The guys who’d go on public platform to denounce Coinbase probably intersect with the type of people Coinbase wants to rid itself of.
I fully support what Coinbase is doing. It seems very fair to all sides.
I fully support what Coinbase is doing. It seems very fair to all sides.
Here are quotes from my feed:
"The path to an IPO is to purge Black and Brown people from Coinbase ... this is very unbecoming of a federal contractor"
"Over a dozen diverse crypto industry leaders [are] calling it out as racist."
"Sweden took 60 years to admit its neutrality policy was racist. How long will it take Coinbase to do the same? Being neutral is a position in support of the status quo - it always has been."
"Coinbase's CEO's recent statement of neutrality is unacceptable and complicit."
An out of context comment unfortunately adding to the gradient of the same context: "IBM's first computer sold to Hitler. Ford converted cars to tanks sold to Hitler. Why???"
The people posting are all identifying as black, in San Francisco Bay Area, and using their platform in support of black communities.
What's going on is that there is more context than Brian Armstrong's post, there is the context of what actually occurred within Coinbase amongst Coinbase's employees, something I have an incomplete picture of. And I think all of us miss that.
I like Brian Armstrong's post - in isolation. People with more context don't like it, and are galvanizing support against this very quickly. That's too bad. I hope Coinbase gets their IPO.
In my experience, there has never been a shortage of people with practically no information communicating very strong opinions online?
Do normal people actually believe stuff like this???
Extremists abound on the internet.
In other words, exactly the toxic group of people that this is trying to remove from the company.
It should be clear that this isn't "just" trying to be mission focused, that was very eloquently written and timely, but it is failing because it is a reaction to internal issues which wasn't clear to the rest of us. And as such it has stirred a hornets nest that also no longer wants to keep things inside the company.
Many of the people it has stirred are also people that have been fighting for more inclusivity and also identify as part of underrepresented groups. People that feel like their voice isn't loud enough because they are so few inside the companies. This doesn't represent everyone in underrepresented groups, only that there is a significant overlap in the goals of inclusivity and people that want the company to be more welcoming by speaking out against inherently political nationalism, which the company doesn't want to do.
I'm not offering any solution only observation.
The latter is the more visible one and being targeted by this, and in my opinion rightly so, because that behavior (attacking others) is toxic and helps nobody.
As a Swede, I... don't even know what they might be misinterpreting here!
Sweden apologized recently about their neutrality was not that neutral. They maintained favorable trade conditions with Berlin as well as granted land access for military incursions.
I also have no opinion on that direct quote which is in quotes. Go find and ask that other person, on LinkedIn, why they wrote it in the context they did.
Despite this, Sweden still did an impressive job of allowing in many refugees from persecution. Its diplomatic representatives were instrumental in assisting the persecuted throughout Europe during the whole war. Anyone interested should look up, for example: Raul Wallenberg and Count Folke Bernadotte.
Sweden had nothing to apologize for during the war, and especially given the much more evident racism of other states like the U.S, which explicitly forbade many refugee jews from entering U.S soil during the Nazi persecutions and expulsions of the 1930's before the war. The writing was on the wall in dripping red letters, but Roosevelt simply disregarded it to please certain voters. At one point in 1942, when presented by Polish resistence agent Jan Karski with a whole eye witness narrative of the massive German extermination program against the jews in Poland, his first question to the Home Army solider was about the Nazi treatment of horses and cattlein the occupied territory!
I have no idea why you should apologize for that.
This is undeniably true.