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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 po
by throwawaysea 6y 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.
- gearhart 6y agoThis is an unpopular opinion on HN, and I'm not sure I agree with it, but I am delighted that you've made it here. It's something worth debating in this group.
- uniqueid 6y agoLet's say you run a company and your government offers you, for some insane reason, a fat, juicy contract to boil kittens alive. If you accept it, does that make the company apolitical? Is that a good thing? The world hashed the issue out pretty thoroughly in the postwar years. I don't know if enough has changed since to warrant revisiting it.
- FeepingCreature 6y agoI fully agree.
- detaro 6y agoIt's kinda interesting to see because the cryptocurrency space is surely one of the more political tech developments at the core - replacing fiat money, new financial instruments, self-governing contracts, ...?
- throwaways885 6y agoVery different than campaigning for BLM or MAGA at work.
- mantap 6y agoCryptocurrency represents a kind of financial libertarianism, that people should be able to own their money and be their own bank. It doesn't have much to say about aspects of life outside of that. It is political because of vested interests.
- eeh 6y agoThe CEO is declaring the focus political issue is cryptocurrency. The focus is not whales, forests, ice caps, malaria. Why is this controversial?
- ClumsyPilot 6y agoInteresting definition, so if his crypto platform (hypothetical) is getting used by mafia and for 'tax minimisation' thats apolitical? And if I raise a stink about it, I am an activist?
- eeh 6y agoIf a company is breaking the law, some countries offer whistleblower protections.
- ClumsyPilot 6y agoWell tax minimisation is not illegal - supposedly starbucks can pay less taxes in UK than I do alone
- iovrthoughtthis 6y agoProbably because none of these things exist in a vacuum. Simply because we give a title to an "area of political focus" doesn't mean that it exists in it's own silo, unimpaired by decisions in any other area of political focus. What happens when your area of political focus crosses tracks with another area of political focus and you're faced with a trolley problem? Do you simply steam ahead regardless of the overall impact or do you consider the overall impact? "That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen" [1] applies to all policies, not simply those undertaken by states. [1]: http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html
- eeh 6y agoAll entities including businesses commonly make tradeoffs between competing values. I am unaware how Coinbase plan to do this. Outside the mission, it sounds like Coinbase won't factor these matters beyond the usual legal/reputation, the same as the majority of businesses. Governments are best placed to guide prosocial behaviour.
- nullc 6y agoYes, which can be interesting to both leftists, rightists, and whatever other directionist you might wish to delineate. It isn't politically neutral technology, sure-- but it's largely orthogonal to many other political concerns. This is good too, because an alternative money isn't particularly valuable unless it's useful to a broad spectrum of people. I could easily imagine a cryptocurrency org that didn't have a culture of leaving your politics/religion at home -- at least to the extent that they didn't directly interact with your work-- could quickly become an extremely toxic and unproductive place.
- m12k 6y agoTo be fair though, keeping politics completely out of any aspect of life becomes increasingly hard when things like science and the definition of "truth" are being politicized. A statement like "I believe the 99% of climate scientists that say climate change is man-made" shouldn't be considered a political statement, yet here we are.
- gadders 6y agoYou could... not talk about it at work?
- TulliusCicero 6y agoScience isn't allowed at work?
- Rotten194 6y agoWhat is "it"? Things that are controversial? Where do we draw the line on that? Most people would agree that talking about your flight "around" the world is OK, even if it takes a side in the somehow-controversial debate on the shape of the earth. What about talking to your coworkers idly and you mention "Oh yeah I've been keeping my kids at home cause I'm worried about coronavirus". Controversial, some people think that's fake. Talking about how you got married last month? If you're gay, that's suddenly controversial. Talking to your manager about how you need to take time off because a family member died, they ask what happened, turns out they were shot by the police? Suddenly very controversial... Politics isn't some weird abstract thing, it's life and the events that are happening around us every day. If we live in a world where literally the shape of the earth is a marker of political identity -- how do you expect people to avoid mentioning topics that people might find controversial? Or do you think it's possible to draw a stark dividing line somewhere between "shape of earth" and "police reform" that can be justified in an objective way?
- nemo44x 6y agoThere’s a difference between talking about things with colleagues and being an activist. I don’t think anyone minds water cooler conversations about things. But using the company you work for as a base of activism is different. Actively creating a sub-culture within a company that polarizes or coerces employees is hostile.
- geekpowa 6y agoInsisting that Facebook / Twitter workplace should be apolitical, is as persuasive as Wernher Von Braun and his rocket engineer colleagues insisting that their workplace was also apolitical.
- tsherr 6y agoTo understand your position, you're saying that if you take a job with a company, you must either take on the company's politics and ethics or leave? There's no room for trying to improve a company from the inside?
- antris 6y agoIf you are being told when to come to work and when to leave, what to work on, how and where to work on it, how to dress, corrected on even the most subtle things that you are doing "wrong" from the managements perspective and expected to do as told, what hope do you have to have any influence on the values of the company? It's the norm that people in a workplace are primarily seen as cogs in the system, humans with needs and opinions as second. Any time the latter is perceived to potentially affect the former, you will be told to fall into line.
- sagichmal 6y agoI don't know how long you've been out of the workforce, but I haven't had a job that told me when to arrive, when to leave, how or where to do my work, or what to wear, in almost 20 years.
- ponker 6y agoCongratulations, you're one of the winners. Talk to your local McDonalds employee and you'll get a different story.
- sagichmal 6y agoBut we're not talking about McDonalds workers? We're talking about Coinbase.
- ponker 6y agoYes, but what's the reason to believe that Coinbase employees can impact the Coinbase culture more than McDonalds employees can? In the case we're discussing now, they tried, and the CEO told them "don't let the door hit you on your way out."
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- M2Ys4U 6y ago>I applaud Coinbase’s CEO on his position of keeping politics out of work. It's not keeping politics out of work, it is a political standpoint in and of itself.