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‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

• throwaway2048 6y ago
  This a great example of how being against "politics" is really just upholding the (garbage) status quo.
  • cwmma 6y ago
    The status quo tends to be pretty good for the people who want a safe space from politics.
• siberianbear 6y ago
  Posting a link to Coinbase's peremptory rebuttal seems apropos. https://blog.coinbase.com/upcoming-story-about-coinbase-2012afc25d27 https://blog.coinbase.com/upcoming-story-about-coinbase-2012...
  • jonsno56 6y ago
    > In general, we should expect more, not less, media coverage (both positive and negative) as we grow. I’m sorry you’ll have to deal with these types of questions and comments again — I know it’s frustrating and distracting. Let’s keep focused on building an amazing company together. Acknowledges that bigger companies deserve more scrutiny. Then proceeds to be immature by implying that said scrutiny is merely frustrating and not worthy of any further internal dialogue. Also, why isn’t this letter signed? It doesn’t exactly read like a corporate memo as it’s rather opinionated and sounds like one person wrote it. Is the CEO too chicken shit to put his name here?
  • frewsxcv 6y ago
    "rebuttal" is giving them way too much credit
  • sonotathrowaway 6y ago
    > As Brian shared with the ColorBlock ERG this morning, we don’t care what The New York Times thinks. The most important thing we care about is you, our employees, and what you think. (As long as you’re of the correct skin tone and political ideology)
    • NelsonMinar 6y ago
      and as long as you don't have any political thoughts. don't want those.
      • 2-tpg 6y ago
        You can have political thoughts. But these employees demanded in tears that upper management break their silence on an on-going case (which they decided was due to skin color, racism, and police violence/murder, when these interpretations are far from clear). So what about the "political" thoughts, that said that Floyd was a career criminal unworthy of sainthood or role modeling, dying from a self-inflicted fentanyl overdose, and resisting arrest (where the other people in the car somehow received fair treatment, despite their skin color). It was gross to hear company's talk of police murder and police racism, and their devastation of the passing of someone they don't know, and wouldn't have known if they were Latin or Asian or Indian or basically any other minority.
        • sfkdjf9j3j 6y ago
          As the article says in the second paragraph, the employees that they spoke to left in 2018 and 2019, so this response is irrelevant. I personally find it reprehensible and deliberately lacking context as well but you are entitled to your opinion.
          • 2-tpg 6y ago
            The blog post about leaving politics at the door was in response to the death of Floyd and some employees upset about their perceived "silence" of upper management, where more woke companies did speak up. So it's relevant and provides context to that policy of focusing on company mission, instead of making statements about racial inequality, police brutality, and unfair societies. You are entitled to political thoughts. If you can handle it, you are even allowed to share them with colleagues. But don't get upset if others have different political thoughts. And certainly not get upset enough to accuse them of racism.
• an_opabinia 6y ago
  > [Brian Armstrong] attributed [bad stuff] to being “on the spectrum,” according to a recording of the event. Ah, the ol’ James Damore defense.
  • AlanYx 6y ago
    There's nothing in the article alleging that Brian Armstrong attributed "bad stuff" to being on the autistic spectrum. The only allegation in the article is that Brian Armstrong did not speak or make decisions at meetings, and attributed this to being on the spectrum. The full quote is: >"Mr. Armstrong rarely spoke or made decisions in meetings, the current and former employees said, leaving them uncertain about his opinions. In a staff meeting this summer, he said he knew his style made many employees uncomfortable and attributed it to being "on the spectrum,” according to a recording of the event." There's nothing wrong or "bad" about managers who don't speak and make quick decisions at meetings. It's just a management style, and it's disingenuous IMHO to spin it as some kind of bad behaviour.
    • an_opabinia 6y ago
      Obviously they were talking about decisions regarding the treatment and complaints of black employees. I mean honestly what is there to think about? What are the other stakeholders he’d need to consult, racists? What other considerations, what is the other side, what downside is there about being against harassment? Every educated person could issue a quick decision: reprimand the people harassing your black employees! So surely you can see why it makes “the inability to quickly condemn and reprimand harassers” is bad. He adopted some really fucking stupid, untested, non mainstream cultural policy. Of course there are going to be consequences. Am I the only person who sees he’s bad at this job? And that it is a complete and utter insult to people with actual social disabilities when he blames “being on the spectrum” for being bad at his job?
      • 2-tpg 6y ago
        > And that it is a complete and utter insult to people with actual social disabilities when he blames “being on the spectrum” for being bad at his job? That cuts both ways. Discrimination on neuro-diversity is also bad. > And that it is a complete and utter insult to people with actual problems with racism when she blames “being Black” for missing a promotion? The autism-jab was in bad faith, and it worked on you. You turned his inability/carefulness not to make split decisions into a poor-faith excuse for being a racist tech bro oblivious to the struggles of others.
• slg 6y ago
  This is in the wake of Coinbase decision to be a "mission focused company" and prevent their employees from speaking out about political issues at the workplace. It shows the dangers of being apolitical when saying "Blank employees should feel safe and welcome at their job" is apparently still a political statement.
  • jonsno56 6y ago
    It seems “corporations are people too” but employees aren’t
  • briane80 6y ago
    >Blank employees should feel safe and welcome at their job If only that's what it was about and not one group trying to force woke politics into the workplace.
    • slg 6y ago
      This is exactly my point. What in this article is "woke politics"? It is all just basic "don't be racist" problems. When that is labeled as "woke politics" and you can't talk politics, we have a problem.
      • briane80 6y ago
        If you read the rebuttal Coinbase did 3 investigations, 2 of them by external reviewers (with the doucmentation made available to the nytimes) who found no evidence in the complaints. This is a hatchet job by the woke nytimes using identity politcs to cow a company who refused to kneel.
        • Pils 6y ago
          From the article: > Ms. Butler said she was not told how to make an official complaint; Ms. Sawyerr said she never spoke to an investigator and was not informed of the findings “Absence of evidence” etc. etc.
