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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 a

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.

eddof13 6y ago
I concur, I suspect the influx of applicants to coinbase based on this will be larger than the potential loss of people taking the severance
- cft 6y ago
  Certainly. If I was looking for a job, I would rank it very high because of this.
  - xoxoy 6y ago
    perhaps take a step back and realize that the HN demographic of young white males is exactly the type that would have the least issue with this policy...
    - makuto 6y ago
      Fight racism and stereotypes with more racism and stereotypes, that'll work.
      - whymauri 6y ago
        Where is the racism in the GP comment?
        makuto 6y ago
        Assuming young white males think the same thing. They had to bring age, race, and sex in to decide what they assume the political beliefs are of the majority of the site.
        dirtyoldmick 6y ago
        And by racist you mean people that don't agree with your political worldview.
        camdenlock 6y ago
        “all young black males are like this” <- is this racist? “all young white males are like this” <- is this racist?
        whymauri 6y ago
        Neither of these are what the poster was saying. If you want to pursue a victimhood complex, I'll let you be.
        a1369209993 6y ago
        Nitpick: xoxoy's claim was "most young white males are like this", not "all".
        SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
        When someone tells us what they think, and we dismiss it by saying that's exactly what someone of their race would be expected to think, that's racism in one of its worst manifestations.
  - cft 6y ago
    See how toxic the politically active (in the workplace) employees are: i am getting downvoted simply for saying that I would choose an apolitical company if I was looking for a job...
- JeremyBanks 6y ago
  I'm sure there will be many applicants, but they'll all be sociopaths. Whatever shreds of decency may have once existed at that company, they're making sure to eliminate. I have normally been very against political talk at work, but this is not a normal moment. Choosing to pretend you can be neutral in this environment is something between incompetence, insanity, and evil. If you choose to join Coinbase now, expect to be "mysteriously" rejected for a lot of jobs in the future.
  - makuto 6y ago
    I think the original blog post made a very important point: We may all agree that there are issues, but there is a lot of disagreement in how problems should be solved. For example, some think that you should solve problems with the system, through elections, bills, etc., while others think a violent revolution and communism is the only way forward. Your position regarding thinking everyone who isn't political at work is naive or evil is not helping the problem. This is only alienating people who already find such aggressive and exaggerated statements wrong.
  - seneca 6y ago
    > I'm sure there will be many applicants, but they'll all be sociopaths. This is the exact kind of tone Coinbase is ejecting from their company. You thinking this is the wrong move is exactly the point. People don't want to work around people who call them "sociopaths" over not wanting to debate at work.
  - spollo 6y ago
    I don't disagree with your underlying feeling here, that is to say I'm on your side of the fence. But don't you think it's a bit extreme to label people sociopaths, insane, evil, incompetent, for expressing their desire to work in a place where they can focus on their craft? Your last sentence is actually really threatening as well. I can think of many reasons people might find this appealing. They may be incredibly politically engaged in their personal life and want work to be a place of focus. They might disagree with the political solutions that their coworkers favour, which is totally okay! But it would be extremely draining for that person. Please, start with the best interpretation of people rather than labelling broad swaths of people as wicked and mentally ill. This is a great opportunity for discussion!
Barrin92 6y ago
>All I want is to just focus on engineering and ship features/improvements. Yeah if there wasn't the pesky world around all the engineering and we could all just stare at our stock options while we sit in our gentrified neighbourhoods and pretend the world doesn't exist. You can ignore politics but politics doesn't ignore you. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil is an unworthy attitude for a democratic citizen. The etymology for the word 'idiot' comes from 'idios', meaning 'one's own', in ancient Greece signifying a person who is only concerned with their private interest, rather than living an active life and participating in civic affairs. To be an idiot was to be withdrawn, isolated and selfish, to not participate in the public, political life of the state. Given how much people nowadays love to invoke the Greeks and our ancient Western traditions, maybe it's time to remind everyone of the meaning of that word again. http://faculty.washington.edu/rsoder/EDUC305/305parkeridiocy.pdf http://faculty.washington.edu/rsoder/EDUC305/305parkeridiocy...
- buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
