Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

crones | 681 points

I agreed with what Brian Armstrong said in his blog post and thought it was admirable to publicly take that position, but now I have even more respect for his dedication.

I don't know if the severance package is good or not, but it seems generous and it gives employees who aren't aligned with the company an easy way out.

ZephyrBlu | 3 years ago

This is going to work great for Coinbase. It's very helpful for employers to select for conformists who can be told to shut up, and not stand up for what they believe (unless they believe in the status quo and the company, which is called non-political).

Selecting for groupthink^W mission is pretty important in the business of cryptocurrencies. Reduces chances of anyone having a different moral stance that would push them to become a whistleblower. It might even be a way to prevent employees unionizing. Any disagreement about policies is political, free speech is political, so this is perfect to pre-emptively censor every criticism.

pornel | 3 years ago

Erica Joy (Director of eng at Github) had an interesting take on this. https://twitter.com/EricaJoy/status/1311178025275289600

"coinbase engineers walked off [in June] because brian wouldn't say "Black Lives Matter," he posted it so they'd get back to work, now he's having an executive "YOU AREN'T THE BOSS OF ME!" meltdown* about it" and "this looks a whole lot like the play certain advisors tell CEO's to run when they need to extend their runway. whether or not they backfill the people who leave will tell the tale. guess it's time to watch linkedin."

human_person | 3 years ago

Two weeks the same CEO campaigned against Apple's App Store policies on Twitter, and totally made it out to be a moral issue when it benefitted him.

https://mobile.twitter.com/brian_armstrong/status/1304490208...

"There are many unbanked and underbanked people in the world who have no ability to get a loan to buy a home, or start a business, so this kind of technology has enormous potential to improve the world over time, even if it is still early days."

"I greatly admire Apple as a company, and think they build amazing products, but their restrictions on the app store, in particular around cryptocurrency, are not defensible in my view, and they are holding back progress in the world."

The way that Coinbase puts pressure on Apple is the same as what Coinbase's politically-active employees are doing.

kats | 3 years ago

The thread on the original blog post is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24610267

It got relatively little discussion because it set off the flamewar detector (http://hnrankings.info/24610267/). Normally we'd turn that off in such a case, but we missed that one.

Also: don't miss that there are multiple pages of comments in this thread. That's what the More link at the bottom points to. Or click:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24636899&p=2

dang | 3 years ago

I know that this will greatly help a few who are legitimately disturbed by the recent post and feel they either can't work at, or aren't excited by, Coinbase any more.

But at the level of severance discussed in the post (4 (or 6) months, 7-year exercise window), it feels like most employees who know they could soft-land into another position would be silly not to take this offer. Some people may still enjoy working at Coinbase, but do they enjoy it enough to reject an effective 30-50% bonus?

Especially for employees who were there less than 2 years, and may not necessarily stay for 2 years, this looks like a unique opportunity to lock in that 7 year exercise window.

I've seen offers like this before, and it led to a much-higher-than-expected number of employees choosing to leave.

nrmitchi | 3 years ago

I’ve never worked in the Bay Area, so could just be OOL but I’m genuinely surprised that this is such a big deal, or that this blog post got so much praise.

Never discussed politics at any of the companies I’ve worked for, we were always too busy with...work!

kkhire | 3 years ago

I see this as strategically genius whether you agree with it or not. He's totally neutered the ability of employees to take strong political stances within the company going forward and he's made it clear where the company stands in away that makes it very hard for people to come back later and defend staying if they were interested in these kinds of politics.

If you want to stay focused on building a company and not on debating the subjective merits of sociopolitical systems, this is a winning move.

anm89 | 3 years ago

A few comments have asserted that if an existing company chooses to be apolitical, that may itself be a political act. This sounds clever, but it's not correct.

At the highest level, a company is a group of people who get together to 1) set an impactful goal, and then 2) work very hard to achieve it. The first part — the setting of the goal — is the political act. Disagreements at this level are good, and broadly healthy.

But the second part — the achieving of the goal — is purely a practical act. Here, your guiding principle is to take those actions, and only those actions, which you believe will give you the highest chance of achieving your goal.

Politicizing a company contradicts this principle: to the extent that you make the act of achievement more political, you are also making it less practical. To the extent that you allocate more budget, focus, and optimization power to X, you are also taking it away from Y.

