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Comment by throwawaysea | Hacker News Reader

I applaud Coinbase’s CEO on his position of keeping politics out of work. Other tech companies have been overrun with employee activism, which just means one political side has weaponized those companies in favor of their ideology. It is disrespectful to all their customers that don’t align with those views, damaging societally when digital public squares (Facebook and Twitter) are corrupted by employee politics, and it is a distraction in a professional environment that could otherwise be operated apolitically. I hope other organizations follow Coinbase’s example.

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To be fair though, keeping politics completely out of any aspect of life becomes increasingly hard when things like science and the definition of "truth" are being politicized. A statement like "I believe the 99% of climate scientists that say climate change is man-made" shouldn't be considered a political statement, yet here we are.

You could... not talk about it at work?

What is "it"? Things that are controversial? Where do we draw the line on that?

Most people would agree that talking about your flight "around" the world is OK, even if it takes a side in the somehow-controversial debate on the shape of the earth.

What about talking to your coworkers idly and you mention "Oh yeah I've been keeping my kids at home cause I'm worried about coronavirus". Controversial, some people think that's fake.

Talking about how you got married last month? If you're gay, that's suddenly controversial.

Talking to your manager about how you need to take time off because a family member died, they ask what happened, turns out they were shot by the police? Suddenly very controversial...

Politics isn't some weird abstract thing, it's life and the events that are happening around us every day. If we live in a world where literally the shape of the earth is a marker of political identity -- how do you expect people to avoid mentioning topics that people might find controversial? Or do you think it's possible to draw a stark dividing line somewhere between "shape of earth" and "police reform" that can be justified in an objective way?

I think the "don't be political" works both ways.

If someone, say, brought up their gay partner to a colleague who is very religious, I'd expect the religious colleague to treat them courteously. I wouldn't expect them to tell them that they will burn in hell for all eternity.

Maybe the line to be drawn is one of policy vs people. As a policy decision, you could be against gay marriage but on a personal level still be happy for a gay colleague that got married. Or happy that they are happy.

There’s a difference between talking about things with colleagues and being an activist. I don’t think anyone minds water cooler conversations about things. But using the company you work for as a base of activism is different. Actively creating a sub-culture within a company that polarizes or coerces employees is hostile.

In what world is your work not impacted by climate change? How you use energy, what supplier you use, your carbon impact, the raw materials you use to make your products, etc.. This is all part of it. Even if you don't believe in it, the fact that you don't believe in it while other companies do will impact you! You can't just ignore all those things and pretend they don't exist, as a business owner it's just entirely impossible to ignore it.

That doesn't really come up in general conversation though, does it?

I'm not talking about policy decisions by a business owner, I'm talking about when people have day to day discussions with other employees.

Science isn't allowed at work?

In terms of climate science, energy use is very relevant to work.

Insisting that Facebook / Twitter workplace should be apolitical, is as persuasive as Wernher Von Braun and his rocket engineer colleagues insisting that their workplace was also apolitical.

To understand your position, you're saying that if you take a job with a company, you must either take on the company's politics and ethics or leave?

There's no room for trying to improve a company from the inside?

If you are being told when to come to work and when to leave, what to work on, how and where to work on it, how to dress, corrected on even the most subtle things that you are doing "wrong" from the managements perspective and expected to do as told, what hope do you have to have any influence on the values of the company?

It's the norm that people in a workplace are primarily seen as cogs in the system, humans with needs and opinions as second. Any time the latter is perceived to potentially affect the former, you will be told to fall into line.

I don't know how long you've been out of the workforce, but I haven't had a job that told me when to arrive, when to leave, how or where to do my work, or what to wear, in almost 20 years.

In the IT industry there's this different type of subtle authority. "Yeah you can come as you please" But your daily meeting is at 10am and everyone must be there. Oh, and you must be present at least until X pm because there must be enough overlapping hours, so your wiggle room becomes even smaller. "You make your own hours, overtime is totally not expected" But people who take time off the least and do the most (sometimes unpaid) overtime get promoted etc. etc. If you take what they say literally, you say goodbye to any chance of promotion and might even get called out as a "non-teamplayer". They will wait until you realize you will never go forward in the company like this and either you start doing overtime or quit.