  GP never said to ignore politics. You are the one that brought that up. They said to leave them out of the office. There is plenty of time for politics before and after work. Bringing your politics in to work just makes for an uncomfortable work environment for you co-workers.
  - Barrin92 6y ago
    'the office' or the firm today, is for better or worse our primary means by which we can exercise influence. That is why tech workers are bringing politics into the firm in the first place, because they realise, rightly, that it is one of the most potent channels to actually exercise change, and that's why so many people want to keep politics out of it. The workplace is the one space where your political opponent can't simply escape from politics, and has to be confronted with your views, which is after all the actual point of political life. People realise that rather than the local town hall, the large internet platforms, their workplace, and their social media feed have become the public space of ideas. That's why the free speech debate focuses so much on internet platforms, and why 'it's privately owned' has long lost meaning to anyone in the debate. Keeping politics 'out of the workplace', at least in our environment today, is basically to say to keep politics out, period. It's not the apolitical position, it is the 'idiotic' position because it intents to keep politics out of the one place that actually matters the most in this day and age.
lwansbrough 6y ago
A lot of harm has been done by humans “just doing their job.” The world needs people who are willing to stand against those who take no interest in weighing the morality of their work. For example, AGI will be built either by accident or intentionally by sociopaths at Google, etc. All decisions at a certain scale are inevitably political, and choosing to ignore the politics in those contexts is in itself a political position.
- whymauri 6y ago
  >A lot of harm has been done by humans “just doing their job.” For a deeper dive on this, look at Arendt's "Report on the Banality of Evil."
- luckylion 6y ago
  > A lot of harm has been done by humans “just doing their job.” I'd say most harm was done by humans who did not just do their job, but thought they knew how everyone else has to do their job, live their lives etc, by political activists. You might think of activism only as what those do that you're politically aligned with. What are those on the opposite side who work just as hard to bring about their ideas of society? What serves the public better, a utility company that "just does its job", or a utility company that snoops around people's garbage, identifies dissenters and then stops supplying water to them (because otherwise you'd be aiding the enemy)?
- rjkennedy98 6y ago
  Yes, humans have created harm "just doing their job", such as purposefully making addictive apps like youtube or social media sites like Facebook that make people depressed, or gathering vast amounts of personal data for targeted advertising. Except this has nothing to do with that. It has do with a group of people that insist that everyone get behind their pet cause and use their job to promote whatever activist belief they have - and negatively affect everyone else who may not agree with them. I'd stand behind anyone who wants to protest their companies business model - like the executive at Amazon who protested the treatment of a union organizer (which was racist and absolutely disgusting). I'm not going to get behind the culture of activism which has nothing to do with civil disobedience.
hardwaregeek 6y ago
I think each side needs to have sympathy for each other. I totally understand not wanting to hear about politics. I'd love for the world to be boring enough that work could stay work. But on the flip side, a lot of people have skin in the game, so to speak, and can't disentangle politics from their life. Being able to ignore politics right now is a very privileged, very lucky position. I have no doubt that if you surveyed various politically active employees, they'd love it if they didn't have to think about politics. Unfortunately that's not their decision.
- ThrowawayR2 6y ago
  People can be as politically active as they want, on their own time and on their own dime. Ironically, the people preaching activism in the workplace would be livid if a religious believer proselytized their faith at the workplace, despite the believer having as strong a belief in their ideas as the activists do in theirs. Quite the double standard.
  - makuto 6y ago
    This comparison resonated with me especially once I've learned how "deep" political views are, similar to religious views. Jonathan Haidt's "The Righteous Mind" is about this. Preaching politics in the workplace will scratch the same nerves that preaching religion will - deeply held beliefs that can cause strong reactions to people who agree or disagree with them.
  - Apocryphon 6y ago
    Perhaps religious believers should be free to proselytize their faith at work. It might not be the most effective venue to do it at, but why should they be forbidden from following their conscience?
  - hardwaregeek 6y ago
    Well, in fairness, if someone's religion had reliable, study backed evidence that the world was going to face a catastrophic climate based future, I'd probably be fine with them proselytizing in the workplace. I don't begrudge the dislike of workplace politics—again, I'd love to not talk about this. But for some groups, i.e. black Americans, it may not seem like a choice of whether they can be political. Indeed I'm a little surprised more Asians in tech aren't concerned at the president's rhetoric about the "China virus". Remember, it's within living memory that the US government rounded up Asian Americans and put them into internment camps.