If you make the act of achievement less practical, someone else may beat you to your goal. Your company will be less impactful than it could have been, and may even die as a result.

What Brian is saying here is: we set our goal in 2012 when we started Coinbase. We are now engaged in the practical act of achieving it. If you have a goal that's different from the one we set, no problem. Here is some money: you may use it, if you choose, to find an organization whose goals you support.

edouard-harris | 3 years ago

I wonder if this is a way for Coinbase to push politically engaged employees out of the company in order to reduce the possibility of anyone pushing for internal change like people who want worker's rights groups or unionization. Operating with a workforce who only want to turn up and write code and never discuss anything that affects them as a group puts Coinbase in a very strong negotiating position because there's almost complete information asymmetry in their favor.

onion2k | 3 years ago

This must feel harsh for those on the receiving end, but is the right thing to do. It is not effective to try and turn every company into a rights activism group just because it is a group of people.

This may be a sign that it’s become increasingly hard to organize or take part in such activism outside of work. What happened?

jiofih | 3 years ago

From some point of view, this might be viewed as management taking a harsh line against employees who make demands on their employers to do something other than maximize shareholder returns.

One of the longstanding contradictions of Silicon Valley ethos is that we will simultaneously talk about "mission" and "impact"—and, implicitly, the social impact of our work—while applauding management efforts to stamp out employee activism as a principled stance.

At the same time, as American politics in particular become increasingly polarized, many of us may be forced to decide between being professionals—and the apoliticism that implies—and being engaged citizens.

Edit: Reading some other posts here, I'm struck by some other trends at play:

- The shifting of—or, more pointedly, fragmentation of the "Overton Window" of acceptable behavior.

- The longstanding tendency in tech companies to have porous boundaries between "work" and "social" spheres.

- The above-mentioned rhetoric in tech companies to promote an idea of "mission" that goes beyond mere profit.

Along with increasing political polarization and (worse) delegitimization, these are all trends that make it harder to keep politics out of the workplace, and harder to balance "activism" with "professional" conduct.

I don't think Coinbase's approach will prove to be a lasting one.

md_ | 3 years ago

This makes sense.

The problem with recent political activism in companies has been that it isn't fair. It has been acceptable to advocate for liberal causes (for example for affirmative action), but not for conservative ones (against affirmative action).

It might be ok if both were allowed equally. But if only one viewpoint is allowed, that's not really democracy.

TedShiller | 3 years ago

I may want to apply to coinbase. I am really fed up with 'activist' employees and the toxic environment they bring. All I want is to just focus on engineering and ship features/improvements. Bringing politics to the office(thanks Google!) has been one of the worst things to happen in the 21st century for tech companies. Interestingly enough google has been going through absolute hell with these cancerous employees and other companies will have the same issues by embracing their failed strategy. Lets leave politics at home or outside the office where it belongs.

subsubzero | 3 years ago

I understand the points of praise, but let me offer a counter argument. Companies have an obligation to defend the system that provided the environment in which they were formed and flourished.

This election is a bit different than normal. I've never seen a sitting president that would not commit to the peaceful transfer of power. You really think that coinbase would be where it is if we had that for the last 50 year? You think silicon valley would be silicon valley?

I don't.

cmsonger | 3 years ago

The article mentions Coinbase and Amazon, and we've also seen possibly related HR concerns from Google, Facebook, and others. Is this going to become a thing for many companies?

My current presence on a career site mentions my long-time involvement in societal implications of technology. In my case, the relevance to work is that I'm drawn to some companies and roles, knowingly avoid some others, and some of my technical and product work is informed by, say, some understanding of security&privacy -- but it's not that one day I'll spontaneously become woke on some issue, and organize a march of employees to a media event where we denounce our employer and burn the founders in effigy.

Given some news incidents in the last couple years, I'm wondering whether a job candidate looking like possibly an "activist" is going to become a standard factor for hair-trigger filtering by HR.

Will there be new hiring rituals in which the people who read the interview prep books know the right shibboleth to convey that they're "totally non-political"?

neilv | 3 years ago

An interesting part to this is Coinbase's mission is, if it actually works out, absurdly counter-culture and near revolutionary.

Yeah, it's an exchange, trade w/o mainstream adoption will likely go on for a while, and there are a lot of caveats I'm not mentioning.