"Unlimited vacation days" is the biggest joke. Seriously, there's nothing stopping you from never showing up to work? In reality it's a way to make sure nobody ever takes time off if they want to have any chance of promotion.

Congratulations, you're one of the winners. Talk to your local McDonalds employee and you'll get a different story.

But we're not talking about McDonalds workers? We're talking about Coinbase.

Yes, but what's the reason to believe that Coinbase employees can impact the Coinbase culture more than McDonalds employees can? In the case we're discussing now, they tried, and the CEO told them "don't let the door hit you on your way out."

I have no idea what you think this conversation is about.

Any statistical data that suggests the odds are in favor of changing it from inside?

The CEO is saying the company will remain apolitical, outside of its mission.

It's kinda interesting to see because the cryptocurrency space is surely one of the more political tech developments at the core - replacing fiat money, new financial instruments, self-governing contracts, ...?

The CEO is declaring the focus political issue is cryptocurrency.

The focus is not whales, forests, ice caps, malaria.

Why is this controversial?

Interesting definition, so if his crypto platform (hypothetical) is getting used by mafia and for 'tax minimisation' thats apolitical? And if I raise a stink about it, I am an activist?

If a company is breaking the law, some countries offer whistleblower protections.

Well tax minimisation is not illegal - supposedly starbucks can pay less taxes in UK than I do alone

Probably because none of these things exist in a vacuum. Simply because we give a title to an "area of political focus" doesn't mean that it exists in it's own silo, unimpaired by decisions in any other area of political focus.

What happens when your area of political focus crosses tracks with another area of political focus and you're faced with a trolley problem? Do you simply steam ahead regardless of the overall impact or do you consider the overall impact?

"That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen" [1] applies to all policies, not simply those undertaken by states.

[1]: http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html

All entities including businesses commonly make tradeoffs between competing values. I am unaware how Coinbase plan to do this.

Outside the mission, it sounds like Coinbase won't factor these matters beyond the usual legal/reputation, the same as the majority of businesses.

Governments are best placed to guide prosocial behaviour.

For the record, I am pro sustainable fishing, sustainable foresty, tackling climate change, and eliminating malaria.

I think governments and dedicated organisations are best placed to do this: they can better enforce compliance, and have greater visibility on all of our pressing needs.

for a start, you've just separated "cryptocurrency" from "ice caps", when Bitcoin generates country-sized quantities of CO2.

It sounds like Coinbase doesn't consider climate change to be within their mission.

We need to place a place on carbon, and thus share responsibility, in proportion to use.

Very different than campaigning for BLM or MAGA at work.

Yes, which can be interesting to both leftists, rightists, and whatever other directionist you might wish to delineate.

It isn't politically neutral technology, sure-- but it's largely orthogonal to many other political concerns. This is good too, because an alternative money isn't particularly valuable unless it's useful to a broad spectrum of people.

I could easily imagine a cryptocurrency org that didn't have a culture of leaving your politics/religion at home -- at least to the extent that they didn't directly interact with your work-- could quickly become an extremely toxic and unproductive place.

Cryptocurrency represents a kind of financial libertarianism, that people should be able to own their money and be their own bank. It doesn't have much to say about aspects of life outside of that. It is political because of vested interests.

This is an unpopular opinion on HN, and I'm not sure I agree with it, but I am delighted that you've made it here. It's something worth debating in this group.

Let's say you run a company and your government offers you, for some insane reason, a fat, juicy contract to boil kittens alive. If you accept it, does that make the company apolitical? Is that a good thing?

The world hashed the issue out pretty thoroughly in the postwar years. I don't know if enough has changed since to warrant revisiting it.

>I applaud Coinbase’s CEO on his position of keeping politics out of work.

It's not keeping politics out of work, it is a political standpoint in and of itself.

I fully agree.

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