trhway 6y ago
'activist', toxic, cancerous ... Slapping these terms onto the people around understandably takes time and effort away from focusing on engineering and shipping features.
gamblor956 6y ago
"Activist" is being used to describe an extremely broad range of employees. It's one thing for an employee to be activist within the company about new (or even existing) features/products/etc, because that is part of the company's mission and business ops and its the kind of feedback a company should get before it introduces a potentially controversial product/feature to the market, or about problematic products/features that should be retired. Otherwise you end up with companies like Palantir, or unethical business models based on loot boxes and youth gambling. It's another thing for an employee to take external politics that aren't directly or indirectly related to the company's business, and try to make the company and other employees take a stand on those political issues. Generally, the only time this is appropriate is if, for example, those political issues directly affect a large segment of the customer base and taking a position is also a deliberate act of marketing. (See, e.g., Patagonia, Nike and even Hobby Lobby, but contrast with Chikfila.) Otherwise, you just end up alienating a large portion of your employees and customers to the overall detriment of the business.
newobj 6y ago
Sorry, do you want an ideologically inclusive environment, as alluded to in the article, or an anideological environment?
mediaguilt 6y ago
Weird point of view when most tech and engineering is used to generate political instability, misinformation and vote suppression. In the case of coinbase I wouldn’t be surprise if the « amazing engineering » is mostly used for tax evasion or to by-pass politic finance laws, corruption laws etc...
- makuto 6y ago
  That's a pretty jaded view of the world. Most tech I would guess goes towards increasing value in the company: improving their offerings, making new technology which solves problems for people/companies, etc. Very few people have the time and money to fund tech and engineering purely to influence elections. Most money coming in to tech is going to be from customers and investors, the latter being in interest of making money off of the business getting more customers. Companies like Cambridge Analytica are a very very minute minority compared to the swaths of B2B, consumer tech, etc.
purple_ferret 6y ago
Have you considered Raytheon, Huawei, the Turkish government, etc?
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  Huawei and the Turkish government very much require their employees to endorse specific political expressions. It's my understanding that Raytheon does not and I think they're an entirely reasonable company for a SWE to consider.
drak0n1c 6y ago
There is now even a job site for firms and employees that want to avoid toxic accusatory work environments: https://www.unwoke.hr/ https://www.unwoke.hr/
- ascorbic 6y ago
  The name of that site makes its partisanship pretty clear.
- scollet 6y ago
  I'll have to remember this site so I don't accidentally apply to any of these.
- scsilver 6y ago
  I find it hard to take someone seriously when they define themselves by what they are not. Its defining themselves by their opponent. If there was no opponent who would they be?
  - oh_sigh 6y ago
    Stamp collectors push their stamp collecting ideologies onto all the non-stamp collectors who just want to do engineering. Stamp collectors set up meetings and socially shame/outcast non stamp collectors who don't attend. Non stamp collectors get tired of this and say they are going to make a job board where they don't have to worry about stamp collectors if they take a job at a place. The answer is that there is nothing that unites these people except not being stamp collectors. If stamp collectors didn't exist, then no one would identify as non-stamp collectors.
  - a1369209993 6y ago
    > If there was no opponent who would they be? They wouldn't be; that's the point. If there was no problem there would be no reason to define oneself as anti-problem.
mplewis 6y ago
Joining a company with garbage politics to own the libs is truly a bespoke reactionary take.
- lliamander 6y ago
  How is that remotely "owning the libs"? Sounds like this person just wants to be free of them (or those that would try to get him fired). It's not an attack if people just don't want to be around you.
ryanisnan 6y ago
I hope you are only young and naive and will learn how short-sighted your opinion has been here.
- itsoktocry 6y ago
  What makes you so sure you're on the "right" side here?
  - newobj 6y ago