A mainstream Coinbase with mainstream cryptocurrencies, which will include Bitcoin (assuming a multi-currency future, not just BTC dominance), implies some serious changes to bedrock financial and geopolitical practices currently in place.

In the same way that wearing a mass-produced cotton shirt vs. a homespun one in 1890 implies the industrial revolution which implies Manchester mill-towns which implies...., so does a successful Coinbase if it reaches the end goals of its mission.

It's interesting that in exchange for not taking a stance on one set of issues, their very aggressive stance in another extremely societally profound area is getting overlooked. Like literally, interesting. Probably a nature of how Coinbase vs. other crypto cos chose to market itself.

dogman144 | 3 years ago

I place political activity at work in the same category as religious proselytizing. It is an unwelcome diversion from the tasks at hand, and increases interpersonal tensions. It's difficult enough to grow and maintain one's technical competence and foster team cohesion without additional religious and/or political complications.

vibrolax | 3 years ago

I've been around the block enough times to realise that any tech job inevitably has morally murky dimensions.

It's never in regards the big overarching social issues like racial politics though. It's the advertising companies you work with, the casinos and bookmakers (which is the only time I've made a moral stand at work), or people losing jobs that are replaced by automation.

toomanybeersies | 3 years ago

It would be so ironic if every Coinbase employee took this exit. It's not like there isn't more work out there.

The longer I work, the less I put up with dehumanizing actions from the top. You only live for so long. Why be told to your face that you're just a resource.

echelon | 3 years ago

This is only a problem because we live in a world where political issues are strongly affiliated with political ideologies in a binary fashion - i.e. identity politics. Even so much as people interpret a company's intention to remain politically neutral and avoid making any political statements as "a lurch to the right". Why can't we think of it more as a "return to the centerground"?

I think the inclusive apolitical approach will win out in the long term. I don't believe for a second that "not saying something is a statement in and of itself", and by subscribing to this idea you're bringing forward a style of authoritarianism the world is better off without.

Given that identity politics is so rife in 2020, don't you think it's a wise move to divorce company decision making from the clutches of any specific political ideology? The people that say no are almost certainly the authoritarians.

So much of this conversation seems stuck on the binary opposites (zero politics vs 100% politics), just like the way our politics is functioning in a binary fashion today. Obviously a company cannot be truly apolitical unless it hires no one and does absolutely nothing in the world, but we can at least minimize the surface area and allow topics less relevant to company objectives to the individuals outside of the workplace.

It's a popular idea that institutions with power have a duty to wield it, which is a completely ridiculous and dangerous idea. Simply put, we shouldn't be co-opting the influence of our companies to satisfy our personal political agendas or resort to cancel-culture tactics in order to force them into speaking. In a landscape where this is regularly happening, the neutral position is better and safer for all of us and healthy political discourse.

kotxig | 3 years ago

Brian Armstrong wants to have it both ways. He wants employees to focus “on the mission”, and not bring societal politics and activism into the workplace. Fair enough. For better or for worse, we live in a capitalist system, and companies are not first and foremost social justice organisations. I am not unsympathetic to the problems he is trying to solve.

But he also wants to influence politics and laws to benefit his company. Coinbase pays hundreds of thousands of dollars to lobbyists and lobbying companies around the world to advocate for their position (this is all public information).

He seems to believe that you can separate “political decisions that benefit Coinbase” and “political decisions that are irrelevant to Coinbase”, but you can’t. They’re all interconnected. It’s naive to pretend otherwise.

objclxt | 3 years ago

This won’t end well. The moment Coinbase articulates anything remotely related to an underlying set of values or business ethics, the accusations of politicization (and hypocrisy) will come flying.

I believe that corporations are not governed or regulated to support activism writ large, but there has to be room for dissent (even if it ends in separation). How else do you arrive at a shared definition of “economic freedom”?

Is the next step amorality?

thelock85 | 3 years ago

How can you be “apolitical” and pay lobbyist to push crypto-friendly govt legislation?

https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary...

rburhum | 3 years ago

I will offer a personal take on keeping politics out of my 1-man video game company.

In theory, I am all for it. I do not use hashtags on twitter, or openly support any ideologies.

However, as a light brown dude whose parents immigrated here to Canada, my existence itself is a political statement (in support of legal immigration) that is bound to offend people.

I try, to the extent that is possible, to not say political statements on twitter, but I am only human. And for many humans, existing itself is a political statement.

