5 ms·

Kraken Culture Explained

8 points by g42gregory 4y ago

etchalon 4y ago
- capableweb 4y ago
  - etchalon 4y ago
    As I'm not a Kraken employee, I'm not sure why I could care about their guidelines.
    - capableweb 4y ago
      It's the guidelines from HN, the very site you're posting on right now.
celestialcheese 4y ago
Oooof - "The Tentaclemandments of Kraken" made my skin crawl. There's something unbelievably cringy to me about "culture" initiatives at companies framed around cutesy animals/monsters. It's infantilizing. :shrug: Otherwise reads like most culture docs I've seen at startups. I guess this is notable because "No politics at work"?
- ramesh31 4y ago
  >"No politics at work"? I love it when people act like politics is something we can just "not do". As if "politics" were this special thing that gets played out in an official forum. Politics is life. Politics is what happens when more than two people need to agree on anything anywhere. Politics is everything. And when you say "no politics", what you're actually saying is "My politics override yours, so shut up.".
  - sshine 4y ago
    To quote the article, rather than OP: > Kraken despises office politics (i.e., activities associated with the use of influence tactics to improve personal interests). If you have worked in a big company environment in your past (even if it was years ago), you may want to reflect on what behaviors, tendencies, or habits you have been exposed to (or have unintentionally learned) and make a point to not do those things here. Yes, so being diplomatic rather than manipulative is still political, so "no politics" doesn't make a lot of sense. And by "improve personal interests", a big "at the benefit of the interests of everyone else" is surely implied, since there's nothing bad about about improving your personal interests at no cost. The wording is simplistic, so nitpicking aside: perhaps grouping all manipulative influence tactics as "office politics" is a way to strike down on bullying through in-group hierarchies and aggressive behavior. I don't know if having a document that says "Don't bully!" prevents bullying; a proactive counter-culture does.
    - dmarchand90 4y ago
      I'm almost certain this policy will do a great job of making everyone try to hide office politics from the founders× while doing little to actually change the nature of politics. × and even then only hide the kinds of politics the founders _don't_ like
  - panarky 4y ago
    CEO Jesse Powell, at work, ridiculed preferred pronouns. At work, he debated who is entitled to say racial slurs. At work, he asked "If you can identify as a sex, can you identify as a race or ethnicity?" At work, he said women may have intrinsically lower intelligence and risk appetite than men. His workplace culture document extols "libertarian philosophical values". All this shit is ultra-political, and he brought it all into the workplace. But if you say so, you're guilty of "bringing politics to work".
    - etchalon 4y ago
      It's only bringing politics into work if you disagree with them.
ramesh31 4y ago
The whole tech world is rife with playing the dance of "we're not just doing this for money, we swear!". But crypto is really the worst of the worst. People hate you because you lie and say that this is an altruistic undertaking. It is 100% about enriching yourself through regulatory arbitrage, so please just drop the act.
notacoward 4y ago
The suggestions under item III ("keep up with crypto or fall behind") seem to be less about education and more about perpetuating the echo chamber. Item VII ("someone must be offended, some of the time") seems like a rationalization for being a bit of a jerk. Some of the other items share one or both of these vibes. It all makes this a bit of a joke. > We hire strictly based on merit Not even close. When you're explicitly making certain ideologies, behaviors, and character traits mandatory, you are most definitely not hiring strictly on merit by any definition that has any meaning whatsoever.
- etchalon 4y ago
  Plus, there is no such as thing as "hiring strictly on merits". It's not a thing you can do.
na85 4y ago
>No longer do a small cabal of bureaucrats or politicians decide how much money circulates or who receives special privilege Stopped reading here. There's still a cabal, it's just a different group of bad actors.
TradingPlaces 4y ago
> Their values – crypto, cypherpunk, libertarian values – are the core of what continues to make this company the most attractive home for the top minds in the industry. I don’t think they know what “libertarian” means.

8 points by g42gregory 4y ago

capableweb 4y ago
- etchalon 4y ago
  As I'm not a Kraken employee, I'm not sure why I could care about their guidelines.
  - capableweb 4y ago
    It's the guidelines from HN, the very site you're posting on right now.

Oooof - "The Tentaclemandments of Kraken" made my skin crawl. There's something unbelievably cringy to me about "culture" initiatives at companies framed around cutesy animals/monsters. It's infantilizing. :shrug: Otherwise reads like most culture docs I've seen at startups. I guess this is notable because "No politics at work"?

ramesh31 4y ago
>"No politics at work"? I love it when people act like politics is something we can just "not do". As if "politics" were this special thing that gets played out in an official forum. Politics is life. Politics is what happens when more than two people need to agree on anything anywhere. Politics is everything. And when you say "no politics", what you're actually saying is "My politics override yours, so shut up.".
- sshine 4y ago
  To quote the article, rather than OP: > Kraken despises office politics (i.e., activities associated with the use of influence tactics to improve personal interests). If you have worked in a big company environment in your past (even if it was years ago), you may want to reflect on what behaviors, tendencies, or habits you have been exposed to (or have unintentionally learned) and make a point to not do those things here. Yes, so being diplomatic rather than manipulative is still political, so "no politics" doesn't make a lot of sense. And by "improve personal interests", a big "at the benefit of the interests of everyone else" is surely implied, since there's nothing bad about about improving your personal interests at no cost. The wording is simplistic, so nitpicking aside: perhaps grouping all manipulative influence tactics as "office politics" is a way to strike down on bullying through in-group hierarchies and aggressive behavior. I don't know if having a document that says "Don't bully!" prevents bullying; a proactive counter-culture does.
  - dmarchand90 4y ago
    I'm almost certain this policy will do a great job of making everyone try to hide office politics from the founders× while doing little to actually change the nature of politics. × and even then only hide the kinds of politics the founders _don't_ like
- panarky 4y ago
  CEO Jesse Powell, at work, ridiculed preferred pronouns. At work, he debated who is entitled to say racial slurs. At work, he asked "If you can identify as a sex, can you identify as a race or ethnicity?" At work, he said women may have intrinsically lower intelligence and risk appetite than men. His workplace culture document extols "libertarian philosophical values". All this shit is ultra-political, and he brought it all into the workplace. But if you say so, you're guilty of "bringing politics to work".
  - etchalon 4y ago
    It's only bringing politics into work if you disagree with them.

ramesh31 4y ago

The whole tech world is rife with playing the dance of "we're not just doing this for money, we swear!". But crypto is really the worst of the worst. People hate you because you lie and say that this is an altruistic undertaking. It is 100% about enriching yourself through regulatory arbitrage, so please just drop the act.

notacoward 4y ago

The suggestions under item III ("keep up with crypto or fall behind") seem to be less about education and more about perpetuating the echo chamber. Item VII ("someone must be offended, some of the time") seems like a rationalization for being a bit of a jerk. Some of the other items share one or both of these vibes. It all makes this a bit of a joke. > We hire strictly based on merit Not even close. When you're explicitly making certain ideologies, behaviors, and character traits mandatory, you are most definitely not hiring strictly on merit by any definition that has any meaning whatsoever.

etchalon 4y ago
Plus, there is no such as thing as "hiring strictly on merits". It's not a thing you can do.

na85 4y ago

>No longer do a small cabal of bureaucrats or politicians decide how much money circulates or who receives special privilege Stopped reading here. There's still a cabal, it's just a different group of bad actors.

TradingPlaces 4y ago

> Their values – crypto, cypherpunk, libertarian values – are the core of what continues to make this company the most attractive home for the top minds in the industry. I don’t think they know what “libertarian” means.