This explanation's believability has an inverse relationship with the number of claims. I could buy the idea that a couple people perceived "normal annoying work crap" as discrimination, but would that happen 15 times? 75% of the Black employees left the company in a 6 month window. You don't see anything like that at any other company.
This is a really dishonest article. It tries to lead one to believe things (e.g. that 15 Black people left Coinbase because they were belittled in meetings) without stating it outright or making a case for it. Just insinuation spun up from a few concrete situations that themselves are mostly vague or not obviously discrimination (the gun and drugs thing being the obvious exception).
This is the level of dishonesty that I've come to expect from the NYT. Any fact that does not fit their narrative basically doesn't exist.
Better treatment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25233702
however, i am not sure that is relevant given the immediate example of a team member who was allowed to work remote. also, i am not sure it is relevant given the fact that there are many other underpinnings for the story’s thesis.
To clarify, I assume the generous severance you're referring to is not the generous severance Coinbase offered employees as part of their no-politics-at-work approach, because the timelines don't match.
> The article implies that a number of the Black people who left did so because the compliance division was relocated and they didn't want to relocate with it. It doesn't say how many people's decisions were influenced by annoying work crap that they interpreted as discrimination.
And mentions the one white person was allowed to stay remote. Pretty dishonest to leave that detail out, no?
> This is a really dishonest article. It tries to lead one to believe things (e.g. that 15 Black people left Coinbase because they were belittled in meetings) without stating it outright or making a case for it. Just insinuation spun up from a few concrete situations that themselves are mostly vague or not obviously discrimination (the gun and drugs thing being the obvious exception).
After reading it it seems a lot left because of constant issues of discrimination - being told to be in meetings in front of cameras to pretend to be diverse, but being ignored in meetings of consequence. Being told to relocate, but applied unequally. Having meetings about BLM and a month later the boss says "leave it at the door." The guns and drugs comment, the black inferiority comment, those are absolutely damning.
This is how racism/discrimination thrive - by playing in the margins, doing things that aren't provable (they never have an email that says "we're discriminating against you!" so therefore it didn't happen or other arguments of that type), giving bad performance reviews after complaints are made, etc. Much like saying "oh it was a joke!"
And finally the icing on the cake:
> Ms. Sawyerr said she had talked with four other Black employees about bringing a discrimination lawsuit against Coinbase, but the others backed out after being offered hefty severance payments in exchange for confidentiality agreements.
These are multiple people's experience with this company - and there are clearly others who were paid not to say anything.
The article clearly does what it set out to do - show the experiences of people who lived in what they believed to be a toxic work culture. I'm inclined to believe them.
And then you are extrapolating two uncorroborated anecdotes of inappropriate comments as evidence of widespread discrimination.
And, of course, the article has many more complaints than this one!
Unless I am missing something seems pretty clear the employee switched from WFH in Philadelphia to commuting to NYC to work at that office.
* The PHL employee has been given their choice of office to work from.
* The Black employees were required to relocate, not just show up at a particular office on a schedule.
Were the Black employees offered the opportunity to work out of the NYC office?
* There was an existing compliance department.
* It had several remote team members.
* The company opened a compliance office in PDX.
* The company required Black team members to relocate to PDX or apply for new jobs.
* The company allowed a non-Black team member to remain in PHL and work out of the NYC office.
* Multiple sources claimed that the PHL employee was allowed to continue working remotely.
* The stated reason for demanding the relocation of the Black team members was to have the whole compliance team working from one place, a goal that obviously wasn't served by having someone else working out of PHL and NYC.
Maybe the sources in this article are lying (of course, you can rebut any claim that way), but apart from that, I'm not sure how this complaint is easily knocked down.
Your wording speculates on how the communication around remote was delivered in an unfavorable light. We know the decision was made to end WFH/remote, and one employee managed to get permission to work from the NYC office. A more realistic (still speculative) scenario imo:
-Company announces end of wfh/remote for a team. Folks are asked to relocate to PDX. -Employee asks for permission to work from NYC. Request is approved.