This comment is really, really tone-deaf. People can believe strongly in the vision and mission of a company while also feeling strongly that upper leadership is steering it in the wrong direction and/or making decisions that negatively impact the company's mission.
Clearly that is the case here. CEO really comes off as if he’s living in a fantasy world here.
Which isn’t surprising given he started a crypto company.
If he would have left it at these two points and immeditaly called a company all hands:
>First of all, if you want to do a vote of no confidence, you should do it on me and not blame the execs. Who do you think is running this company? I was a little offended not to be included :)
> Our culture is to praise in public, and criticize in private. Posting this publicly is also deeply unethical because it harms your fellow co-workers, along with shareholders and customers.
Or to put it this way: if Coinbase goes bankrupt, customers have priority for Coinbase's assets over its shareholders.
> But wait, you bluster, the custodial agreement clearly says that I am the owner, that it’s my property, that I retain title to it. Yup, but that’s not how the law actually works. Just because they wrote that doesn’t mean it’s true.
> In fact, the exchanges are lulling the consumers with language claiming that the consumer "owns" the coins, when in fact the legal treatment is quite likely to be different in bankruptcy. In bankruptcy, it is likely to be treated as a debtor-creditor relationship, not a custodial (bailment) relationship.
> Not only are the customers likely mere creditors, but they are also likely general unsecured creditors, which means they will have to wait at the back of the line for repayment with everyone else. They will share on a pro rata basis whatever assets are leftover (if any) after the secured creditors and the priority creditors (including the expenses of running the bankruptcy) get paid, and any payment might not be for quite a while. That’s not a happy to place to be. Recoveries could be pennies on the dollar.
https://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2022/02/what-happens...
Your citation refers to the status of customers with respect to other creditors.
It says diddly squat about shareholders, who are below creditors in the event of a bankruptcy. Because, in a corporate bankruptcy, shareholders generally lose their investment.
Absent bankruptcy, fiduciary duty to shareholders is prioritized over creditor's interests. In bankruptcy, customers will be screwed over to benefit the other creditors, not to benefit the shareholders as I mistakenly said.
No, this is still wrong. Shareholders are not prioritized over creditors, at any time. Shareholders are the least important stakeholders in a corporation, because by virtue of their limited investment, they have the least at risk.
If you don't like a company's leadership, obviously don't go work there. If you do, then decide you don't like them, obviously you quit. A 5-year old could understand that. Though it's beyond the anarchist collective on HN, apparently.
> We praise in public and criticize in private
But you’re criticizing employees in public right now? As the CEO and founder I think you need to be receptive to criticism and take it on the chin. This tweet reads as if it was written in a frustrated, spontaneous episode. That’s also not a really inspiring look for outsiders or investors.
Best of luck, I’m moving over to Kraken. Treating and talking about employees like this isn’t okay.
>If you're unhappy about something, work as part of the team to raise it along with proposed solutions (it's easy to be a critic, harder to be a part of the solution).
Yet all his thread does is criticize this petition without trying to understand and work with the person who wrote it. I understand that a CEO would be very unhappy at something like this and I can't fault him for feeling that way, but he'd do well to listen to his own point in this instance - "be a part of the solution".
The third option -- to escalate the argument to the public square and enlist the public as allies -- is available, but think what would happen if everybody did this. In a company of thousands of people there will always be passionate disagreement. If companies tolerated this kind of public escalation, it would erode the trust that is necessary for any organization to operate. It would be its own kind of toxic culture.
I mean, being silent about company dirty laundry is not exactly virtue.
If you're leaking about something that's genuinely concerning (criminal, or just very bad and immoral), by all means, leak it.
But this seems more of a leak to make some noise, to win an argument by public opinion. Nothing but a political stunt. Not very virtuous.
It's not a political stunt. The people who haven't left clearly want to remain their for various reasons asides from the issues they expressed. It's an attempt from those employees to actually improve the company and address the issues they have.
Not an employee or shareholder, but a Coinbase user here. The CEO responding to petitions like this on Twitter in a childish and heated manner is reducing my confidence in Coinbase as a company. The same might be true for other users who are watching.
You are the CEO of a public company, and will have to see many such petitions over the course of your career if things go well. Lashing out on Twitter is a shortcut to achieving much worse outcomes that will not end well.
