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This is the problem with "no politics at work": work has political salience. Politics concerns regulation of the world and work happens in the world. Whenever

This is the problem with "no politics at work": work has political salience. Politics concerns regulation of the world and work happens in the world. Whenever an executive starts complaining[1] about how politics is impacting their workplace I see management incompetence. Politics exists. It exists for everyone. If your company is having an unusually difficult time getting work done in a given political environment, the conditions that are causing that probably have more to do with the company environment than politics writ large. Prohibition is always a largely ineffective policy. People have feelings about the world. If you can't find a way to make space for those feelings somehow they will make their own space, often at the least convenient moment. [1] Most recently this was Kraken CEO Jesse Powell

jakelazaroff 4y ago
Particularly notable here since Coinbase is famously a "mission-focused" company [1]: > Coinbase’s mission is to create an open financial system for the world. This means we want to use cryptocurrency to bring economic freedom to people all over the world. Selling geolocation data to ICE definitely detracts from that mission. Whoops! [1] https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-is-a-mission-focused-company-af882df8804 https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-is-a-mission-focused-comp...
- greenie_beans 4y ago
  To me, that's a very political mission.
  - tessierashpool 4y ago
    it is a very, very intensely political mission. it's phrased almost entirely in political terms.
- tomc1985 4y ago
  Hah, does anyone actually believe a company's "mission statement"?
  - tmp_anon_22 4y ago
    > We act as #OneCoinbase, putting the company’s goals ahead of any particular team or individual goals. The thing I hate about this fake corporate mission is there is absolutely no need for the lie. Just be honest, hey we started this company, the founders will have disproportionate returns because we were first and control the equity power structure, you will work for us and make less money - even in the event of an exit. Sometimes we will fire you. We will make mistakes. Lets be adults. Instead its: "In our supreme nobility we sacrifice everything at the alter of the almighty cause, and so should you. Follow in our virtuous foot steps. Ask not what your company can do for you, but what you can do for your company!" ...
    - tomc1985 4y ago
      The only honest mission statement is, "we exist to make as much money as possible" And until shareholder supremacy is no longer a thing, anything else is a lie Support your favorite B-corp, folks
      - eshack94 4y ago
        Exactly this. I don't understand why companies that exist to make money feel the need to be dishonest about their desire to make money.
        lowbloodsugar 4y ago
        Because far too many potential employees still believe in a just world.
        weq 4y ago
        Capitalism exists to eat all else. Every class has its own destiny.
      - mlmonkey 4y ago
        "we exist to make as much money as possible".... for ourselves. You plebes should just be thankful that you have jobs.
TaylorAlexander 4y ago
When I see that it always seems to me that the real issue is the CEO has made a conscious choice to pick profit over doing the right thing, and wants employees who dislike this choice to leave. Which is essentially bad for society and why I think most firms in our economy should be co-operatively managed.
- aeturnum 4y ago
  I think you're giving them a bit too much credit. I suspect that is what they think they are doing - but IMO they're just being ineffectual. The real villains manage this like any other aspect of company culture. Exxon doesn't ban talking about politics and it hasn't crippled their operations!
  - skwirl 4y ago
    >Exxon doesn't ban talking about politics and it hasn't crippled their operations! Probably because it's not happening there to nearly the extent it happens at big tech companies, partly due to the culture of older companies and partly due to the company attracting a certain type of morally agnostic person. Exxon did not release a statement following Friday's supreme court decision like most tech companies did and did not respond to comment when asked about it.
- Veelox 4y ago
  > When I see that it always seems to me that the real issue is the CEO has made a conscious choice to pick profit over doing the right thing Just going to toss my hat in the ring and say that I think selling data to ICE falls on the right half of the right/wrong spectrum. Not everyone agrees with your specific take on right and wrong. Sometimes those discussions shouldn't happen in the workplace.
  - camdat 4y ago
    Can you expand on why you think this is a good thing?
dubswithus 4y ago
It's not really political at all. The government is going to get the data one way or another. Or shut down Coinbase and be done with it. It's the survival instinct of a company playing a very dangerous game.
- madeofpalk 4y ago
  Why is it dangerous?
tomc1985 4y ago
While you are correct, this is the logic that is used to guilt-slash-shame folks who do not want to get involved into getting involved. It is one of the many sources of intense polarization that we suffer from today, and it forces people to take uninformed stances on things that makes them little more than mindless footsoldiers for causes that need a nuanced touch.
- tomlockwood 4y ago
  Either way, the Coinbase employees are now involved with this. They helped build this, they are in this. The discussions may be silenced but "politics" isn't. It's not possible to not be political. This is a great demonstration of that.
- aeturnum 4y ago
  > it forces people to take uninformed stances on things There are lots of ways to unproductively engage with politics - and I agree that we live in an age of highly visible unproductive engagement. However, banning engagement makes it official company policy that every interaction with politics be uninformed. "It was hard so we gave up" is just not a good sign for your leadership.
  - lmm 4y ago
    > I agree that we live in an age of highly visible unproductive engagement. However, banning engagement makes it official company policy that every interaction with politics be uninformed. Not necessarily - I don't think engagement is particularly informative. A ban, even a widely flouted one, gives people permission to disengage, and might be valuable for that reason alone (in the same way that e.g. people have argued that monasteries and convents created a good place for asexuals in society, even when their rules were widely flouted).
chmod600 4y ago
It seems more like an ethical concern (mishandling customer data) than a political concern. Ethical concerns should be raised at work, but I believe politics at work should be avoided. There's no such thing as a group of people who agree about politics. They only think they agree until enough details start coming out. The question is whether these differences are handled respectfully and people learn from each other, or whether they see it as a moral battle and end up hating each other. In the current cultural climate, the latter seems more likely. And I see no benefit from carrying that into the workplace.
- Phlarp 4y ago
  How can you possibly claim to separate ethics from politics in a work context? The two are hopelessly intertwined.
  - chmod600 4y ago
    Ethics in the workplace is about your behavior while carrying out your job duties. For instance: lying to a customer to make a sale and hit your quota is unethical. Politics and ethics can intersect, for instance, if you are writing some graphics software and someone realizes it would make a great missle guidance system. Some people might feel that's perfectly patriotic and be happy to provide it to the DoD; others might never want to work on a weapon. Political opinions lead to divergent ethical codes. But here with Coinbase it doesn't seem to be an intersection at all. It's unethical regardless of political persuasion.
chris123 4y ago
Can you translate that? You're saying leave politics out of work, leave your politics at home, right? Or are you saying the opposite, just bring your personal politics so the workplace?
- xionon 4y ago
  They're saying neither; they're saying that politics is inextricable from life, and that work is part of life. You can't extract politics from work any more than you can extract personal life from work. People aren't robots.
midislack 4y ago
This is why it's critical to boycott companies whose politics don't match yours.
ehnto 4y ago
Yes one of the main responsibilities of government is to govern the interaction between different entities within the community. If you move then to law, and consider law an arm of government and politics, the vast, vast, vast majority of law is about industry and commercial concerns. By contrast, individuals are actually the governments least concern, and that bias often shows very clearly and even proudly in policymaking.