        • 6y ago
• chandra381 6y ago
  > One Black employee said her manager suggested in front of colleagues that she was dealing drugs and carrying a gun, trading on racist stereotypes. Another said a co-worker at a recruiting meeting broadly described Black employees as less capable. Still another said managers spoke down to her and her Black colleagues, adding that they were passed over for promotions in favor of less experienced white employees. The accumulation of incidents, they said, led to the wave of departures. Wow.
  • briane80 6y ago
    I know it's almost unbelievable! But it's in the nytimes so definitely happened.
    • refulgentis 6y ago
      You're right, just another set of race-obsessed liars victimized by the Lyin' New York Times repeating their fake accusations!
  • cbthrow91 6y ago
    I find this hard to imagine without someone getting reprimanded. Not disbelieving the person's quote, but not accepting it as fact either. Seems like it would be easy to get corroborating witnesses for a situation that inappropriate. The only group I've seen it be permissible to make stereotyped observations about in the last decade in an SF tech office is european/indian/chinese workers. FWIW I don't think that's okay either; we should be striving to make an inclusive workspace for everyone.
    • SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      A lot of people traffic in blatant stereotypes in the guise of some kind of positive statement, which makes reprimands less likely. I once had a speaker tell us - in a diversity seminar! - about specific racial groups he thinks are too timid to speak up for themselves.
      • 6y ago
• demarq 6y ago
  > I know it’s frustrating and distracting. Let’s keep focused on building an amazing company together. One would hope an amazing company that doesn't cover it's ass when it turns out the executive couldn't give a hoot about the treatment of black people and now everyone knows
  • briane80 6y ago
    Yeah you better kneel whitey or you're definitely a racist.
    • NelsonMinar 6y ago
      Congratulations on posting the first openly inflammatory racist language.
      • briane80 6y ago
        Don't be silly, you can't be racist to white people.
    • dang 6y ago
      Regardless of where one is on the underlying issue, flamebait like this is beyond the pale. You've been posting a lot of it—please stop. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
  • polartx 6y ago
    One could argue that it would be unethical to use your investors’ money as a political (or even idealogical) bullhorn. Notwithstanding, such a position places zero restrictions on doing the same with your own money..but corporations make for more interesting headlines than the individuals that run them.
    • mempko 6y ago
      The fact that there are investors in the first place is completely because of politics. Other politics might have different ownership models.
• scottlocklin 6y ago
  This is a ridiculous political hatchet job.
• Chris2048 6y ago
  > Still another said managers spoke down to her and her Black colleagues, adding that they were passed over for promotions in favor of less experienced white employees I hate this kind of sloppy writing. who added that, the colleague or the manager? EDIT: Downvoted. I guess clarity in the NYT isn't allowed to be questioned..
  • mazamats 6y ago
    It reads fine to me, it’s obviously the employee mentioned in the beginning of the paragraph “Still another”
    • Chris2048 6y ago
      It could be the manager speaking down to them, in in the course of that, suggesting other (black) employees had been passed for promotion.
• snicksnak 6y ago
  This piece paints coinbase as a company with racist tendencies and a hostile place to work for black people. Based on the evidence or lack there of provided the article and after reading coinbase's rebuttal, I must say this NYT piece feels like an attempt to bully coinbase/armstrong into reverting its/his stance on engagement in issues unrelated to coinbase core mission and into submission to the cause.
  • notsureaboutpg 6y ago
    That's exactly what it is and sensible people know but are too afraid to tell their colleagues / friends. Say what you will but this is true.
  • bellevue 6y ago
    Nice victim mentality for a company with clear and blatant evidence of belittling black employees...
  • chance_state 6y ago
    Would the NYT just go off and... write an ideological hit piece? Impossible!
• NelsonMinar 6y ago
  11 of then ~20 Black employees by early 2019* had complained to HR about racism. That's over half! And that's only the people with the fortitude or optimism to talk to HR (HR is notoriously useless at many companies). That's a complete disaster. 15 of that 20 quit! Why wasn't that treated as an emergency? *At the end the article says at the end of 2019 there's 31 Black employees of 1000. At the beginning of the article about the beginning of 2019 it's about 20 of 600 before 15 Black employees quit.
  • sonotathrowaway 6y ago
    It was treated as a disaster - they labeled the leavers as “political” and announced they instituted policies to prevent future “political” employees.
    • briane80 6y ago
      Ah more power to them. No sane person wants political activists in your company, spreading identity politics and wokism.
    • deleted 6y ago
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    • bra-ket 6y ago
      It's a private company, they can do whatever they want as long as it doesn't violate the law. And if there is a legal case against them the accuser has the burden of proof and due process. All I see from this article is a bunch of hearsay & rumors. It looks like a smear campaign to get some quick 'reparations' by riding a popular trend. We have this thing in the US called presumption of innocence, but apparently in case of racism accusations you're guilty as soon as proclaimed guilty by the media. Coinbase legal team should definitely sue NYT and this 'team' of accusers for libel & slander. The hysteria is getting ridiculous.
      • enumjorge 6y ago
        Neither the parent nor the GP said anything about Coinbase violating laws. I’m not sure how the legality of their actions is relevant to the discussion. I don’t think employees recounting their personal experiences while at the company is rumors or hearsay. And the article mentioned many of them had to sign an NDA in exchange for a severance package so I don’t think “reparations” are the goal.
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• eznzt 6y ago
  I hope Coinbase does not bend the knee. I don't like the idea of crypto too much, but it should be for everybody.
  • t0astbread 6y ago
    I'm not sure I understood correctly - wouldn't removing discrimination or other hurdles for marginalized groups in your organization be more "for everybody"?
    • briane80 6y ago
      There was no evidence of discrimination after 3 investiagtions. 2 done by external auditors. This isn't about discrimination it's about a group of woke activists trying to sieze power for themselves.
  • pjc50 6y ago
    .. including black employees?
