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Comment by onion2k | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if this is a way for Coinbase to push politically engaged employees out of the company in order to reduce the possibility of anyone pushing for internal change like people who want worker's rights groups or unionization. Operating with a workforce who only want to turn up and write code and never discuss anything that affects them as a group puts Coinbase in a very strong negotiating position because there's almost complete information asymmetry in their favor.

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The activism displayed in U.S tech is damaging both from a organizational point of view, but also its a competetitive disadvantage.

Imagine having employees who refuses to do work because 'they feel they shouldn't'. Or organizes walkouts, protests and are actively lobbying for changes in company policy to reflect their own personal values. Or protests against certain customers of the company, because they are evil in some perceived way or form.

It's smart to do what one can to get rid of these types of employees basically because they are only trouble, they add nothing with their activism in the workplace.

Now what you do on your own time on the other hand is totally up to you.

Yeah I mean it's smart to do everything in your power to annihilate all workers rights, if you could turn them into slaves that would be ideal.

Case and point: employees at Spotify wanting to censor Joe Rogan.

Whether or not you agree, you can objectively see how this would jeopardize a presumably 10-figure deal for Spotify.

Rogan's deal is in the hundreds of millions (9 figures), not in the billions.

9 figure deal, 10 figure implications:

"Spotify shares dropped 8.8% Wednesday (Sep. 2) morning, shaving as much as $4.81 billion of its value, following a report Joe Rogan's back catalog debuted on the platform Tuesday without episodes by right-wing personalities"

> Or protests against certain customers of the company, because they are evil in some perceived way or form.

Or protests against other employees because <reasons>.

I'm the bloke who got my boss to hire the Polish girl who cleaned our offices after I realized she had a relevant degree.

The Indian girl I worked with at the helpdesk at the start of my career approached me at a wedding for common friends and said thanks for how much I had helped and encouraged her to pick up the local language.

I'm often the bloke people talk to about this or that because I listen and neither judge nor leak (unless clearly agreed).

I'm the bloke who was happy to be let go so that another guy with less experience could keep his as the bottom fell out of the market. (Also I really didn't like that job, but it made me genuinely happy that he could stay there as he had small kids and needed a job for different reasons. Also: I got a 40% increase in my base salary when I got a new job : )

It goes without saying I strongly believe all people have the same worth.

But at Google I would not feel safe at all, because I have studied enough biology and psychology to know that men and women are different and I refuse to pretend otherwise if confronted although I am wise enough not to bring the topic up.

I hate to be the one triggering Godwin's Law at this depth in the discussion, but oh well.

> Imagine having employees who refuses to do work because 'they feel they shouldn't'. Or organizes walkouts, protests and are actively lobbying for changes in company policy to reflect their own personal values. Or protests against certain customers of the company, because they are evil in some perceived way or form. It's smart to do what one can to get rid of these types of employees basically because they are only trouble, they add nothing with their activism in the workplace.

I think the world would have been collectively grateful if engineers at IBM and Dehomag would have refused to do some work because they felt they shouldn't [1].

Remember, politics is out there in the world. If a large enough number of people at your company are being affected by it, there's likely something wrong that's much greater than your company. History can teach us some lessons about this.

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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust

They always have the choice to not do the work. You just don't show up and that's it. Not doing something is the easiest thing to do.

The protest is about trying someone else to do something.

> They always have the choice to not do the work. You just don't show up and that's it. Not doing something is the easiest thing to do.

In a country where your employer controls your access to healthcare and retirement, as well as indirectly controls your access to these things for the rest of your life via references (future employers will shy away from hiring a lone person who refused to do as they were told and was fired for that reason), I would say this is not easy at all.

IMO, modern companies in America are turning into a sort of benevolent government; and that's why you have all these protests. Cut employers out of things fundamental to life like healthcare and retirement, and turn it into a true monetary exchange. Then you will have far fewer of these protests; and people might feel more comfortable quitting en masse instead.

Sorry but employees making top 5% of salaries in the country are not bound by economic necessity to their employer. That argument might have a point in amazon warehouse workers, but not on people that have plenty of job opportunities at other employers as well as self employed.

In the blog post in which he explained Coinbase's mission, he specifically mentioned that:

> Of course, employees should always feel free to advocate around issues of pay, conditions of employment, or violations of law, for instance.

Now, if he really is trying to diminsh the possibility of that happening, I don't know.

"employees should always feel free to advocate around ... violations of law"

So generous of him, he could have run it like a drug cartel.

Yeah, he would've been better off ending the sentence before that statement.

For what it's worth, Coinbase must "allow" those discussions by law in the US. In my mind, that's the kind of thing you say in a staement like this to protect yourself from a lawsuit.

I doubt Coinbase thinks employees advocating around pay/conditions are desirable for the company.

> For what it's worth, Coinbase must "allow" those discussions by law in the US.

I'm not from the US, so thanks for pointing that out.

> For what it's worth, Coinbase must "allow" those discussions by law in the US.

I feel most companies think that this isn't desirable. However, as long as the complaints, and the complainers, are treated fairly, that's fine by me.

The first thing I ever saw of a tech union in SF was advertising on the BART about keeping people like me out from working in tech.

So, pass on that.

> people like me

Can you elaborate?

Immigrants

Another way to put it - you’re welcome if you’re comfortable with the status quo. In other words, young white college educated and male. All others who don’t fit in that category are more likely to not be comfortable with how society is treating them, and start that pesky trying to make things better stuff which gets in the way of business.

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