I sometimes feel like a platypus. There are plenty of taxonomist that want me dead. There are plenty of well intentioned people that will protest for me to keep my rights to exist while never getting close to me.

And all I wanna do is keep platypusing every day. It's just hard to do that in deeply divisive times, I guess.

ldd | 3 years ago

I am caught in two minds on this, I’m personally extremely political, but I want to clearly understand both sides of arguments as deeply as I possibly can. For example I often argue things in my own mind from a conservative, let’s keep everything stable, work hard, individual responsibility POV even though I firmly believe probably 80% of people’s success is down to luck and consequently think a strong welfare state and 99% inheritance tax is the correct way to run things.

Now bringing these ideas to work and using that as a vehicle for change is not something I’m comfortable with, but if you as a company have a mission, you can’t expect your staff to not also have missions that might be aligned or orthogonal to the company.

It might make your company work better getting rid of politics (that disagrees with yours anyway) from the workplace by paying people. I wonder if it leads to a filtering out of potentially difficult conversations that people should have.

Anyway I’m against corporate stuff like this and I think you can cut this down quite a lot without the fluff. I wonder what the specific internal conversations were to prompt this public plea for apolitical-ness outside of the company’s political mission.

andy_ppp | 3 years ago

I read his blog post and commend him on his insight and leadership. Politics can be divisive, destructive and at best distractive. One nutjob on either side of the coin (haha?) could be a risk to the integrity of the company of whole not to mention all of the other pitfalls if internal strife. Where I work there is plenty of differing opinion on politics but professionalism, respect and empathy have kept us pretty much whole. I think the problems of divisiveness are enhanced by remote working as the comradery gained by being at work in person is lost and that is essential in helping soak up bad feelings. Anyhow just my 2 cents.

roamerz | 3 years ago

If employees want to influence a company's political stance, then they've already lost, because employees are not shareholders. It's not their call to make.

They would have a leg to stand on if they were part of a worker's cooperative, because then they'd be owners. The juicy job market for tech workers may obscure this fundamental fact, but when the rubber hits the road any overpaid engineer is still considered hired help and forever "below the salt". Until workers build up a co-op sector to compete with private sector companies, they will never have a say, no matter how much they kick and scream.

So either sit your ass down and sell your soul like you already said you would, or get out there and start building. Not just for yourself, but for all of us. Because we will never have true democracy as long as most of the wealth the people generate gets sliced and diced at board meetings without even the veneer of representation.

j4nt4b | 3 years ago

I love what this CEO has done. Basically said fuck off with your political signalling, we wont be part of it, if you dont like it leave and heres some money

shoulderfake | 3 years ago

If the logic is true that being apolitical is supporting the status quo, then arguing against being apolitical is a political argument supporting radicalism.

I feel the whole argument against being apolitical is just being made in bad faith to support radicalism, political acceleration and extremism.

Why would you wan't a workplace of radicals always fighting? If you can't argue this then you can't argue against being apolitical.

dangerface | 3 years ago

The current situation in these big tech companies reminds me a little bit of Wahhabism and the founding of modern Saudi Arabia.

Initially the king used the Wahhabi extremists as troops and it was quite a successful partnership. But eventually it went sour as the king tried to modernize the country bringing in phone lines and roads and he was attacked by his former extremist friends who were opposed to the sinful modern world. Eventually the king enlisted the aid of the British with airplanes and machine guns and the Wahhabi were subdued (with a large number being killed).

A couple of parallels and potential lessons here.

Beware of getting in bed with unreasonable and fanatical extremists. They will turn on their former benefactors fairly quickly and the danger often isn't worth the risk.

And, if you are an fanatical extremist (not passing judgement on just noting), you likely won't actually ever take power for long and will be quickly disposed of when no longer useful or you become problem which you will shortly. Cynical people will take advantage of your idealism for their own purposes but you won't see the benefits.

mythrwy | 3 years ago

Reading these comments I feel like the root of the issue is the collapse of American democracy. It's a bit grandiloquent but that's definitely how it looks like. If workers trust that "We, the people" are still in charge on the big picture then it doesn't make sense to bring politics at work. Just vote.

Now if you feel like your power as a citizen has dwindled and you can't meaningfully enact change through democratic means, it makes sense to try and "weaponize" your job, especially if you work for a powerful company and you're a valuable highly skilled worker.