• RestlessMind 6y ago
  From Coinbase's preemptive rebuttal[1]: "we hired an external consultant in August of this year who specializes in data science and diversity and inclusion to cull through all of our historic data related to diversity ... and conduct a high volume of interviews with employees representing all background, functions, and tenures to understand the employee experience. The independent investigation concluded that there was no evidence of structural bias in hiring, promotions or performance evaluations." "All of those complaints were thoroughly investigated, one through an internal investigation and two by separate third-party investigators, all of whom found no evidence of wrongdoing and concluded the claims were unsubstantiated. We have shared this information with the reporter." So external investigators didn't find anything wrong and the data was shared with the NYT reporter. What else can they do if they are really innocent? [1] https://blog.coinbase.com/upcoming-story-about-coinbase-2012afc25d27 https://blog.coinbase.com/upcoming-story-about-coinbase-2012...
  • zpeti 6y ago
    Nothing, they refused to participate in valley politics and are now the enemy. They can do nothing. In the eyes of NYT reporters and similar, they are evil.
  • tptacek 6y ago
    Did they disclose who the "external investigators" are? It matters. There are firms you can hire to rubber stamp a conclusion and others who with serious reputations.
  • pvg 6y ago
    The external investigators were hired and paid for by Coinbase and we know nothing about the details of their findings (or who they even were) other than that single mention in the company's own blog post. There's no mention in the post about 'data' shared with the NYT, they just told them the investigations cleared them. Here's NYT's version: Ms. Milosevich said Coinbase hired a consultant over the summer who did interviews and looked at the company’s history, and found “no evidence of structural bias.” “Employees reported a strong culture, fair employee treatment, high employee satisfaction and high energy for belonging, inclusion and diversity,” she said. Managers in the customer support team, where many of the Black employees work, wrote their own report last month.
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• threevox 6y ago
  Ah yes, quality reporting on the most important issues facing our society today
• xoxoy 6y ago
  this seems like it’s also a struggle between different teams at the same company. Customer Service teams are very often looked down upon as “less than” other teams like engineering, and this article states that a disproportionate number of the black employees were on that team.
  • polartx 6y ago
    Customer Service is often regarded in companies like insurance is regarded by most people—you gotta have it, in a perfect world you’d never need it, and very few people brag about how much they pay for it. That’s why Customer Service isn’t treated like the Rock Stars that Sales or Engineering is treated like in a company. It also tends to have the most natural turnover, and tends to be the lesser skilled positions in a software company (not often requiring specializations, like developers).
    • xoxoy 6y ago
      yeah it’s unfortunate even at a finance startup that CX is so disregarded. Coinbase doesn’t exactly have a great CX reputation eg lots of horror stories plus it seems to go down every time there’s a big move up or down.
      • cbthrow91 6y ago
        CX folks at CB are doing God's work. Nothing but respect for them on my eng team at CB. At past companies I had to do a lot more legwork to dive into an issue; our CX folks are incredibly technical and have great instincts on identifying, grouping, and triaging issues as well as providing just the right amount of context.
        • xoxoy 6y ago
          I’m speaking from the perspective of the customer. They might be top knotch but if it’s understaffed and underesourced then no one can be set up for success when they have to face the wrath of a million customers when the site goes down on the slightest uptick in volume due to a large move.
• vmception 6y ago
  I was willing to support the general message Brian Armstrong put out, but with the added context and chronology I cannot. I would say that this kind of mission statement can only work if done at the beginning, as reacting in response to the work environment described by their employees was doomed for failure. I know many people like Brian Armstrong, and the investors. They are all cut from a similar cloth and they honestly have no clue how to react. They don't know how to get women on a panel, they don't know how to get qualified people of color in positions to change things. They are just told what they did wrong and just shut themselves off from it. The very people with power to change anything get marginalized themselves. And yes, some - not all - of them actually are not interested in inclusion or really are racist and sexist. But for the former, there is room to empathize with these kind of people to steer their energy in more productive ways.
  • RestlessMind 6y ago
    From Coinbase's "About us"[1] > They don't know how to get women on a panel 2 out of 7 members of the exec team are women. > they don't know hot to get qualified people of color in positions to change things 4 out of 7 members of the exec team have last names of Choi, Chatterjee, Grewal, Gupta. It's almost as if you have strong biases (or delusions) and didn't even do a basic fact check before making bold claims against Coinbase. [1] https://www.coinbase.com/about https://www.coinbase.com/about
    • vmception 6y ago
      Yeah my point was about empathizing with people being expected to make statement after statement, instead of vilifying them when they stop jumping when people say jump. Aside from the topic sentence of that paragraph it was no longer about Coinbase. I’m saying we can all address this better.
    • TACIXAT 6y ago
      Where is the Hispanic and Black representation? I see 3/15 people on that page being women, not a very strong point for a group that is 50% of the population. This is the standard SV makeup. Do a random sample of any large tech company and this is the team you’d get. This tells me they’re not doing anything different.
• renewiltord 6y ago
  It's the NYT. These guys told us there was WMD evidence in Iraq. Complete bullshittery.
• 9HZZRfNlpR 6y ago
  When minorities get hired just because companies want to show they are doing their part, doesn't it make sense people hired because of their skin color have harder times to get promotions?
  • aparsons 6y ago
    You will get downvoted because HN reflects SV groupthink, but you are absolutely correct. This is a well-studied phenomenon analogous to the Peter principle, and has been observed in workplaces (as you described) and schools (black students who get in to meet an arbitrary target struggle more and have a worse college experience). We are doing these people a disservice. Even in the most “socially forward thinking” companies like Google, this sentiment prevails. The loudest non-black advocates for black hiring are privately the owners of the strongest fences. But when its time to virtue-signal, they’re at the front of the line. Hire a black employee directly into their team in eng/sales? No thanks - but they’ll gladly advocate for the customer service, recruitment and “diversity officer” roles to go to a black individual. Direct result of the push to hire disproportionately many black people which has led to them having a worse experience at these jobs as the psyche of existing employees is they’re automatically a lower bar hire (very unfair to these people!). Good job big tech - you have once again turned a target into a measure and completely missed the point. Except now the people you supposedly tried to help are hurt the most. Look at Coinbase - the exec team is largely women and minorities, yet NYT takes every opportunity to point out the percent of black employees (with no context on the number in the hiring funnel and at target colleges) as if CB has an obligation to hit a certain number. Disclosure: I worked at Coinbase for a brief period. Ready for the downvotes, but look around at those in your team and within yourself, and ask yourself if there is anything untrue in what I said before hitting that button.