    You ever wonder why "politics at work" has flared up so much in the last 4 years? Have you completely lost sight of the timeline of events, or do you refuse to acknowledge it? Do you think it's a reaction to something? Or did it just spontaneously instigate itself one day? Just uppity libs getting bored? People are speaking up because people feel existentially threatened. Because people are being existentially threatened. This threat permeates peoples' lives. It doesn't get left at home when they "go" to the office. Asking them to turn it off at work is asking them to TURN IT OFF. And now we're in gaslighting territory. DARVO. You know it? We're in the phase now where the person under threat is the problem, the victim is being attacked for speaking up. Extinguishing politics at work is not some "rational man" exercise. "I just want to be free to ply my trade, dude." It's asking people to pause their very real own pain. It's asking them to deny it, deny its effects; to pretend it's not real. To think they're the problem, not the person who's threatened. This has never been about "ooh, should we, or should we not, discuss supply-side economics at work?" Broad segments of the population are under threat. That's not politics. That's just violence. Asking them to switch it off at work is just perpetuating and enabling the violence.
    - itsoktocry 6y ago
      >You ever wonder why "politics at work" has flared up so much in the last 4 years? Have you completely lost sight of the timeline of events, or do you refuse to acknowledge it? No, please, fill me in. What has changed in the last 4 years that has suddenly made people existentially threatened at work? It sounds like you're trying to implicate 'Donald Trump' as the start of all of these issues, and yet I'm not sure how the 2016 US election matters for me, in my country. Accusing people who want to only do their job at work as "violent"? Your comment is a perfect demonstration of why apolitical work environments will be appealing to a lot of people.
eli 6y ago
Sorry. Your work is political whether you choose to acknowledge that or not.
- drstewart 6y ago
  I notice that Industry Dive doesn't have a message supporting BLM on its website. Can you share why you've failed to support this social cause on your front page? Silence is violence, and Industry Dive has clearly taken the stance that it does not support BLM.
  - eli 6y ago
    This seems like a disingenuous question. If there was a big BLM banner on the front page would you instead be accusing me of "performative wokeness" right now?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
debaserab2 6y ago
What about when the engineering decisions you make today affect the politics of the future? Perhaps this doesn't apply to your area of engineering, but I do feel that it does affect a substantial chunk of the HN audience. How and what data you choose to collect about internet visitors is no longer a purely technical analysis, it now has broader implications that potentially involve political actors. You don't know who might have access to that data in the future or what they might do with it. We as engineers are the final implementer of these decisions. Should we really abdicate the ethical responsibilities tied to these decisions so easily?
eli 6y ago
I'm sure you will find lots of like minded people at Coinbase. And fewer and fewer people with differing opinions. Hmm.
tbatchelli 6y ago
I wish that we collectively had become more political in the past decade and stopped being apolitical cogwheels of machines that have, ultimately, used to undermine democracy. We all bear responsibility to what happens to this world, and we, collectively, are building systems that affect how people think and view the world, and hence how they act. We are part of this shared universe, and now more than ever, we are the ones creating it. That's of course coming from a point of view where Democracy is the only moral political system, and the understanding that democracy dies if not defended daily by being political. First very slowly, then very quickly. There are obviously other points of view, and dictatorships have their supporters.
spamizbad 6y ago
My personal view on this is that these "activist employees" are a predictable natural side-effect of any organization is: 1) Large 2) Has a culture that embraces optimism, reject cynicism, and has "Change the World!" type mission statements 3) Have overly-strict culture fit parameters. Political activists share a lot in common with founders: They are stubbornly optimistic (Why fight for social change if you think it's pointless or impossible?), they want to change the world, and they have interests in building movements/organizations. If your hiring process is designed to weed out candidates cynical enough to know your organizations mission statement is bullshit and recognize you're just here to make money not change the world - or pessimistic enough to think they'll never be part of positive change - don't be surprised if you find yourself with a team full of activists... just saying.
mtalantikite 6y ago
Financial systems are political, though. To not realize that while working on a product like Coinbase would be very short sighted.
flippinburgers 6y ago
Just wanted to add my voice and say that I agree with you fully: people walking around with the "everything is politics and politics is everything" chip on their shoulder are exhausting to have to be around. They typically come across as insufferably holier than thou and generally just make me not want to have to interact with them. Case in point the number of times I have had to listen to "you are on the wrong side of history" condescendingly being made as rebuke to something I have said dulls my interest in any further interaction. Besides, engineering problems and the solutions to those problems bring enough variety of opinion that you would think people would be able to fulfill whatever need this new religion of politics brings. Engineering is challenging and rewarding on several different levels.