But in the end if you're dissatisfied with your company and you know that there's a fundamental ideological incompatibility it probably makes more sense to just quit, especially when you're a software dev and you can probably find some other job fairly easily.

I guess an other possibility would be to have proper unions but for some reason I don't see that happening in the USA any time soon...

simias | 3 years ago

Never forget that calls that protests and political expressions aren't happening "in the right venue" or "in the right way" only help one side.

Take for example NFL management telling the players not to kneel in solidarity. That is the players' most effective (and frankly, peaceful, and not particularly disruptive) way to send a message. But if you don't agree with their message, moving to shift it to a less visible place is absolutely a political attempt to neuter it.

sk5t | 3 years ago

People say having internal debate is a disadvantage, but all the companies that are famous for having it make more money than everyone else.

throwaway4715 | 3 years ago

We're all faced with a difficult challenge in how to balance personal expression and professional conduct. It's especially difficult as shelter-at-home mandates push our work lives into our private spaces.

It's a good thing to try to be so generous with supporting an exit over values alignment. It's unfortunate, though not surprising, for Armstrong to want Coinbase to be like other for-profit financial firms -- quietly amassing wealth and influence vs. noisily in the spotlight.

mattlutze | 3 years ago

I'd love to check in a year from now to see what de facto ideology their intended void of ideology has created. I wonder what it will be.

newobj | 3 years ago

If Coinbase is going to be completely apolitical are they permissive of any political activity outside of the office? If a Coinbase employee goes to a white supremacist rally with a tiki torch, and posts it on their personal Facebook visible to other Coinbase employees, are those employees forbidden to discuss it at work? Is this considered permitted behavior at Coinbase?

ponker | 3 years ago

Spotify needs to do this before they let activists ruin that company.

rednerrus | 3 years ago

That's my problem with all of this. Purely mission-focused companies sound great -- in a vacuum. A totally apolitical workplace could only exist in a vacuum.

Politics is not something that happens twice a year in a voting booth, or even something that happens on TV; it's how you and I engage with civic society at large, and to say that the workplace should, or even could be divorced from that seems almost silly.

Coinbase doesn't walk to talk about politics at work? That's neat, and sounds nice. But they're making that statement in a time where "not talking about politics" is something that very much works in favor of some groups and against others.

I know that we're engineers, and we want to spend our days building and shipping. I wouldn't ever fault anyone for that desire. But we have to acknowledge the fact that neutrality favors, and will always favor, one side of a debate. To protest that politics are something that "doesn't happen here" is to bury one's head in the sand.

ketzo | 3 years ago

It opens up a whole can of worms though. What's "political"? Nowadays anything uncomfortable is brushed aside as political? Racism? Political! Gender inequality? Definitely political! Wealth in... you see where I'm going with this. So what that screams to me is this will to bubble up Coinbase with people happy in the current status quo, whatever that is!

fataliss | 3 years ago

Between this and blocking VPNs so I have to be vulnerable to use their service when assets are on the line, I’ll be looking for my own exit

toastal | 3 years ago

Pretty funny that the company's fundraising/activist-friendly mission statement came back to bite it.

rmrfrmrf | 3 years ago
[deleted]
| 3 years ago

I don't see why he's offering them any sort of package to leave, it's not like they're being made redundant. It's very generous but sets an odd precedent. It's like it's a compensation payment for not being allowed to make the workplace toxic.

secondcoming | 3 years ago

Would be great if liberal tech companies could give similar benefits to whoever wants to leave because their political views don’t align with the company’s views. I don’t talk about politics at my workspace because I know only one side is welcome there.

muzika | 3 years ago

I expect a lot companies and capital, given the COVID nudge, will accelerate moving to other locations and hiring remote, because they want to pay their employees to the their work, and not to go on moral crusades on company's time.

dpc_pw | 3 years ago

Any & all politics at work is unacceptable period..you are there to do the job you accepted and agreed to do. Nothing more! Go create your own company that embraces and hires only activists with various views...I wonder how successful such a company would be?

I was taught politics isn't polite to talk about it.... illogical (what politics are to me ...a pissing match driven by billionaires on each side fueling fires for their side and their sheep almost mindlessly following along ) views aren't a welcoming or warm human experience that fosters teamwork.