    • snypher 6y ago
      Please don't bother replying to something you know will be flagged, as now we have no context for your comments.
      • aparsons 6y ago
• ksherlock 6y ago
  Sure, but do they use a "master" branch in their git repo?
  • aparsons 6y ago
    When they change it to main, the employees will return /s
  • dang 6y ago
    "Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• goatinaboat 6y ago
  “Most people of color working in tech know that there’s a diversity problem,” Interesting. Are Asians or Indians not “people” or “of color” in this worldview?
  • ankushnarula 6y ago
    In the US, being "marginalized" means you are part of a cultural minority group that is politically useful to political corporatists - typically of the cultural coalition party.
  • Traubenfuchs 6y ago
    Newspeak makes a distinction between "poc" and "non black poc"
    • tptacek 6y ago
      It's not "newspeak" to suggest that Black people are treated differently than Asian people; in fact, it would be more surprising to hear that they aren't, since the two groups of people have wildly different histories in the United States.
      • xvector 6y ago
        And both face heavy discrimination and racism outside of the tech bubble of Silicon Valley, both historically and in the present day. To exclude Asians from the definition of POC is to disempower us because you consider one POC “more important” than another. Indeed, we see this mentality in programs like affirmative action in which the suffering of Asian children is seen as an acceptable sacrifice for uplifting other minorities.
      • Traubenfuchs 6y ago
        It is quite clearly newspeak: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak#:~:text=Newspeak%20is%20the%20fictional%20language,1949)%2C%20by%20George%20Orwell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak#:~:text=Newspeak%20is.... Also, it is used in a divisive, racist fashion by places like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/BlackPeopleTwitter/comments/gumxuy/what_is_bpt_country_club_and_how_do_i_get/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BlackPeopleTwitter/comments/gumxuy/...
• 2-tpg 6y ago
  I do not give a hoot about skin color. MLK taught me to judge people not by the color of their skin. If I were to tone down my speech, because I focus on the color of the skin of my audience, I would feel bad and awkward: "these people deserve coddling due to their skin color" ranks close to "these people deserve scorn due to their skin color". Accusing others of racism is a serious faux-pas. It is also delusional to think someone talking down to you, is caused by the color of your skin, and not, maybe, because you deserved a talking down to, or the person is just an asshole, and talks down to everyone. Saying someone else got a promotion, because their white skin, despite being lower skilled than you, is a horrible thing to say, and a horrible thing to believe. It would be vile distracting paralyzing racism, instead of an opportunity to reflect and grow. If racial equality activists make you feel that way, judge others on the color of their skin, and paint decision-making of white people that way, then this activism is not doing you any favors. It is not making you stronger. It is making you a victim. It sours inter-racial relationships. If a manager really says something along the lines of "watch out for her, she is dealing crack in the ghetto, and secretly carries a gun everywhere." then that manager is fired everywhere in the world, and the Black employee is compensated for this evil. No company wants to keep such managers around. No need to invoke tricks like paying off an external investigator. That manager is gone. Yet, that manager is still around. No complaint was filed. No colleague stepped up. So what really happened? A joke gone wrong? Being above racism led to problems with an employee for who being black and female is the major two traits of their group/social media identity, and now they can't help but relate every interaction, to whites hating their skin color, or the patriarchy keeping them down? Racism is gross, but this "I am being discriminated against by these elite white tech bros, because they notice my skin every day, promoting their dumb jocks over me, again due to the color of my skin, and nobody is willing to stop that" is even grosser. It is sexist, slanderous, weak, prejudiced, generalizing, blameful, divisive, and racist. The taboo-ness of the topic is wielded as an effective weapon by activists. They realized early on what the power of calling someone's employer, conference organizers, or hinting at company racism can do to stifle opposing views and criticism, and the economic damage they can inflict on a brand. Even if totally out of line and false, such as accusing white business owners of cultural appropriation by selling Asian food, can get such a business cancelled, because people are afraid to be tarred and feathered by association. Socially ostracized without ever a court to fairly validate if you really furthered (illegal!) racism. Portrayed by international media as some sort of neo-Nazi libertarian hellscape momcorp, without ever a court or independent investigation finding anything of real substance. Acquitted by a judge, yet constantly called a murderous racist, because you killed a black-skinned person at a traffic stop. So what happens if you loudly overreact to perceived company racism? You start to promote diversity and inclusion programs. You start asking applicants for their skin color or gender. You bring back the focus on skin color, ideally looking for a Disney-style PR diversity representation that's obvious for the outside (black, female, flamboyantly gay). You, of course, hire a black gay female to run these diversity programs, because white straight males are not suited for the job. Start policing language and technical jargon, as to not offend their favorite social scholars. And what happens to me? I look twice at a new colleague. The second time I notice skin color and gender. And I can't help but wonder... did those factors contribute or was this the best candidate for the job? Well done, activists! I still take full blame for that sub-second racist/sexist take (which I abhor), but it didn't have to be that way.
• bJGVygG7MQVF8c 6y ago
  Nice t-shirt on that cover photo. "Black tech, Green money." Smart optics, lady. Really enhances your credibility as a witness.
• bJGVygG7MQVF8c 6y ago
  Techies are usually too naive about how the media works. This is a hit piece. Cui bono? Who are Coinbase's competitors? Who would stand to gain from Coinbase taking a hit?
• ThomPete 6y ago
  Hit piece from the now fully woke NYT. This shouldn't be on HN.
