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Comment by ctur | Hacker News Reader

I wrote this in an email turning down a chance explore opportunities at Coinbase.

> To me, diversity and social justice are critically important. I have the luxury of being selective in where I put my time and energy and it is important those values align with my career. I appreciate aspects of being "mission focused" but I think that there is a gulf between my personal values and Coinbase's values such that I would not be comfortable in the environment.

I can't speak for anyone else but I think I'm not a terrible engineer and I definitely ruled them completely out of the realm of places I'd be willing to work.

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I think that's the system working as intended. Coinbase decided to focus on consensus rather than pure raw technical competence (which is also what companies do when they try to meet diversity quota). You don't agree with their consensus, so you explain them so they have data and a chance to reconsider, and you can go in a company that aligns more with your values. While I don't doubt at all your technical competence, I doubt your are irreplacable (I'm not irreplacable too, and most people are not of course, this is not "against" you), so that's just the market doing its thing.

I have a biais for people that are honest about their values, so I'm glad about their move, but I understand not everyone shares my biais.

Coinbase decided to focus on consensus rather than pure raw technical competence (which is also what companies do when they try to meet diversity quota).

Companies trying to meet the diversity quota very much do not focus on pure raw technical competence. In fact, to suggest so, borders on gaslighting.

Sorry, the way I put it wasn't clear, but that was my point. Only putting "also" to indicate that is an error on my part, it's easy to interpret my statement in the exact opposite way. What I meant to say was:

"Coinbase decided to focus on consensus rather than pure raw technical competence. Companies that try to meet diversity quotas are also focusing on consensus rather than pure raw technical competence. These companies and Coinbase are similar in that way."

Sounds like their policy of discouraging wokes, who want to use their job as a cudgel for their own political views, from applying to their company is working.

What do you know about OP? What if OP is an extremely productive programmer who lives to build product and has a huge impact, but also cares about black people or LGBTQ+ people? So he's worthless to coinbase? Thats insane.

False dichotomy. You can have political opinions and simultaneously not feel the need to express them at work.

> You can have opinions and simultaneously not feel the need to express them.

I have a ton of opinons, fully formed, in formation, and very occasionally the polar opposite of opinon I held strongly a few hours earlier that have never seen the light of day.

> What if OP is an extremely productive programmer who lives to build product and has a huge impact, but also cares about black people or LGBTQ+ people?

Then they are not compatible with Coinbase's culture, and Coinbase seem to place more important on cultural fit than on raw ability. It's nothing new, really. How do you think an interview at one of the big FAANG goes if you show some controversial opinions? You're rejected for lack of cultural fit. Coinbase's difference isn't in their practice, but in the values that they focus on.

If someone wants to work at a place because of ideology, then the might be worse than worthless, they might have negative worth.

That said, I'll bet there's far more agreement among all of us than not on these issues, it's just that they get all blown up.

Outside of Twitter wars and the most radical voices in a company, I strongly believe we would just all get along pretty darn well actually.

I agree with all of your points, but also point out that a small vocal minority can really ruin the culture at a company and be quite divisive. That is true even if most of us would get along and most of us just want to focus on work. So you have to do something about the social justice crusaders. In some sense, this type of widespread culture wars within companies is only possible because we have so many monopolies and therefore you can destroy a lot of value and still have the business not only remain viable, but grow.

So it very much depends on whether we solve the problem of monopolies. Make progress on that front, and firms wont be able to support these types of employees because they'll be driven out of business by competitors in which employees are not attacking each other but really are just focusing on work.

That's a good point as well, though I'll bet the 'ruinous minority' may not screw everything up along classically ideological lines. More likely bad acting, corruption, general toxicity.

> What if OP is an extremely productive programmer who lives to build product and has a huge impact,

Thankfully there are dozens of thousands of people as capable who do not intent to discuss social justice on the clock.

No, if he’s* a poor culture fit he’d likely be. If he’s doing activism during his personal time, he would probably be a value add. * or she or they

That's not a fair interpretation of their comment. There are lots of middle ground between "wokes, who want to use their job as a cudgel for their own political views" and the people that Coinbase wants to recruit. Pretending that there is no middle ground is a tactic often used by the people you describe as "wokes". They were reasonable in their answer to Coinbase, I don't see why you need to peg them as an extremist.

Not to be mean, but I'd say that Brian Armstrong took the actions he did to weed out people like you from working at Coinbase.

On the other hand, I, a fairly good Engineer, would favor Coinbase over many other tech companies precisely because their CEO had the courage to say what every other CEO is thinking, that is that a company is a place where money is exchanged for labour not a venue for promoting one's political agenda, no matter how righteous that agenda might feel.