eddof13 6y ago

I concur, I suspect the influx of applicants to coinbase based on this will be larger than the potential loss of people taking the severance

cft 6y ago
Certainly. If I was looking for a job, I would rank it very high because of this.
- xoxoy 6y ago
  perhaps take a step back and realize that the HN demographic of young white males is exactly the type that would have the least issue with this policy...
  - makuto 6y ago
    Fight racism and stereotypes with more racism and stereotypes, that'll work.
    - whymauri 6y ago
      Where is the racism in the GP comment?
      - makuto 6y ago
        Assuming young white males think the same thing. They had to bring age, race, and sex in to decide what they assume the political beliefs are of the majority of the site.
        dirtyoldmick 6y ago
        And by racist you mean people that don't agree with your political worldview.
      - camdenlock 6y ago
        “all young black males are like this” <- is this racist? “all young white males are like this” <- is this racist?
        whymauri 6y ago
        Neither of these are what the poster was saying. If you want to pursue a victimhood complex, I'll let you be.
        a1369209993 6y ago
        Nitpick: xoxoy's claim was "most young white males are like this", not "all".
      - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
        When someone tells us what they think, and we dismiss it by saying that's exactly what someone of their race would be expected to think, that's racism in one of its worst manifestations.
- cft 6y ago
  See how toxic the politically active (in the workplace) employees are: i am getting downvoted simply for saying that I would choose an apolitical company if I was looking for a job...
JeremyBanks 6y ago
I'm sure there will be many applicants, but they'll all be sociopaths. Whatever shreds of decency may have once existed at that company, they're making sure to eliminate. I have normally been very against political talk at work, but this is not a normal moment. Choosing to pretend you can be neutral in this environment is something between incompetence, insanity, and evil. If you choose to join Coinbase now, expect to be "mysteriously" rejected for a lot of jobs in the future.
- makuto 6y ago
  I think the original blog post made a very important point: We may all agree that there are issues, but there is a lot of disagreement in how problems should be solved. For example, some think that you should solve problems with the system, through elections, bills, etc., while others think a violent revolution and communism is the only way forward. Your position regarding thinking everyone who isn't political at work is naive or evil is not helping the problem. This is only alienating people who already find such aggressive and exaggerated statements wrong.
- seneca 6y ago
  > I'm sure there will be many applicants, but they'll all be sociopaths. This is the exact kind of tone Coinbase is ejecting from their company. You thinking this is the wrong move is exactly the point. People don't want to work around people who call them "sociopaths" over not wanting to debate at work.
- spollo 6y ago
  I don't disagree with your underlying feeling here, that is to say I'm on your side of the fence. But don't you think it's a bit extreme to label people sociopaths, insane, evil, incompetent, for expressing their desire to work in a place where they can focus on their craft? Your last sentence is actually really threatening as well. I can think of many reasons people might find this appealing. They may be incredibly politically engaged in their personal life and want work to be a place of focus. They might disagree with the political solutions that their coworkers favour, which is totally okay! But it would be extremely draining for that person. Please, start with the best interpretation of people rather than labelling broad swaths of people as wicked and mentally ill. This is a great opportunity for discussion!

Barrin92 6y ago

>All I want is to just focus on engineering and ship features/improvements. Yeah if there wasn't the pesky world around all the engineering and we could all just stare at our stock options while we sit in our gentrified neighbourhoods and pretend the world doesn't exist. You can ignore politics but politics doesn't ignore you. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil is an unworthy attitude for a democratic citizen. The etymology for the word 'idiot' comes from 'idios', meaning 'one's own', in ancient Greece signifying a person who is only concerned with their private interest, rather than living an active life and participating in civic affairs. To be an idiot was to be withdrawn, isolated and selfish, to not participate in the public, political life of the state. Given how much people nowadays love to invoke the Greeks and our ancient Western traditions, maybe it's time to remind everyone of the meaning of that word again. http://faculty.washington.edu/rsoder/EDUC305/305parkeridiocy.pdf http://faculty.washington.edu/rsoder/EDUC305/305parkeridiocy...

buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
GP never said to ignore politics. You are the one that brought that up. They said to leave them out of the office. There is plenty of time for politics before and after work. Bringing your politics in to work just makes for an uncomfortable work environment for you co-workers.
- Barrin92 6y ago
  'the office' or the firm today, is for better or worse our primary means by which we can exercise influence. That is why tech workers are bringing politics into the firm in the first place, because they realise, rightly, that it is one of the most potent channels to actually exercise change, and that's why so many people want to keep politics out of it. The workplace is the one space where your political opponent can't simply escape from politics, and has to be confronted with your views, which is after all the actual point of political life. People realise that rather than the local town hall, the large internet platforms, their workplace, and their social media feed have become the public space of ideas. That's why the free speech debate focuses so much on internet platforms, and why 'it's privately owned' has long lost meaning to anyone in the debate. Keeping politics 'out of the workplace', at least in our environment today, is basically to say to keep politics out, period. It's not the apolitical position, it is the 'idiotic' position because it intents to keep politics out of the one place that actually matters the most in this day and age.

lwansbrough 6y ago

A lot of harm has been done by humans “just doing their job.” The world needs people who are willing to stand against those who take no interest in weighing the morality of their work. For example, AGI will be built either by accident or intentionally by sociopaths at Google, etc. All decisions at a certain scale are inevitably political, and choosing to ignore the politics in those contexts is in itself a political position.

whymauri 6y ago
>A lot of harm has been done by humans “just doing their job.” For a deeper dive on this, look at Arendt's "Report on the Banality of Evil."
luckylion 6y ago
> A lot of harm has been done by humans “just doing their job.” I'd say most harm was done by humans who did not just do their job, but thought they knew how everyone else has to do their job, live their lives etc, by political activists. You might think of activism only as what those do that you're politically aligned with. What are those on the opposite side who work just as hard to bring about their ideas of society? What serves the public better, a utility company that "just does its job", or a utility company that snoops around people's garbage, identifies dissenters and then stops supplying water to them (because otherwise you'd be aiding the enemy)?
rjkennedy98 6y ago
Yes, humans have created harm "just doing their job", such as purposefully making addictive apps like youtube or social media sites like Facebook that make people depressed, or gathering vast amounts of personal data for targeted advertising. Except this has nothing to do with that. It has do with a group of people that insist that everyone get behind their pet cause and use their job to promote whatever activist belief they have - and negatively affect everyone else who may not agree with them. I'd stand behind anyone who wants to protest their companies business model - like the executive at Amazon who protested the treatment of a union organizer (which was racist and absolutely disgusting). I'm not going to get behind the culture of activism which has nothing to do with civil disobedience.

hardwaregeek 6y ago

I think each side needs to have sympathy for each other. I totally understand not wanting to hear about politics. I'd love for the world to be boring enough that work could stay work. But on the flip side, a lot of people have skin in the game, so to speak, and can't disentangle politics from their life. Being able to ignore politics right now is a very privileged, very lucky position. I have no doubt that if you surveyed various politically active employees, they'd love it if they didn't have to think about politics. Unfortunately that's not their decision.

ThrowawayR2 6y ago
People can be as politically active as they want, on their own time and on their own dime. Ironically, the people preaching activism in the workplace would be livid if a religious believer proselytized their faith at the workplace, despite the believer having as strong a belief in their ideas as the activists do in theirs. Quite the double standard.
- makuto 6y ago
  This comparison resonated with me especially once I've learned how "deep" political views are, similar to religious views. Jonathan Haidt's "The Righteous Mind" is about this. Preaching politics in the workplace will scratch the same nerves that preaching religion will - deeply held beliefs that can cause strong reactions to people who agree or disagree with them.
- Apocryphon 6y ago
  Perhaps religious believers should be free to proselytize their faith at work. It might not be the most effective venue to do it at, but why should they be forbidden from following their conscience?
- hardwaregeek 6y ago
  Well, in fairness, if someone's religion had reliable, study backed evidence that the world was going to face a catastrophic climate based future, I'd probably be fine with them proselytizing in the workplace. I don't begrudge the dislike of workplace politics—again, I'd love to not talk about this. But for some groups, i.e. black Americans, it may not seem like a choice of whether they can be political. Indeed I'm a little surprised more Asians in tech aren't concerned at the president's rhetoric about the "China virus". Remember, it's within living memory that the US government rounded up Asian Americans and put them into internment camps.