• 2-tpg 6y ago
  [flagged] > I do not give a hoot about skin color. MLK taught me to judge people not by the color of their skin. If I were to tone down my speech, because I focus on the color of the skin of my audience, I would feel bad and awkward: "these people deserve coddling due to their skin color" ranks close to "these people deserve scorn due to their skin color". > Accusing others of racism is a serious faux-pas. It is also delusional to think someone talking down to you, is caused by the color of your skin, and not, maybe, because you deserved a talking down to, or the person is just an asshole, and talks down to everyone. > Saying someone else got a promotion, because their white skin, despite being lower skilled than you, is a horrible thing to say, and a horrible thing to believe. It would be vile distracting paralyzing racism, instead of an opportunity to reflect and grow. > If racial equality activists make you feel that way, judge others on the color of their skin, and paint decision-making of white people that way, then this activism is not doing you any favors. It is not making you stronger. It is making you a victim. It sours inter-racial relationships. > If a manager really says something along the lines of "watch out for her, she is dealing crack in the ghetto, and secretly carries a gun everywhere." then that manager is fired everywhere in the world, and the Black employee is compensated for this evil. No company wants to keep such managers around. No need to invoke tricks like paying off an external investigator. That manager is gone. > Yet, that manager is still around. No complaint was filed. No colleague stepped up. So what really happened? A joke gone wrong? Being above racism led to problems with an employee for who being black and female is the major two traits of their group/social media identity, and now they can't help but relate every interaction, to whites hating their skin color, or the patriarchy keeping them down? > Racism is gross, but this "I am being discriminated against by these elite white tech bros, because they notice my skin every day, promoting their dumb jocks over me, again due to the color of my skin, and nobody is willing to stop that" is even grosser. It is sexist, slanderous, weak, prejudiced, generalizing, blameful, divisive, and racist. > The taboo-ness of the topic is wielded as an effective weapon by activists. They realized early on what the power of calling someone's employer, conference organizers, or hinting at company racism can do to stifle opposing views and criticism, and the economic damage they can inflict on a brand. Even if totally out of line and false, such as accusing white business owners of cultural appropriation by selling Asian food, can get such a business cancelled, because people are afraid to be tarred and feathered by association. Socially ostracized without ever a court to fairly validate if you really furthered (illegal!) racism. Portrayed by international media as some sort of neo-Nazi libertarian hellscape momcorp, without ever a court or independent investigation finding anything of real substance. Acquitted by a judge, yet constantly called a murderous racist, because you killed a black-skinned person at a traffic stop. > So what happens if you loudly overreact to perceived company racism? You start to promote diversity and inclusion programs. You start asking applicants for their skin color or gender. You bring back the focus on skin color, ideally looking for a Disney-style PR diversity representation that's obvious for the outside (black, female, flamboyantly gay). You, of course, hire a black gay female to run these diversity programs, because white straight males are not suited for the job. Start policing language and technical jargon, as to not offend their favorite social scholars. And what happens to me? I look twice at a new colleague. The second time I notice skin color and gender. And I can't help but wonder... did those factors contribute or was this the best candidate for the job? Well done, activists! I still take full blame for that sub-second racist/sexist take (which I abhor), but it didn't have to be that way. I feel like the sort of people who flagged this comment benefit the most from reading it.
• whoknew1122 6y ago
  Hmmm. A 'mission focused' company that bans discusses political and societal issues also has issues with diversity and how it treats its non-white workers? I'll go ahead and file this in the 'In other news, water is wet' category.
  • ardit33 6y ago
    It can go two ways: 1. Coinbase has real problems of discrimination 2. Coinbase is being targeted at a smearing campaign, for not playing ball with the ideology of de-jure of some circles. It is kinda like a repeat of 2003: "if you are not with us (for the Iraqi war), then you are with the terrorist" mantra of conservative circles to justify their war. The truth, is probably somewhere in between. Also, NYT has become heavily biased/activist type of journal. While they don't straight up lie, they often omit many important details in their story, in order to justify their conclusion.
    • deanCommie 6y ago
      Just to be clear, the "ideology of de jure" is "treat human being equally regardless of their race, and do not disproportionately murder them by systems intended to protect them", right? I mean the inciting incident for this was the protests against Police Brutality and Black Lives Matter as a response to the George Floyd killings specifically. We're not talking about politically correct speech, or "safe spaces" or "cancel culture" or people getting fired over bad twitter joke. The context here is a societal-wide movement to take meaningful action on data-supported systemic inequalities and discrimination, action that will require political will, individual will, and yes, major corporate support to have any likelihood of success.
    • whakim 6y ago
      If there were important details that were omitted, Coinbase had the opportunity to surface them in their widely-publicized pre-emptive rebuttal. Also, the "if you're not with us, you're with them" mantra rests on the assumption that supporting the status quo means furthering terrorism/racism/whatever. In 2003 that was provably false given that there was no link between Iraq and Al Qaeda and no evidence of Saddam's supposed WMDs. I think the situation with regards to racial justice in 2020 is much more complex and not quite analagous.
• jasonhansel 6y ago
  Their original blog post ("Coinbase is a mission focused company") was an obvious dog whistle. How is this unexpected or surprising?
• roenxi 6y ago
  > ... an “all star” culture, with mostly young white and Asian men. Up until yesterday I was very confused at how a tech company could be accused of racism while simultaneously having a (presumably) vast over-representation of Asians who - to the surprise of some - are a minority. I have since learned [0] that there are literally a large group of people who have redefined "racism" to "unequal distribution of privileges between white people and people of color". I think it would be necessary for the NYT to be using that definition here to distinguish this from an ordinary labour dispute. I've seen non-black teams where half or more the people quit. [0] https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/white-fragility-definition https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/white-fragility-de...
  • mattmanser 6y ago
    You can be accepting of one race and still be racist against another. Racism means discrimination against a particular group or groups. It's not mutually exclusive, you don't get a free pass for thinking Asians are great while still persecuting Black people. So you're the one redefining the meaning of the word.
    • SamReidHughes 6y ago
      No, he's defining the meaning as you put it, or compatibly with it. And taking the claims in the article at face value -- not people's feelings, but the specific facts asserted -- it's clear Coinbase hasn't been persecuting black people.
      • mattmanser 6y ago
        No, this is exactly what he said, laid out in argument form: Premise 1: Tech companies are often accused of racism (any, not coinbase, neither of us mentioned coinbase) Premise 2: Tech companies often contain a much larger % of Asians, a minority Premise 3: (implied) having a disproportionate % of any one minority makes you non-racist Conclusion: Therefore Tech companies are not racist The conclusion does not follow because premise 3 is wrong. You can be racist about other minorities even while enthusiastically supporting one minority group.