I suggest apologizing publicly to your employees for your heated Tweets, and cite that you will definitely not use Dot Collector in the future. If it's such a non-event, why not take the win and admit that it was a bad idea? It is well-known as controversial anyway from all I have heard about it.
The biggest threat to my confidence about Coinbase is the structural parts of it, the fact that they are a growing centralized for-profit company responsible for a large amount of assets.
On this trivial (to me, maybe not to Coinbase) Twitter matter: I can see how both sides would go public like this. If you are an internal employee and you think there are C-level personnel changes that should be made, the odds are definitely not in your favor to propose such a thing internally. The risk is high that there will be retribution (whether direct or indirect). Going public is a way to drive attention to the issues, and incentivize that execs act in a legal manner in their responses.
I can also see why Brian would want to address this. Employees are airing their dirty laundry publicly. Shareholders and users can see this. If all you saw was this petition, it would certainly raise a lot of questions. It needs to be addressed in the arena in which it was surfaced by leadership. Where I think Brian is going wrong is he is being 100% defensive and 0% open-minded/empathetic. What about Coinbase's environment led to employees feeling the need to go public like this? This should be a time for some introspection, to hopefully ensure this doesn't happen again.
For a reason that is not "a small group of employees suck" or "working from home sucks". It would have been important to address and embrace that.
it's nice to see you haven't changed in the sense that you're responding here directly and address the issue without mincing words. The content is less nice though, very misguided even. I don't have inside knowledge and can't speak for the employees but I can tell you that other shareholders also aren't happy with the way things are going and what's been said in the petition largely resonates with me.
It's not because of the downcycle, no one who's been in crypto long enough cares about that. Most long term investors don't care about the current share price either, but we're worried about the future value of the company. The out of control hiring was completely incomprehensible after you and other execs for months repeated the mantra that Coinbase is well prepared for the bear market. Spending has been out of control lately as the Q1 figures showed, especially on administration and employee stock options, wherever that money went. The company is quickly turning into another Silicon Valley bureaucratic monster, eating up funds with little real world gain in terms of productivity. (Foreign) acquisitions don't seem to be going great. And neither do you communicate any of the "challenges" to the shareholders, you seem to be treating us the same way as the employees. One day you announce the plan to hire thousands of new employees, a few weeks later that gets completely scrapped and a hiring stop put in place. This isn't good leadership and doesn't look like there is sufficient foresight.
Lastly in terms of investments, one of the great opportunities Coinbase has at the moment is investing aggressively in startups in the space, given the cash reserves. Having a chief people officer who doesn't understand crypto hire more and more people who don't know what they're doing at Coinbase isn't needed at this point, it would be better to invest in talent that does understand the space and actively builds solutions.
And while of course the leadership should lead and the employees should follow, not the other way around, it doesn't hurt to listen to them once in a while. Publicly dismissing their concerns in an arrogant and aggressive manner is not helpful!
It absolutely is and there is a lot more of this blame game to come as people’s illusions are crushed. BTW it’s not a downcycle or a season, it’s a crash and cryptocurrencies will not recover because:
Nobody is using them as currencies - the experiment has failed, instead they are vehicles for speculation
The supply of greater fools in the world population has been exhausted, and after they lose all their money they will never return
That’s not to say coinbase and Armstrong don’t deserve criticism but let’s be clear about why it is happening now - his actions haven’t changed, the context has, and a lot of people have lost money they’re never getting back invested in coinbase itself and cryptocurrencies so they are angry (esp employees who probably invest in crypto, in coinbase and depend on the company).
Granted, maybe the crypto aficionados celebrating the hiring spree are different from the ones now demanding labor austerity, but it strikes me as quite the heel-turn.
The amount of blatant hypocrisy in this tweet is mindblowing. If I knew I wasn’t smart enough to run a company I’d at the very least get someone to proofread my tweets before exposing my lack of logical consistency and awareness.
This whole leak/rant is something that should have been addressed internally. Shot in the foot.
Aside from the fact that his response is likely illegal according to California labor code, threatening to fire employee for discussing workplace conditions, it blows my mind how ignorant and illiterate he is when it comes to understanding power dynamics, and even the basic history of labor.