trhway 6y ago

'activist', toxic, cancerous ... Slapping these terms onto the people around understandably takes time and effort away from focusing on engineering and shipping features.

gamblor956 6y ago

"Activist" is being used to describe an extremely broad range of employees. It's one thing for an employee to be activist within the company about new (or even existing) features/products/etc, because that is part of the company's mission and business ops and its the kind of feedback a company should get before it introduces a potentially controversial product/feature to the market, or about problematic products/features that should be retired. Otherwise you end up with companies like Palantir, or unethical business models based on loot boxes and youth gambling. It's another thing for an employee to take external politics that aren't directly or indirectly related to the company's business, and try to make the company and other employees take a stand on those political issues. Generally, the only time this is appropriate is if, for example, those political issues directly affect a large segment of the customer base and taking a position is also a deliberate act of marketing. (See, e.g., Patagonia, Nike and even Hobby Lobby, but contrast with Chikfila.) Otherwise, you just end up alienating a large portion of your employees and customers to the overall detriment of the business.

newobj 6y ago

Sorry, do you want an ideologically inclusive environment, as alluded to in the article, or an anideological environment?

mediaguilt 6y ago

Weird point of view when most tech and engineering is used to generate political instability, misinformation and vote suppression. In the case of coinbase I wouldn’t be surprise if the « amazing engineering » is mostly used for tax evasion or to by-pass politic finance laws, corruption laws etc...

makuto 6y ago
That's a pretty jaded view of the world. Most tech I would guess goes towards increasing value in the company: improving their offerings, making new technology which solves problems for people/companies, etc. Very few people have the time and money to fund tech and engineering purely to influence elections. Most money coming in to tech is going to be from customers and investors, the latter being in interest of making money off of the business getting more customers. Companies like Cambridge Analytica are a very very minute minority compared to the swaths of B2B, consumer tech, etc.

purple_ferret 6y ago

Have you considered Raytheon, Huawei, the Turkish government, etc?

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
Huawei and the Turkish government very much require their employees to endorse specific political expressions. It's my understanding that Raytheon does not and I think they're an entirely reasonable company for a SWE to consider.

drak0n1c 6y ago

There is now even a job site for firms and employees that want to avoid toxic accusatory work environments: https://www.unwoke.hr/ https://www.unwoke.hr/

ascorbic 6y ago
The name of that site makes its partisanship pretty clear.
scollet 6y ago
I'll have to remember this site so I don't accidentally apply to any of these.
scsilver 6y ago
I find it hard to take someone seriously when they define themselves by what they are not. Its defining themselves by their opponent. If there was no opponent who would they be?
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  Stamp collectors push their stamp collecting ideologies onto all the non-stamp collectors who just want to do engineering. Stamp collectors set up meetings and socially shame/outcast non stamp collectors who don't attend. Non stamp collectors get tired of this and say they are going to make a job board where they don't have to worry about stamp collectors if they take a job at a place. The answer is that there is nothing that unites these people except not being stamp collectors. If stamp collectors didn't exist, then no one would identify as non-stamp collectors.
- a1369209993 6y ago
  > If there was no opponent who would they be? They wouldn't be; that's the point. If there was no problem there would be no reason to define oneself as anti-problem.

mplewis 6y ago

Joining a company with garbage politics to own the libs is truly a bespoke reactionary take.

lliamander 6y ago
How is that remotely "owning the libs"? Sounds like this person just wants to be free of them (or those that would try to get him fired). It's not an attack if people just don't want to be around you.

ryanisnan 6y ago

I hope you are only young and naive and will learn how short-sighted your opinion has been here.