• bra-ket 6y ago
  no paywall http://archive.is/ydbmX http://archive.is/ydbmX
• nshepperd 6y ago
  It's interesting how spot-on Coinbase's 'prebuttal' was (https://blog.coinbase.com/upcoming-story-about-coinbase-2012afc25d27 https://blog.coinbase.com/upcoming-story-about-coinbase-2012...). There's very little in the NYT article that isn't mentioned. The only point of inaccuracy seems to be that the story was published on Friday morning, the day right after the prebuttal, not Sunday as originally suggested. Maybe the prebuttal forced NYT's hand?
  • Pfhreak 6y ago
    The rebuttal said "in print Sunday" and online sometime before.
    • nshepperd 6y ago
      Oh, you're right, I misread that part.
  • tptacek 6y ago
    It's spot-on because the NYT told them ahead of time about the claims they were going to make, in the process of fact-checking those claims and offering Coinbase an opportunity to provide quotes to rebut them in the article, which opportunity Coinbase availed itself of.
  • unityByFreedom 6y ago
    A number of details were missing, including, > One Black employee said her manager suggested in front of colleagues that she was dealing drugs and carrying a gun, trading on racist stereotypes. Another said a co-worker at a recruiting meeting broadly described Black employees as less capable. Still another said managers spoke down to her and her Black colleagues, adding that they were passed over for promotions in favor of less experienced white employees. The accumulation of incidents, they said, led to the wave of departures.
• Bantros 6y ago
  Hot trash from the NYT, what a shock
• wolverine876 6y ago
  Core to attitudes like Coinbase's (as described in the article) the theory that their only responsibility is profit for their shareholders. IMHO, that theory is like many others today: It's attractive - it simplifies everything and even makes it quantifiable - but does not stand up to a moment's scrutiny. Almost everything Coinbase has comes from their community: Liberty; peace; political functionality and stability; economic stability; the rule of law; property rights; the free market; the wealth of the market they sell to; the education and wealth of employees, customers, and partners (including the massive public education and healthcare systems - imagine how their company would survive Coronavirus without the public health system and eventual free vaccine); the physical infrastructure of housing, roads, food, power, etc., all kept functioning and safe; the incredible technology stack they build upon, from mathematics to basic literacy to electricity to materials to more proximate tech (the Internet, Web, TCP/IP, and of course the cryptocurrency technology). No matter what Coinbase does, they add only a sliver on top of what's come before. It's just an absurd, transparent rationalization for selfishness to try to justify being a parasite, for not contributing to it and being responsible for making it work. Our community is us; nobody else will make it work. And it's sociopathic to say that, about part of our community, 'I don't care what happens to African-Americans'. But being a sociopath and buying into this transparently false argument has become trendy and admired by a vast swath of powerful people in American business, as if ignoring problems will solve them. I used to wonder if they really were smarter than others, but recently I've concluded that they follow the herd and are easily manipulated as much as other people are (and I could have seen it earlier in financial bubbles, etc.). And as they've followed the herd in disparaging liberalism and postmodernism, rather than thinking critically about them, they've unilaterally disarmed themselves, willingly discarded the tools that would protect them from being deceived, confused, and led.
  • kapuasuite 6y ago
    >It's just an absurd, transparent rationalization for selfishness to try to justify being a parasite on all that by not contributing to it and being responsible for making it work. But we have an entire institution dedicated to solving these types of problems - the government. We don't want corporations trying to "make it work" or "contributing" - we want people to pay their taxes so the government can execute its mission.
• tamaharbor 6y ago
  The NFL has mostly blacks, so everything evens out.
• cblconfederate 6y ago
  Eagerly anticipated and Streisandeffected piece but i got rather bored. I hope i won't be disappointed by the ensuing drama at least. In other news, What is a crypto company even doing in SV?
  • notsureaboutpg 6y ago
    Coinbase took a stand against quotas and "anti-racist" "woke" dogma (not actually being against racism but the "anti-racism"™ that best-selling authors peddle to suburbanites) and now surprise surprise they're being attacked in the press by the arbiters of the very ideas they stood up against. Not surprised
• throwmylifawy 6y ago
  Reading through the comments as black person is depressing. Many of the comments question whether the accusations are even true or collusive attack because of an unfounded accusation that black people tend to be SJWs (stereotyping). Others blame affirmative-action, bad schools, etc. (classic misdirection). Some even venture into the possibility that a black person complaining about being passed over for promotion might just not be good enough for the job and then just blame discrimination rather than facing the truth (pure gaslighting). Others just go on to attack the New York Times (attacking the messenger). I am waiting for the data science guru to synthesize statistics about how everything is just fine! I am not going to pretend to be the arbiter of truth here, but can we just take a moment to imagine the possibility that racism (specifically against black Americans) is a problem in America in 2020? Is it such a stretch of the imagination? I mean if we can unquestioningly believe that cryptocurrency is viable currency, we can certainly give the benefit of the doubt to the black workers who have abandoned the company.
  • leppr 6y ago
    I find it difficult to conceive how one could work at/manage a mainstream cryptocurrency company and be racist. Both empirically (it's the most multicultural tech scene I ever witnessed), and in principles (one of the core tenets of crypto is precisely eliminating discrimination), crypto would be among the most counter productive fields for a racist to spend their time on. Of course I'm not discounting the fact that humans are often irrational and incoherent, so it seems fair to give the benefit of the doubt to both parties until we have more information.