All companies should follow with this stance ..letting all know discussing politics at XYZ company is frowned upon and if troubles arise from it (other employees feeling harassed and or uncomfortable by it; report it) then XYZ company isn't the place for you!

paul7986 | 3 years ago

The state of politics today, as a base layer under and inside everything, is such that politics cannot be kept out of work. Look at something very straightforward like Covid-19, an airborne disease. For reasons that I can't explain, attitudes towards this virus in the US are political, such that there is a strong correlation between one's view of the severity of this virus and one's attitudes towards the legal status of abortion.

A company deciding between "everyone work from home" or "everyone come into the office and sit in open seating" has to engage with the realities of what the virus is, which necessitates taking a stand on issues which are political.

This is doubly impossible for Coinbase since cryptocurrency is the most overtly political area of technology.

ponker | 3 years ago

There's no such thing as an apolitical organization the size of Coinbase.

chasing | 3 years ago

I believe this stance is dangerous for the company. The founder has exhibited and is overtly displaying here traits that are known predictors of fraud.

https://www.icpas.org/information/copy-desk/insight/article/...

Encouraging explicitly amoral stances from companies and retaliatory actions such as this may be appealing to some but is ultimately harmful to the company and society in general. That's a debatable assertion of course but the more we learn about white collar crime and companies which disregard the harms they do the more we find that individuals lacking empathy are core players.

iandanforth | 3 years ago

Q:

Is the current wave of political tension in workplaces limited to tech/SV companies, or is this a more general thing? Have there been any significant incidents/announcement in other areas?

dalbasal | 3 years ago

Hypocrisy is rampant with some Coinbase figures that cry out for "acknowledging the injustice and inequality that affects many current and future Coinbase users."

Good God, your firm exists to facilitate trading in speculative assets peddled by libertarian internet millionaires and that just so happen to be exceptionally useful for laundering money - enabling a whole online industry of shadow markets that were thought impossible a decade ago.

I understand that your values dictate that association with this unsavory bunch is an acceptable compromise when pitted against the grave dangers of government overreach and surveillance - I am of the same opinion. But social revolutionaries you are certainly not, just opportunists speaking the slogans of the day while lining their own pockets. So Armstrong's sincerity and lack of pretense is refreshing.

yholio | 3 years ago

Forbidding the discussion of politics at work sounds a lot like Don't Ask, Don't Tell. I think Coinbase is on the wrong side of history here.

andrethegiant | 3 years ago

I love that I wish my company and more companies would be totally apolitical and now I'm very interested in working for Coinbase so kudos.

mesozoic | 3 years ago

Coinbase, and Armstrong, have been a blight on the BItcoin community since about late 2013, one only comparable to MTGOX in overall severity. They really showed that they had their origins in Goldman Sachs from that point onward and that their cronyist playbook would predictably be used as they did in the Legacy fiat system to their advantage.

Their 'social activism' as its presented in that post includes trying to conflate BCash with Bitcoin to noobs who were unaware of the fork in order to bolster the price of a alt coin with no value or usecase just as mainstream attention (read: non-technical users) was being gained, and by extension they promoted Ver/Jihan/Bitmain's agenda and failed coup. If that dishonest behavior of their user's wasn't enough they would later report its users to the IRS and then, as released earlier this year [0] they are DIRECTLY offering Blockchain analytics to the IRS and DEA. And then ban Wikileaks account from their platform.

I regret to say that as a Community we never learned our lesson in the MANY pitfalls of allowing the growth of a cancerous central point of failure after Mt Gox, and that the path of 'least resistance' to on-board people into this tech had many (predictable) dire consequences. I've used centralized exchanges before, but it didn't feel as a enthralling as when I went to a meetup, spoke to like minded people in the Community and bought some in a p2p manner--its really a night and day experience contrast. Or simply got tipped by total strangers online for a project or an idea I wanted to explore as I had in the early days.

What were supposed to be training wheels to gradually create an ecosystem primarily driven to be a p2p currency, as was intended, became a crutch that atrophied and poisoned the general curiosity which denied it's users the rewards that often followed which made this really remarkable.

This neglect has allowed Coinbase as a single entity to now hold a large percentage of the total Bitcoin in existence, not including the large amounts that they hold custody of its user's who simply do not take possession of their funds.

To say Bitcoin can be a-political is grounded in the very ignorance that created the aforementioned consequences; it is by default the reaction to the perpetual failures of the politicizing of State-based currencies and the corruption of Central Banks. It's very Genesis Block states why it was created: as an alternative to the bailouts of 2008.

