Hacker News Reader

Comment by notSupplied | Hacker News Reader

I certainly agree that the mission of a company can (and preferably) be more than just for profit. However, "to be political" is still a pretty wide range of possible missions. Who calls the shots about what you're going to be political about, and which side you take? And when a group of employees disagree with the shots being called, what kinds of reactions are appropriate or not?

I'll take a shot: - I think compelled activism is inappropriate. You know, the "silence is violence" stuff. - I think expecting to have power to set a company's political agenda and expressing anger when you don't get your way is inappropriate. That power belongs to the board. Employment and stock-options are not "fractions of board seats".

View on HN

Companies that have a mission "to change the world" attract employees on the basis of activisism in the world. Heck this company is trying to overhaul the entire monetary system. If succeeded this will effect the lives of billions of people. Recruiting people with this premise, and then telling them actually, you don't have any say in what the company actually does, and the ways it changes the world, that actually it was all a joke, and so just shut up and do what the board says because they own all the power and rights is pretty disappointing.

I never believed the whole "change the world" SV nonsense, and always knew it was nothing more than cynical marketing. But at least in places like Google the employees who were brought on that premise, fight to achieve it, and make it real.

Coinbase is still hypocritical, and I wouldn't expect much more.

But this whole, "you are only a serf and the whole of power morally belongs to the board" reveals an unsettling feudal mentality.

It would be entirely possible to 'change the world' just by transforming the monetary system though, would it not? Yes, that is in itself a goal with political undercurrents and ultimately would clearly involve political decisions, but they are not at that stage yet and therefore I think it's quite reasonable to want to stay apolitical, where possible.

Serfs are (were) bound to their feudal overlord. Their children were bound as well. They couldn’t quit. They’ve had no political power. In many places they were even denied access to courts — they were forced to arbitrage through their lord. There was nothing they could do to improve their or their children’s lives.

I don’t think it compares, even as a hyperbole, to Coinbase employees.

> I never believed the whole "change the world" SV nonsense, and always knew it was nothing more than cynical marketing.

It certainly is.

But I like to believe, there is an underlying reasonable philosophy behind it. Every company tries to make a difference, that is its value proposition. If your value proposition has a negative social impact, it is not a sustainable business model. Legislation will eventually render your business untenable. (Even if it takes centuries or decades like tobacco, or fossil fuel).

So, considering your social impact makes business sense.

To quote Paul Drucker:

"Responsibility for social impacts is a management responsibility — not because it is a social responsibility, but because it is a business responsibility. The ideal is to make elimination of such an impact into a business opportunity. But wherever that cannot be done, the design of the appropriate regulation with the optimal trade-off balance—and public discussion of the problem and promotion of the best regulatory solution — is management’s job."

They never said "make the world better" only "change the world". This wasn't a mistake.

Actually in his original statement he said that they will be involved in politics that helps their mission.

To be involved in any and all politics is just absurd.

Even personally if you want to change something you have to have a very narrow focus. You can’t change everything.

> Employment and stock-options are not "fractions of board seats".

i agree that employment is not "fractions of board seats. But stock options (when converted to stock) holds voting power, and thus _do_ represent "factions of board seats". Very little amount, but an amount nonetheless.

Stock options are mostly for common stock, which don't give you voting power anyways.

Generally common stock has voting power.

I’ll take a shot at responding:

I would argue that the board wouldn’t exist without the people that make up the company. I would also argue that with monied interests and lobbyists in Washington, one of the last places that people can really effect societal change is at the work place. Companies have become the power center in American politics, so of course activism is going to rise up there.

As far as compelled activism goes, I feel that silence _is_ violence.

“The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men Do Nothing” (JFK, Burke, Mill...)

It's the framing of everything in good vs evil, monochromatic terms that actually increases divisiveness and prevents deescalation of conflict. Forcing people to take one's side or else "be on the wrong side" in a multifaceted environment is not appropriate for a workplace, where people expect to be able to set aside differences to work together on work itself.

I agree. But that's not a problem inherent in bringing political issues to the work place. This is a whole different problem which exists regardless of the work place. It's the zeitgeist, it's the result of attention economy, and massive social media.

I mean it’s absolutely appropriate to take a side on certain issues. I've always refused to work on military hardware for example. If my employer started working on military hardware, I’d refuse to contribute and I would try to encourage others to refuse as well. But actually we all have things we would refuse to do. Usually it’s not an issue because both management and the workers feel the same way. Most people wouldn’t want to create a product designed to murder people for example.

The issue comes when some people are uncomfortable with work being done and others aren’t. Those who are uncomfortable are probably going to want to have discussions about it. If I was asked to contribute to a system that put people (any people) in to cages I would refuse. But that’s precisely what ICE is doing in the USA. If such a contract came up you can bet it’s something I’d want to talk about with my coworkers!

The situation with Coinbase is the opposite of what you describe. Coinbase isn't moving into new territory that its employees find objectionable, e.g. by starting to develop crypto for the military. The activists at Coinbase are angry because the company isn't moving into their demanded new territory.

Millions of Americans are unemployed, hundreds of thousands are dying from a pandemic, tens of thousands are in lines at food banks, there are children in cages, women being given forced hysterectomies, and there are literally neo-Nazis that the President refuses to disavow.

If you’re not going to take a stand now, when will you?

If you’re not going to take a stand now, when will you?

When I'm not at work.

When and where I stand is my business, but "when" is definitely not when I am at work and nobody is bullying anyone.

So what about Twitter flagging Trump’s tweets? Do you think that happened without a politicised workplace discussion? With the amount of power that tech wields over society these discussions _have_ to happen.

That doesn't require a politicized workplace. Only a mission-focused one. One of Twitter's mission could very conceivably be to attach warnings to misinformation, irrespective of what political agenda it is intended to advance.

An argument could be made that this mission is politicising freedom of speech, in that a tech company is now determining what is misinformation and what is not. This very topic was a point of contention in the congressional antitrust hearings.

A company operates in a political environment, whether or not people want to acknowledge that. Workers have real power and can advance their goals whether or not management wants to accept it. Politics in the workplace isn’t something to shy from, but to embrace. Any company that tries to refute politics will find themselves behind the curve on something they should very much so try to stay ahead of.

I don't see how a tech company being the final arbiter on what is deemed misinformation on its own platform is politicizing free speech.

Yes you could stretch any argument to categorize anything as what you want, but I think under a reasonable interpretation of 'politicized workplace', Twitter could institute a policy of adding warnings to content it deems misinformation without politicizing its workplace.

As for workers having power, yes, but the company has the right to dictate what the worker does in their capacity as workers, if they choose to stay employed at the company.

Maintaining a mission focused company that doesn't allow employees to turn the company into a vehicle to advance a political cause unrelated to that mission is good for productivity.

I am operating on an underlying principle that others may not share, but this could help elucidate why I disagree with many fellow liberals on this front:

I'm trying to solve for how decision making power is allocated without making assumptions about which side is right or wrong. In other words, the argument that "The company must do XYZ because this political cause is simply on the RIGHT side of history!" is not acceptable to me, even though I often personally agree that the cause really _is_ right.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com