    • adjkant 6y ago
      I think it's helpful here to examine the conception of a racist. Most racists don't identify as such and have a racist agenda they consciously act on. In these cases, it's baked in through various experiences into the subconscious, and rationalized away in many ways. Maybe it's eugenics, maybe it's media bias, maybe it's simply a personal preference, and they think they don't let it affect their decisions. > it's the most multicultural tech scene I ever witnessed Coinbase's own (unrefuted) numbers show they are far worse than other tech companies. Where is your conception based off of? > one of the core tenets of crypto is precisely eliminating discrimination As this thread as made clear if you go to the bottom of the comments, stated principles and actual beliefs/actions often don't match in tech. Closeted republicans in tech compared to the leaning of corporate action is a great example of that. In some ways, Coinbase said the quiet part out loud with their apolitical stance. When that happened, tons of people flocked to applaud them, both on HN and in the VC industry. All of this perfectly aligns with finding racism within said company, and the tech industry as a whole.
• dmurray 6y ago
  "Tokenized" is brilliant headline writing. I'm not qualified to comment on the rest!
• ausbah 6y ago
  frankly its a little surprising to me how quickly some people in this comment section are to instantly dismiss the experiences of the people in this article yes the truth is shades of gray that article doesn't really give any answers to, but the unwillingness of others in these comments to even consider the possibility of some racism, discrimination, etc. experienced by others is just disheartening
  • camdenlock 6y ago
    The fault here lies with our society granting far too much power to people claiming victimhood. Being a victim is now an actively sought-after position because of the rewards it yields. We’ve completely perverted the incentives. So now, in order to protect ourselves against bad faith actors, we have to be extremely skeptical of victimhood claims. I agree, it is sad.
    • xvector 6y ago
      The problem is that if you are skeptical of the victims’ claims, you are accused as unempathetic or intolerant. Such a mentality is antithetical to “innocent until proven guilty.”
    • ausbah 6y ago
      I think that view of victimhood is a very toxic view to hold. Of course innocent until proven guilty is a tenant to uphold, but extreme skepticism to the stories of real victims are why things like sexual assault cases are so under reported. a climate of such extreme disbelief painted by whatever few "bad apples" you may have witnessed tosses out the whole bushel
  • 0xy 6y ago
    There's so much push-back because the answer always seems to be "discriminate against non-black candidates to improve diversity" or "allow political propaganda to be openly preached in your organization".
    • xvector 6y ago
• CyanLite4 6y ago
  I’m not a fan of cancel culture, but I’ve seen enough to know that I want to move my Bitcoin trading elsewhere. Their prebuttal seemed odd, and now this article confirms the worst of my suspicions. I’m not saying they’re racist, but they’re clearly not anti-racist.
  • tetrometal 6y ago
    Being "not racist" - AKA the unfairly-maligned philosophy of "color blindness" - is a perfectly reasonable aspiration. I shouldn't be any more concerned with skin color than hair color or eye color. I find the "anti-racist" philosophy of Kendi et al. to be misguided at best and divisive and racist at worst.
    • approxim8ion 6y ago
      > aspiration That's pretty much what it is, and it cannot be realized in our lifetimes to say the least. >I shouldn't be any more concerned with skin color than hair color or eye color. And yet, there are others who will never get to hold those aspirations. >divisive and racist at worst Sad, yet unsurprising.
• disown 6y ago
  > at least 11 of them informed the human resources department or their managers about what they said was racist or discriminatory treatment ... One Black employee said her manager suggested in front of colleagues that she was dealing drugs and carrying a gun, trading on racist stereotypes. In an era of smartphones and viral videos, the fact that we don't have a single audio/video recording exposing the racism seems rather suspect. I'm not saying that is proof of anything. But something to consider. The idea that coinbase, a silicon valley/SF/etc company, would discriminate, especially against black people, is hard for me to believe. But I'm open to anything. Certainly even if the company doesn't have a culture of bias, it may have a few bad apples. > If the numbers haven’t changed, it’s definitely because there wasn’t a real intention to do so This is a lie. Everyone who works in tech knows that companies are bending over backwards to hire black employees. The problem is the lack of qualified employees. Even unqualified black employees are being hired just to say "we have more black employees today than last year". It's been like this for a few years now. That tech companies had no real intention to hire black employees is simply a lie. > When Mr. Armstrong wrote his blog post in September asking employees to leave their outside interests at the door, he was celebrated and praised by several tech investors. So this is why we have a nytimes article. It's a political attack masquerading as a employment bias issue. Got it.
  • __float 6y ago
    > In an era of smartphones and viral videos, the fact that we don't have a single audio/video recording exposing the racism seems rather suspect. I'm not saying that is proof of anything. But something to consider. Do you regularly record interactions with your coworkers, on the chance they may say something incriminating? I don't, and I expect most would not try to record things at work unless they go into a meeting expecting it to end poorly. > The problem is the lack of qualified employees. This sounds awfully similar to the argument made against women: qualified women just don't apply! Unfortunately, that is not actually true. http://isitapipelineproblem.com/ http://isitapipelineproblem.com/ You seem to accept Coinbase/Brian Armstrong's words without question. Why do you feel that the Black employees' words must be critiqued to hell and back?
    • 6y ago
• mudlus 6y ago
  Coinbase sucks for other reasons besides racism and libertarian ideals that suddenly are complacent with authoritarianism when it involves property law. Ask any libertarian like Brian Armstrong if they want to defund the police. Coinbase believes everyone should have equal access to an un-regulated digital Las Vegas, despite the understanding that humans have irrational behaviors associated with gambling (i.e. the sunk-cost fallacy). Bitcoin NOT Coinbase.
• nilkn 6y ago
  [Thank you for all your advice -- it's greatly appreciated. I've edited this post since it included a few personal details that I don't want permanently attached to my account on here. I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.]
  • adjkant 6y ago
    Full disclosure, I'm personally a bit more motivated than most about what the company that I work for stands for, but to me, you made the answer clear with this: > I do already have a (very) good job, so I don't "have" to have this and can afford to just drop it. I understand the getting an interview struggle, but you have time and comfort here to wait and find a better option. My one counterpoint in my head (change from the inside) is ruled out if Coinbase isn't receptive to the change at a leadership level, which seems to be the case here. I think you do the most good here by explicitly dropping out and telling them this is the reason why. Maybe if they won't listen to their own employees, they will listen to the labor market.