How do you go from being a startup founder to a public company CEO without deeply reflecting about workplaces, employee happiness, dysfunction, power dynamics and history of all of that?!
Or, you could hope that people will stop having emotions and acting irrationally based on those emotions. I seriously doubt that will pan out well.
So much this. I’ve worked at a couple companies that at some point had a lot of leaks. In every case it was because employees had become disgruntled because there was no way to affect change inside the system.
Brian armstrong: We need to lay-off 18% of our workforce to stay healthy as a company.
Brian armstrong: Doesn't slash his $60M compensation to help retain some staff who've contributed to building the company.
Also, Brian armstrong: I take accountability.
Clearly not.
It seems to me that it's not the company's health he's worried about.
My first thought after reading that - maybe your employees actually believe that their execs are the ones running the show?
Here’s a link on your CPO:
https://www.teamblind.com/post/Coinbase-product-team-culture...
""" I’m deeply troubled by this, but not for the reasons you might imagine: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31690452
2/ First of all, if you want to do a vote of no confidence, you should do it on me and not blame the execs. I was a little offended not to be included :)
3/ Second, let’s separate the problems that you perceive to stem from a few execs, and those that you believe are core to the company's mission. If you don’t like the mission, your decision is easy: you should leave. If a few unpopular execs, my decision is hard.
4/ Third, making suggestions on how to improve the company is a great idea (in fact, we expect everyone to be a part of that). But our culture is to praise in public, and criticize in private.
5/ Fourth, our culture is to retaliate against whistleblowers. Instead of negotiating with you, if you get caught you will be fired. """
The rest was really good!
>5/ Fourth, our culture is to retaliate against whistleblowers. Instead of negotiating with you, if you get caught you will be fired.
That's just terrible advice - whistleblower retaliation is illegal, and you're suggesting he retaliate publicly? I'd argue that your post could best be condensed to, "Speak with your legal team before you publicly respond to something like this."
Coinbase seems like a dumpster fire. Heed the warnings of the recent announcements that your assets can be considered the company's in bankruptcy proceedings - and move your assets into hardware wallets.
This guy is dumb, really dumb, on multiple levels.
No it's not. It's often the only recourse because of the certainty of retaliation because of the power imbalance.
A generally apathetic and sometimes condescending attitude from the CPO, COO, and Chief People Officer
Which you replied to with a very apathetic and condescending:
Second, if you have no confidence in the execs or CEO of a company then why are you working at that company? Quit and find a company to work at that you believe in!
This is a very amateurish response, and honestly I'm expecting better from some exec of a publicly traded company. You should have used this as an opportunity to make your employees believe they made the right choice, share how Coinbase is always (supposed to be) looking for new ways to improve, and how there are more appropriate channels for this kind of feedback.
Instead you let your ego get in the way, shared some childish tweets (that you'll probably regret soon), and alienated the majority of your employees.
Well, he did say he felt offended that he wasn't included in the list.
>You should have used this as an opportunity to make your employees believe they made the right choice
Brian is doing that here. Except he is appealing to the employees that aligns with him and his choice of people for exec leadership. You seem to assume that a vast majority of the employee base agrees with the petitioner, and Brian seems to assume that a vast majority agrees with his PoV.
The creator of this petition then sent it to @Carnage4Life/@GergelyOrosz[1] on Twitter who perpetuated the idea that this had actually been signed by employees and was causing a rucks at Coinbase.
To me this is borderline misinformation because it is not representative of any reality.
[1] https://twitter.com/Carnage4Life/status/1534986892906639360
I guess I'm just frustrated at these "tech writers" for re-posting unverified information from Blind and then needing to walk it back later. It's unprofessional and risky.
"I am aware of the open letter published today that was claimed to be from Coinbase empoyees. We will do our best to verify this and also respond to those employees internally to try and solve any issues they have with the direction of our company. I appreciate all feedback from Coinbase employees, positive or negative."
Then deal with this internally.
Retaliation?
I dare him to do it, no I double dare him to do it.
But I bet all the tea in china he wont do it.
If this same response were posted after an internal petition, it would have the wrong tone. Externally, I'm not going to condemn it so much.
he says whilst criticizing his employees on Twitter