick to replace [political stance] with "doesn't want black people to be indiscriminately murdered". Literally no-one is arguing that black people should be indiscriminately murdered. Some people just want to do work at their workplace instead of engaging zealots in political debates that might lead to being cancelled at book burnings. That doesn't mean they want to genocide black people. You should learn to tolerate people who have political opinions different from yours.

gorwell3• 5 years ago

As an atheist that grew up in a religious environment, the techniques and patterns of religions are recognizable. You may not realize it, but you are introducing religion into the workplace.

A Christian posts on HN: merely saying "we as a company believe thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" or "we as a company believe you shall not steal" are just...basic things you need to do in 1952.

aaomidi2• 5 years ago

As someone who grew up in Iran, you're mixing two entirely unrelated things up in bad faith.

Saying people deserve to be able to live isn't the same as introducing extremely "othering" religions.

The tactics are the same, the goals are different. Comparing these is bad faith.

dmix• 5 years ago

3/ One of the biggest concerns around our stance was that it would impact our diversity numbers. Since my post, we've grown our headcount about 110%, while our diversity numbers have remained the same, or even improved on some metrics.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from Reddit is at scale a sentence like this often means they’ve established a dominant monoculture and squashed out the ‘annoyances’..

poszlem4• 5 years ago

If there is one thing I've learned from a company that went woke was that the supposed diversity that it reached was merely superficial.

They hired people from all the minorities necessary and ended up with culture that was even more monolithic than before. No dissent allowed.

I am a bisexual dude, and nobody at work (sans my closest friends) know about it because it's none of their business. I did not disclose it during my interview, I don't want them to ask me about it.

wreath2• 5 years ago

This has been my observation as well. Such companies pat themselves on the back for hiring a diverse group who actually think the same _despite_ coming from different backgrounds or have different skin color.

babelfish• 5 years ago

What I take from that statement is "We have not meaningfully tackled any of the issues of discrimination in the workplace that our Black employees have continuously attempted to bring to our attention", such as the ones u/saurik linked in his comment.

seoaeu2• 5 years ago

Yeah, if the most positive thing you can claim is "the rest of our Black employees didn't quit" then that is really saying something. I liked how he bragged about improving on some undisclosed metrics though, as though that kind of thing isn't trivial to game or even outright lie about

SamoyedFurFluff4• 5 years ago

while our diversity numbers have remained the same,

What precisely are those diversity numbers? A 5% people of color would be dismal regardless of growth.

danielheath• 5 years ago

It’s dismal in an environment where the base rate is far higher than 5%. What’s the rate near their HQ? What’s the rate among those with any qualifications locally?

poszlem4• 5 years ago

In the perfect world people would just ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and went on their merry way if they didn't agree with Coinbase. The reason why there is so much vitriol in the comments here is that to some people there is nothing more scary than a prospect of companies realising that doing social activism can be really TERRIBLE to their bottom line and it IS POSSIBLE to have a nice, friendly, healthy company without going full woke.

Jensson5• 5 years ago

The woke biggest fear is that people realize that only about 5-10% are woke so you can ignore them without much consequences no matter how much of a fuzz they make on twitter.

They try to make a fuzz here at HN as well but just like the real world they aren't the majority here either.

EastSmith• 5 years ago

PG's note on the thread is very interesting: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1445305326820020227

downWidOutaFite• 5 years ago

I didn't find that interesting. "Twitter opinion" is a laughable stereotype. Is the idea that the right-wing "red pilled" don't form online mobs?

pseudalopex3• 5 years ago

Maybe they thought Paul Graham trafficking in laughable stereotypes had interesting implications for Y Combinator and Hacker News.

readme• 5 years ago

The attitude that if someone doesn't overtly support your cause, that it means they are your enemy is a terrible one.

smashah• 5 years ago

"Don't bring politics to work" = "Don't bring your politics to work"

One person's every day life is considered by another to be "political".

zht• 5 years ago

they asked me for additional information to "verify my identity" (after 4 years of using coinbae just fine). after 6 weeks my account is still frozen

dudeinjapan• 5 years ago

As a companion piece, see Jonathan Haidt's discussion of "telos": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gatn5ameRr8

lloydde• 5 years ago

Unfortunately, “telos” is misused when the author’s data is singularly focused on the US.

koonsolo• 5 years ago

So does a "Championship team" mean you get paid like a champion? Or does it just mean you have to work like a champion, and get a 1% raise when you're working like crazy?

Just curious because I don't know coinbase that well.

renewiltord2• 5 years ago

Everyone I know at Coinbase is not only doing well but working less hard than at Facebook.

dyeje• 5 years ago

They pay extremely well, yes. You can look at levels.fyi for specifics.

ThinkBeat• 5 years ago

In short?

Leave politics at home.

prayingforexits• 5 years ago

I was able to chat to Brian about this the other night. I think it’s under appreciated how brave it was to do this on the precipice of multiple fundraising / liquidity events and in the eye of the storm of cancel culture generally.

Kudos to the Coinbase team.

1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

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