I honestly don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that Coinbase represents the very worse, and the toxic nature of what YC can bring into existence. That sounds entirely scathing, and perhaps unwarranted to those unaware of the dire nature, but this is really no different than enabling how FAANG has created a business model that has pretty much them an extension of many countries Intelligence Agencies who directly sell their user's data/information to the highest bidder. The difference being that this Trojan horse was only possible because YC funded them in the early stages.

Who's to say they won't, or haven't already, created another?

0: https://decrypt.co/31485/coinbase-license-analytics-irs-dea

Melting_Harps | 3 years ago

Awful article. It never even explains what "the mission is." Doesn't even link to the original Coinbase blog post.

aazaa | 3 years ago

Why is a company wanting to be apolitical is controversial? That should be the default, is this an American thing like how masks and healthcare are controversial?

I would expect a government to have proper separation from church and state, so why is it weird to want a company to separate politics and mission?

I can't see any good coming from being in a work environment where the company supports a political issue I'm strongly against, it would make co-workers and myself feel like opponents and likely make for a hostile work environment.

Zenbit_UX | 3 years ago
[deleted]
| 3 years ago

you can work here, but you have no power.

rStar | 3 years ago

>Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong released a blog post this week saying the exchange intends to keep activism and politics separate from its business.

That is how it ought to be!!!!!! Activism and politics tends to divd people. Keep it out of work is a great thing!

There is no point to talk about anything like activism or politics.

Just do it!

0df8dkdf | 3 years ago

TIL political neutrality in a company workplace is a controversial issue...

junon | 3 years ago

As a non-American, I find it truly bizarre (and sad) that's it's now controversial to publicly state that you're not taking sides.

howlgarnish | 3 years ago

No position on politics is also a position (for the status quo).

grey-area | 3 years ago
[deleted]
| 3 years ago

I think this is great.

abstractbarista | 3 years ago

I wish more companies would take this approach

Khaine | 3 years ago

ITT: a bunch of people who think there is a distinction between life and politics and are privileged enough to be able to pretend the status quo is ok for everybody

beerbajay | 3 years ago

That's a great severance package

mysterEFrank | 3 years ago

Switzerland was neutral during WWII but still sold stuff to Deutschland.

Just weigh it up like that. I might have to delete the app

goldwind | 3 years ago

It's called hush money

scared2 | 3 years ago

What's their mission?

sidcool | 3 years ago

I've always seen these attempts at "being apolitical" to be roundabout ways of discriminating against people who have left-leaning political beliefs. Despite claiming to be apolitical and neutral these kinds of places always seem to cater more to conservatives, neoliberals and white supremacists.

jacobwilliamroy | 3 years ago

I applaud Coinbase’s CEO on his position of keeping politics out of work. Other tech companies have been overrun with employee activism, which just means one political side has weaponized those companies in favor of their ideology. It is disrespectful to all their customers that don’t align with those views, damaging societally when digital public squares (Facebook and Twitter) are corrupted by employee politics, and it is a distraction in a professional environment that could otherwise be operated apolitically. I hope other organizations follow Coinbase’s example.

throwawaysea | 3 years ago

Until recently blacklivesmatter.com about section touted that the movement “(we) are trained marxists”. Sorry but you’re not racist if you not a marxist. This is straight up Bolshevist tactics. More companies should take an assertive stance against these regressive tactics.

anarchop | 3 years ago
[deleted]
| 3 years ago

Came here to see how the crowd is taking “keep politics out of everyday business” thing as it was until the 2000s. “If you are not with me, you are against me” mentality has not worn off. I blame the liberal campuses for brain washing a whole generation of youth.

ycombonator | 3 years ago

We live in a different world now. Today, apolitical pretty much means “I’m white. And probably male. But definitely white.”

tlogan | 3 years ago

The blog post he made, which was a whole lot of words to say "We're not going to say Black Lives Matter, so stop asking", was really something else.

I see a lot of people praising the "not taking sides" thing. This presumes a false two-parties dichotomy that is endemic in the discussion of US social issues.

Really though, you can choose the status quo of widespread human rights abuses in the US, or you can choose to speak out against it. Those are the sides, and pretending that it maps to the tired and ongoing US electoral culture brawl is, well, "inaccurate" and "misleading" at best.