jakelazaroff 4y ago

Particularly notable here since Coinbase is famously a "mission-focused" company [1]: > Coinbase’s mission is to create an open financial system for the world. This means we want to use cryptocurrency to bring economic freedom to people all over the world. Selling geolocation data to ICE definitely detracts from that mission. Whoops! [1] https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-is-a-mission-focused-company-af882df8804 https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-is-a-mission-focused-comp...

greenie_beans 4y ago
To me, that's a very political mission.
- tessierashpool 4y ago
  it is a very, very intensely political mission. it's phrased almost entirely in political terms.
tomc1985 4y ago
Hah, does anyone actually believe a company's "mission statement"?
- tmp_anon_22 4y ago
  > We act as #OneCoinbase, putting the company’s goals ahead of any particular team or individual goals. The thing I hate about this fake corporate mission is there is absolutely no need for the lie. Just be honest, hey we started this company, the founders will have disproportionate returns because we were first and control the equity power structure, you will work for us and make less money - even in the event of an exit. Sometimes we will fire you. We will make mistakes. Lets be adults. Instead its: "In our supreme nobility we sacrifice everything at the alter of the almighty cause, and so should you. Follow in our virtuous foot steps. Ask not what your company can do for you, but what you can do for your company!" ...
  - tomc1985 4y ago
    The only honest mission statement is, "we exist to make as much money as possible" And until shareholder supremacy is no longer a thing, anything else is a lie Support your favorite B-corp, folks
    - eshack94 4y ago
      Exactly this. I don't understand why companies that exist to make money feel the need to be dishonest about their desire to make money.
      - lowbloodsugar 4y ago
        Because far too many potential employees still believe in a just world.
        weq 4y ago
        Capitalism exists to eat all else. Every class has its own destiny.
    - mlmonkey 4y ago
      "we exist to make as much money as possible".... for ourselves. You plebes should just be thankful that you have jobs.