itsoktocry 6y ago
What makes you so sure you're on the "right" side here?
- newobj 6y ago
  You ever wonder why "politics at work" has flared up so much in the last 4 years? Have you completely lost sight of the timeline of events, or do you refuse to acknowledge it? Do you think it's a reaction to something? Or did it just spontaneously instigate itself one day? Just uppity libs getting bored? People are speaking up because people feel existentially threatened. Because people are being existentially threatened. This threat permeates peoples' lives. It doesn't get left at home when they "go" to the office. Asking them to turn it off at work is asking them to TURN IT OFF. And now we're in gaslighting territory. DARVO. You know it? We're in the phase now where the person under threat is the problem, the victim is being attacked for speaking up. Extinguishing politics at work is not some "rational man" exercise. "I just want to be free to ply my trade, dude." It's asking people to pause their very real own pain. It's asking them to deny it, deny its effects; to pretend it's not real. To think they're the problem, not the person who's threatened. This has never been about "ooh, should we, or should we not, discuss supply-side economics at work?" Broad segments of the population are under threat. That's not politics. That's just violence. Asking them to switch it off at work is just perpetuating and enabling the violence.
  - itsoktocry 6y ago
    >You ever wonder why "politics at work" has flared up so much in the last 4 years? Have you completely lost sight of the timeline of events, or do you refuse to acknowledge it? No, please, fill me in. What has changed in the last 4 years that has suddenly made people existentially threatened at work? It sounds like you're trying to implicate 'Donald Trump' as the start of all of these issues, and yet I'm not sure how the 2016 US election matters for me, in my country. Accusing people who want to only do their job at work as "violent"? Your comment is a perfect demonstration of why apolitical work environments will be appealing to a lot of people.

eli 6y ago

Sorry. Your work is political whether you choose to acknowledge that or not.

drstewart 6y ago
I notice that Industry Dive doesn't have a message supporting BLM on its website. Can you share why you've failed to support this social cause on your front page? Silence is violence, and Industry Dive has clearly taken the stance that it does not support BLM.
- eli 6y ago
  This seems like a disingenuous question. If there was a big BLM banner on the front page would you instead be accusing me of "performative wokeness" right now?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

debaserab2 6y ago

What about when the engineering decisions you make today affect the politics of the future? Perhaps this doesn't apply to your area of engineering, but I do feel that it does affect a substantial chunk of the HN audience. How and what data you choose to collect about internet visitors is no longer a purely technical analysis, it now has broader implications that potentially involve political actors. You don't know who might have access to that data in the future or what they might do with it. We as engineers are the final implementer of these decisions. Should we really abdicate the ethical responsibilities tied to these decisions so easily?

eli 6y ago

I'm sure you will find lots of like minded people at Coinbase. And fewer and fewer people with differing opinions. Hmm.

tbatchelli 6y ago

I wish that we collectively had become more political in the past decade and stopped being apolitical cogwheels of machines that have, ultimately, used to undermine democracy. We all bear responsibility to what happens to this world, and we, collectively, are building systems that affect how people think and view the world, and hence how they act. We are part of this shared universe, and now more than ever, we are the ones creating it. That's of course coming from a point of view where Democracy is the only moral political system, and the understanding that democracy dies if not defended daily by being political. First very slowly, then very quickly. There are obviously other points of view, and dictatorships have their supporters.

spamizbad 6y ago

My personal view on this is that these "activist employees" are a predictable natural side-effect of any organization is: 1) Large 2) Has a culture that embraces optimism, reject cynicism, and has "Change the World!" type mission statements 3) Have overly-strict culture fit parameters. Political activists share a lot in common with founders: They are stubbornly optimistic (Why fight for social change if you think it's pointless or impossible?), they want to change the world, and they have interests in building movements/organizations. If your hiring process is designed to weed out candidates cynical enough to know your organizations mission statement is bullshit and recognize you're just here to make money not change the world - or pessimistic enough to think they'll never be part of positive change - don't be surprised if you find yourself with a team full of activists... just saying.

mtalantikite 6y ago

Financial systems are political, though. To not realize that while working on a product like Coinbase would be very short sighted.

flippinburgers 6y ago

Just wanted to add my voice and say that I agree with you fully: people walking around with the "everything is politics and politics is everything" chip on their shoulder are exhausting to have to be around. They typically come across as insufferably holier than thou and generally just make me not want to have to interact with them. Case in point the number of times I have had to listen to "you are on the wrong side of history" condescendingly being made as rebuke to something I have said dulls my interest in any further interaction. Besides, engineering problems and the solutions to those problems bring enough variety of opinion that you would think people would be able to fulfill whatever need this new religion of politics brings. Engineering is challenging and rewarding on several different levels.