Coinbase has chosen, but they've done all sorts of weasel words to avoid the appearance that what they've chosen is anything other than a vote for the status quo.

This is not about "discussing politics", insofar as who-to-vote-for, et c. This is about the (really quite political) issue of whether or not you're fine with the state of human rights in US society, or not.

It's a bummer that they've decided that they're fine with the current situation, because it really sucks terribly for a lot of people: so badly that many people can't just "go to work and ignore it".

To see people praising this viewpoint is... baffling.

sneak | 3 years ago

What a joker 'right-wing radicalization which has resulted in widespread political violence'

ha.

rswskg | 3 years ago

In theory, I would agree with the sentiment of not bringing politics to work, but this is 2020. We have Nazis marching in the streets. We have algorithms that don't "work" on brown people because they were built by and for white people. In practice, I've found that "no politics" at work means "let us be racist in peace".

devteambravo | 3 years ago

I'm sorry to tell everyone but this entire premise is insincere.

Sure, 50 years ago MAYBE this would have been valid, but I'm doubtful.

Are we going to ignore that companies in Germany were profiting off of the Nazi regime? Lockheed-Martin, BAE, etc pushing us into infinite war. Oil and gas companies lying about climate change. Coinbase is taking the side of those types of companies.

Climate change has been hijacked as a political issue. Lobbyists from companies are constantly arguing in favor of more damaging and exploitive rules for society.

So, no you can't be apolitical. Armstrong is being selfish and privileged. He's signaling to employees that they need to shut up and make money. If I was working there, I'd be glad this was exposed now instead of later.

dvdhnt | 3 years ago

My buddy works at a FAANG that has a strong corporate position on BLM, LGBTQ rights, and climate change. In fact, all of the FAANGs do. Anyone kicked out of Coinbase that will pass the interviews will be welcomed with open arms, regardless of political positions.

I speculate that this is a way for Coinbase to carry out its first round of layoffs.

KKKKkkkk1 | 3 years ago

Being “apolitical” is of itself a political decision to uphold the status quo, which is a problem considering how racist, sexist, and classist the status quo is. I would 100% take the exit package, I wouldn’t want to work for a company that’s okay with the status quo. I got into tech to make people’s lives better, not to help oppressors oppress their victims more efficiently. But that’s just my opinion.

telaelit | 3 years ago

That it's being framed as politics is way off the mark. What's being discussed at the workplace isn't foreign policy; it's authoritarianism vs democracy. That's an existential threat. People are getting executed in the street by those supposed to serve and protect, and business leaders want employees to "just be apolitical"? Asking employees to ignore an existential threat is like asking humans to not experience emotion, to the tune of "Just ignore the chaos around you and do your job, peasant." It's wrong to enforce people to ignore the injustices that affect them.

andrethegiant | 3 years ago

The cool thing is that while Coinbase gets to use its inherent power/leverage over workers to get a certain outcome (capital is a form of power btw) workers can use their inherent power (withholding labor, negotiating as a unit, building consensus etc) to get their desired outcome and behavior from the company.

No one owes anyone anything and there are not really any rules here. Consequences and outcomes yes but no real rules.

So the people that work at Coinbase took some action (walkout) and the CEO is taking some action (blog post/policy/vision clarification/severance offers to leave). His job is to convince and use his power to get his desired outcome. But employees have a similar amount of power to change the vision and direction of the company too. They don’t often wield it well since it’s been in business owners best interest to convince workers they don’t have this power at all.

It will be interesting to see if the employees realize any of this and how they respond.

andymoe | 3 years ago

What's up with the 7 year exercise window? All contracts I've seen lately have adopted the modern 10 year window. Bonus to cover exercise + 83b is also now more common for non-execs now. 7 years sounds like they chose something less than the max intentionally.

Furthermore, 6 months severance is on the lighter side for 3yrs of service in cases where the company did something remotely controversial. Setting the aside the issue of allowing politics at the workplace or not, actual implementation of the policing invites all sorts of non-standard harassment and first amendment claims. Any of the lawyers in the Bay Area who helped Uber employees negotiate severance could likely get a deal like this doubled, especially if the employee is a manager or senior-level. While 6 months of salary is nothing to scoff at, there's a time and a place for major company ideology changes and COVID is not the time to make employees worry about their employment.

choppaface | 3 years ago