Because the CEO shares your politics and is only allowing your brand to express themselves at work you want to work there. I mean I understand the feeling but can we stop pretending that this isn’t entirely political?

I have no idea what is Coinbase’s CEO politics. The beautiful thing is that I neither have to know nor to care.

What 'brand of politics' is it to suggest that politics shouldn't be a major factor at work.

Also, to your OP's point ... I think it's reductionist to suggest that 'companies are an exchange for labour' - this is too much.

Almost all educated workers derive some meaning and dignity from their work beyond salary or benefits.

So 'what we work on matters'.

That said, even if we work on 'some new currency that can help the world' it may still mean that whether or not the company should fly the BLM flag is a bit of a political matter.

> What 'brand of politics' is it to suggest that politics shouldn't be a major factor at work.

Let’s apply this to say the stereotypical 50s “Mad Men” office, gender gap and everything. To be political in that time and say hey women shouldnt just be secretaries and stay at home parents wouldn’t fly, it’s political. That’s what I think is meant by “a no politics rule means acceptance of status quo”. That doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of people happy with the status quo, or who think it’s fair and equitable as is.

Not that the ones being “political” are necessarily correct completely or in part right now, but there were plenty who liked the status quo just fine back then too.

I very much doubt educated workers, and I assume you really mean tech workers, derive much more than money and prestige from their incredibly well paid but for the most amoral jobs. Big tech life is saturated with hypocrisy. Most workers just play along, virtue signaling like the rest, and keep cashing the RSU's hoping to one day have enough cash to be able to buy back their independence of thought.

> Because the CEO shares your politics and is only allowing your brand to express themselves at work you want to work there.

What are Brian Armstrong's politics again? And what are mine? The reality is that I don't care what Brian's politics are.

What politics would those be? The last thing I want is to discuss politics at work with my CEO. I have enough meaning in my life that I do not need to look for validation of my ideology during working hours.

I love how HN threads can have both pure capitalism view of jobs and the concern for worker’s rights.

This is a win win. They don’t want you and you don’t want them. There’s nothing wrong with it. It would only seem wrong to people with authoritarian desire to force everyone to align with themselves.

I would argue maybe it's a lose-lose.

There's no reason on god's green earth that a reasonable person should not be able to work at Coinbase, and in reality, Coinbase probably has pretty much the same level of inclusivity at the end of the day as every other tech company. Moreover, there's no reason why Coinbase can't at least acknowledge some of the social ills flaring up, it's not 'unfair' I think to staff to do so.

It's a sad war of words.

Such self-selection is good, and serves the intended purpose (much like the Netflix culture deck). The folks that work at Coinbase wouldn’t want colleagues like you, and you wouldn’t want colleagues like them - so this is a clear win-win.

Shows that this strategy is working as intended

Considering Coinbase isn't seeing any attrition above normal for tech and isn't having issues recruiting, I think nobody really cares.

Also, if you're white and claim diversity and social justice to be "critically important" then why don't you give up your job so that a minority can take it?

A counterpoint: I’m actively seeking out “mission-based” or “anti-woke” workplaces in AI/ML. I’m not interested in crypto, so not Coinbase though.

This pluralism is what makes America great, right? As the beloved slogan goes: “It’s a free country”.

Sounds like joining a charity that is mission focused on diversity and social justice could be worth considering?

This is the outcome he wanted, so it sounds like everybody wins here.

Aren't you privileged?! :) I used to be 95% apolitical but now that the recent events have re-energized my old hard-libertarian stance, with a new addition of a big dose of anti-wokeness, I cannot have the same luxury as you do. If I were to shun woke companies, I'd have nowhere left to work :P

Honest question, what do you do at your presumably more enlightened workplace instead to pursue your political beliefs?

From what I've seen, these people typically just want to treat the company slack like Twitter and persecute political enemies while still cashing their paycheck and doing nothing of material value for the disadvantaged.

I did the same when I saw them hiring infosec staff directly out of the military-industrial complex.

That's your choice, but I think the ratio is maybe 4 to 1 the opposite way, with most people somewhere in between, leaning a bit towards the Coinbase side.

I think most of us want to see people treated very fairly, but that it's not any one group's job to distort their situation so much as to hire people on the basis of race or gender or to worry about it that-that much.

The first time you hire A over B due to a very obvious ideological reason, and you come face to face with the plight of the bloke you didn't hire ... it becomes more visceral.

I think we can be pretty good citizens, and maybe even say a few words of empathetic to BIPOC etc (which I think Coinbase should have done) - but without going full woke.

I think that's what most people probably prefer.

I don't think there are really that many truly racist places in tech (most wouldn't want that of course), but I think most people also don't actually want to work in a 'fully woke' environment if they really had the choice. Definitely some. But a minority.

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