TaylorAlexander 4y ago

When I see that it always seems to me that the real issue is the CEO has made a conscious choice to pick profit over doing the right thing, and wants employees who dislike this choice to leave. Which is essentially bad for society and why I think most firms in our economy should be co-operatively managed.

aeturnum 4y ago
I think you're giving them a bit too much credit. I suspect that is what they think they are doing - but IMO they're just being ineffectual. The real villains manage this like any other aspect of company culture. Exxon doesn't ban talking about politics and it hasn't crippled their operations!
- skwirl 4y ago
  >Exxon doesn't ban talking about politics and it hasn't crippled their operations! Probably because it's not happening there to nearly the extent it happens at big tech companies, partly due to the culture of older companies and partly due to the company attracting a certain type of morally agnostic person. Exxon did not release a statement following Friday's supreme court decision like most tech companies did and did not respond to comment when asked about it.
Veelox 4y ago
> When I see that it always seems to me that the real issue is the CEO has made a conscious choice to pick profit over doing the right thing Just going to toss my hat in the ring and say that I think selling data to ICE falls on the right half of the right/wrong spectrum. Not everyone agrees with your specific take on right and wrong. Sometimes those discussions shouldn't happen in the workplace.
- camdat 4y ago
  Can you expand on why you think this is a good thing?

dubswithus 4y ago

It's not really political at all. The government is going to get the data one way or another. Or shut down Coinbase and be done with it. It's the survival instinct of a company playing a very dangerous game.

madeofpalk 4y ago
Why is it dangerous?

tomc1985 4y ago

While you are correct, this is the logic that is used to guilt-slash-shame folks who do not want to get involved into getting involved. It is one of the many sources of intense polarization that we suffer from today, and it forces people to take uninformed stances on things that makes them little more than mindless footsoldiers for causes that need a nuanced touch.

tomlockwood 4y ago
Either way, the Coinbase employees are now involved with this. They helped build this, they are in this. The discussions may be silenced but "politics" isn't. It's not possible to not be political. This is a great demonstration of that.
aeturnum 4y ago
> it forces people to take uninformed stances on things There are lots of ways to unproductively engage with politics - and I agree that we live in an age of highly visible unproductive engagement. However, banning engagement makes it official company policy that every interaction with politics be uninformed. "It was hard so we gave up" is just not a good sign for your leadership.
- lmm 4y ago
  > I agree that we live in an age of highly visible unproductive engagement. However, banning engagement makes it official company policy that every interaction with politics be uninformed. Not necessarily - I don't think engagement is particularly informative. A ban, even a widely flouted one, gives people permission to disengage, and might be valuable for that reason alone (in the same way that e.g. people have argued that monasteries and convents created a good place for asexuals in society, even when their rules were widely flouted).

chmod600 4y ago

It seems more like an ethical concern (mishandling customer data) than a political concern. Ethical concerns should be raised at work, but I believe politics at work should be avoided. There's no such thing as a group of people who agree about politics. They only think they agree until enough details start coming out. The question is whether these differences are handled respectfully and people learn from each other, or whether they see it as a moral battle and end up hating each other. In the current cultural climate, the latter seems more likely. And I see no benefit from carrying that into the workplace.

Phlarp 4y ago
How can you possibly claim to separate ethics from politics in a work context? The two are hopelessly intertwined.
- chmod600 4y ago
  Ethics in the workplace is about your behavior while carrying out your job duties. For instance: lying to a customer to make a sale and hit your quota is unethical. Politics and ethics can intersect, for instance, if you are writing some graphics software and someone realizes it would make a great missle guidance system. Some people might feel that's perfectly patriotic and be happy to provide it to the DoD; others might never want to work on a weapon. Political opinions lead to divergent ethical codes. But here with Coinbase it doesn't seem to be an intersection at all. It's unethical regardless of political persuasion.

chris123 4y ago

Can you translate that? You're saying leave politics out of work, leave your politics at home, right? Or are you saying the opposite, just bring your personal politics so the workplace?

xionon 4y ago
They're saying neither; they're saying that politics is inextricable from life, and that work is part of life. You can't extract politics from work any more than you can extract personal life from work. People aren't robots.

midislack 4y ago

This is why it's critical to boycott companies whose politics don't match yours.

ehnto 4y ago

Yes one of the main responsibilities of government is to govern the interaction between different entities within the community. If you move then to law, and consider law an arm of government and politics, the vast, vast, vast majority of law is about industry and commercial concerns. By contrast, individuals are actually the governments least concern, and that bias often shows very clearly and even proudly in policymaking.