  • tptacek 6y ago
    One possibility is to bring it up in the interview, and ask probing questions. The downside to this is you might not get hired --- but if that costs you the job, maybe you don't want to work there in the first place? I wouldn't. The upside is that either way, you'll be sending a pretty strong signal that this article "broke through" and that people care about it; companies do tend to pay attention to things they hear in the recruiting process. You don't have to throw away your market power; you can deploy it. This is a company that took the time to write a damage control pre-buttal to an NYT story, so you can safely assume they have a canned answer about it deployed to their recruiting teams. So the key here would be the "probing questions" part. And, who knows? Coinbase might convince you that their heart is in the right place on this issue.
  • mike_d 6y ago
    Opportunities will open up in the new year when people start getting budget and headcount. Don't feel like you don't have options.
  • exogeny 6y ago
• jl2718 6y ago
  Simple question: have race issues become more or less of a problem since going 100% remote?
• unityByFreedom 6y ago
  Dear CEO, practice what you preach, > Default to trust: We assume positive intent amongst our teammates, and assume ignorance over malice. We have each other’s backs. > some of what I’ve written above will be misinterpreted, whether accidentally or on purpose. [1] If you assume positive intent then no one would misinterpret your words "on purpose". [1] https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-is-a-mission-focused-company-af882df8804 https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-is-a-mission-focused-comp...
• eric_b 6y ago
  Why is this on the front page of HN? Coinbase has issued a rebuttal refuting this article. (the refutation is not on the front page, I note) There is no reasonable way for anyone to discern who is "right" in this particular argument based on the data presented. People who see systemic racism everywhere will undoubtedly side with the NYT plaintiffs. People who are skeptical of the social justice narrative being shoe-horned in to every possible corner will side with Coinbase. The "white patriarchy" will be called out and there will be tptacek and others falling on their white male swords to gain some woke cred and signal their purity. Let's stop reading and commenting on this kind of article eh?
• cadaadar 6y ago
  Everyone in this thread is missing the forest for the trees. Coinbase is a medium-sized privately-held company. Reading through those comments, they had some minor issue with a few employees and a relocation plan. This may or may not have involved discriminatory and/or racist behavior. How is that a story in the New York Times? Or rather: Why is that a story in the New York Times? It's obviously not because a particularly terrible thing has allegedly been done to those 15 people. This kind of labor case is literally business as usual for courts. The NYT pursuing an agenda that has probably more to do with the company's stance on politics, and perhaps also an agenda wrt. crypto-currencies.
• bArray 6y ago
  I've spoken to multiple people employed at tech companies that believe they were 'token' hires, I can summarize their thoughts as thinking the situation was "awful". Biased hiring practices are in quite a few cases hurting the people they aim to help.
  • MetalGuru 6y ago
    It’s an unfortunate consequence of diversity-driven hiring practices. Another is that applicants who would’ve gotten hired on their own merit are prejudged as diversity hires.
    • sthnblllII 6y ago
      The much more important problem is all the people who are legitimately better qualified who are turned down because of their race.
      • bArray 6y ago
        I wouldn't say "more important", but certainly important. I've now spoken to quite a few (very capable) white friends who believe they didn't get the job due to their color - and I couldn't tell them they were wrong. It's definitely creating racial divides.
      • lawnchair_larry 6y ago
        This doesn’t actually happen in tech. Nobody can hire enough people, and everyone wants minorities.
  • ALittleLight 6y ago
    I think that's one downside of targeting increased diversity. Diverse employees might wonder if they were hired for talent or for their identity.
    • loco5niner 6y ago
      Along with their co-workers wondering the same thing.
• xrd 6y ago
  After reading this, I then wanted to reread the response from Coinbase. It feels very unfortunate that Coinbase's response on Medium has turned off commenting. There is no way to ask questions such as what is the third party firm that investigated and are those results public. It is funny that Coinbase says we talked to our ColorBlock ERG (the internal diversity group) to hear their comments and questions. Then, the very next sentence says Brian told them what he thinks, but nothing about what they think or had questions about.
• synaesthesisx 6y ago
  This is quite a surprise for a "mission-focused" company such as CB. Racism deserves no place in modern society, and Coinbase execs should be ashamed.
• throw98721 6y ago
  Racism won’t be a problem once color of the skin is no longer a point of the argument. As long as people demand x/y hires to be of a certain race or color, the companies will have to continue hiring for diversity, and not for the best qualified candidates. Stop counting who is who, and the market will take of itself.
  • bzb6 6y ago
    People used to hire the best qualified candidates only. Nobody hired blacks. I’m not saying the two are related, but the latter was seen as a problem and these forced diversity quotas were instituted.
• bertomart 6y ago
  this is pretty much a every company thing...at every company i've worked at...not surprised
• golemiprague 6y ago
  Why did they hire so many blacks in the first place? what is it good for? People shouldn't hire blacks or women or whatever just for diversity sake, it just cause problems because those people are bitter and can't compete. If someone come to me and force me to do some political act I am going to fire them immediately, who are they to tell me what to do with my political view? even if they force other people in the company I will fire them without apologies. Google did it for this Damore guy for just stating his opinion about diversity, not even forcing anyone to accept his views. Imagine he go to Pichai and force him to chant "diversity is bullshit", which it is, but does it matter? you can't do such stuff even if you think your cause is right
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• tonfreed 6y ago
  Race grifters gonna race grift.
• citizenpaul 6y ago
  Here's a thought. Perhaps they were bad workers. I'll explain how affirmative action causes this problem. You are forced to hire a certain percent of POC. Doesn't matter if they are a poor fit for the company. Doesn't matter if they are not even a good fit for the job. Doesn't matter if they are not even capable of doing the job. You can't wait to hire a POC that is a good fit or capable, or you are violating the law. It is also difficult to fire the forced hires once you are forced to hire them. Instead of just saying "they sucked at their job" you have to play all kinds of games to fire someone that is a POC hire. All companies face this issue and until its addressed (By removing affirmative action) there will always be this dysfunctional divide. This also causes a harmful feedback loop to POC that are simply not up to the task and always think they are being targeted (because they are) rather than upping their skill set or working on their professionalism. And here come the downvotes.