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Comment by pcthrowaway | Hacker News Reader

Wow. I just lost all respect for Kraken and the CEO (it was probably my favourite of the crypto exchanges for transparency)

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Based on what, exactly? In my reading the CEO comes off as reasonable and even-handed.

Some of the thread is reasonable - e.g. the ESL Saudi and pronouns - but trying to get ahead of a critical article by saying “FUD! Don’t believe the news! Apply now!” is not the best look.

What should he be doing if he wants people to apply? Should he wait for the articles to spread the word that kraken isn't in a position to hire?

First, don’t say “don’t believe the news” because that sounds extremely sketchy. Second, just affirm the/your facts instead of negating the anticipated argument. (Typical corporate speak, “We are focused on our mission,” “We welcome a diverse talent pool,” whatever you want). Third, don’t say apply now because it seems desperate. If you must, then at least don’t link to the application, just say something like “We are always hiring” or “If you want to join Kraken,” etc.

This is basic PR I would expect from even a college club, much less the CEO of a financial exchange: not getting on Twitter using laughing emojis and crying FUD.

Does he mention "the hit piece" at all in those tweets of his? I didn't see it. Clearly, there is a debate going on about the culture at Kraken, including in the media, and he stated his case. Don't see what's wrong with that.

EDIT: oh, it is mentioned: "Someone's likely been sharing internal chat (in breach of their NDA) devoid of context, with a journalist who we expect to publish a hit piece in the next few days. "

https://nitter.net/jespow/status/1536978821345292288

He should just use the pronouns people prefer and not call people the N-word, but instead he has to have big sit down conversations where he explains why actually it's ok for him to use the N-word and ignore people's pronouns.

A bare minimum of consideration of people who are different from you goes an astoundingly far way.

I'm a cis woman but any person who gets genuinely upset at people for asking to be addressed by their preferred pronouns comes off like a clown. If I change my name and ask to be addressed by my new name, anyone who wouldn't do it would be ridiculed. And yet someone changing their pronouns asking for the same is somehow too much.

You don't have to be super-woke or tolerant to simply refer to people correctly.

There is a slight difference though. In the pronoun case the asker is implicitly demanding that norms change on their behalf. The changing (or fighting the change) of those norms is an explicitly political act.

Similarly, my wife not taking my name upon our marriage was an implicit political act and my mom going by Ms. was as well.

At different points in time either of those acts could have brought ridicule to my wife and mother so that’s not a terribly good standard.

Personally, I view addressing people as they want to be simply polite but let’s not pretend that our view of “correct” isn’t a political act that is potentially outside the current norms.

I think it’s made to be political but I think the line of what is or isn’t political and avoiding it is itself a political behavior by its nature. It’s inherently political to say one name change is political because “I will go by Jacob instead of Jessica”, and another name change isn’t political because of “only my dad calls me David, I go by Dave”.

I go by Muhammad Ali because I don’t acknowledge my slave name and I call him Cassius Clay because his momma did are both political.

It turns out the political impact of an action is derived from its deviance from acceptable norms or its reaction.

I don’t understand your point. I’m merely pointing out that calling something political is itself a political behavior.

yeah, the whole thing reads like clown city. "I'm way more studied on policy topics" is not exactly the sure sign of an even-handed CEO who's doing a good job at generating consensus or taking feedback. "whether differences in human sex exist at all" is what sexists say when they want to pretend they're just being reasonable, and "hey we have to fire people because they're upset about DEI, feeling disrespected in the workplace, and debates about THE FREAKING N-WORD" is just incredibly unprofessional.

not needing to have debates about the N-word has got to be the absolute definition of table stakes when it comes to competent management. this is the funniest Twitter thread I've read in ages.

edit: and this is the CEO's pitch for RECRUITING! this is clown shit on the level of Theranos, or when Coinbase was handling all its financial transactions through Mongo.

i have no context about anything he's talking about, but those tweets make him look like an ass

It seems people are reading this in completely different ways. I agree with you, but some of the things he said were confusing/unclear. Guess we have to wait for the hit piece to see what the other side of the story is. I'm reserving judgment.

Firstly, ranting about your employees to 100k Twitter followers looks childish and unprofessional. A CEO should be capable of dealing with their employees without talking about it on Twitter.

Secondly, it's never a good look to go on the defensive on an article that isn't even released yet. If the article is bad and unfounded, then he's just bringing more attention to it. If the article is valid, then this just makes it look like he's unwilling to acknowledge or address the problems at his company.

plus the fun contrast between complaining that an employee violated an NDA to share some information with a journalist, and saying "don't believe the news."

if the information they're sharing isn't true, how does it violate an NDA?

“We value diversity of thought”.

“But not pronouns. Those are sacred.”

“We believe in free speech and no government interference”.

“How dare you leave an anonymous opinion on Glassdoor. Here are our lawyers and the government forcing you to be doxxed and the speech to be removed”.

> He also questioned their use of preferred pronouns and led a discussion about “who can refer to another person as the N word.”

This is a guy who just wants to be shitty to people and not have consequences

https://archive.ph/rFoq9 https://twitter.com/molly0xFFF/status/1537105903048183808

Say whatever you want about his positions… but it isn’t cool to throw people in your company under the bus in front of the public. That right there is enough reason to judge him.

Exactly.

What everyone here keeps forgetting is that you just need to look what happened to Netflix. It effectively almost destroyed them from the inside out. If the stock wasn't enough for them to change, they also changed their hiring memo exactly to what Kraken has done to reject the woke nonsense and focus on the product and not the politics.

In case of Netflix it was actually the DEI people that were the first to get laid off after they cut and cancelled the DEI related films and shows that were already signed. Perhaps cementing the fact that it almost ruined them, low viewing numbers and part of the cause for tens of thousands of users cancelling.

I believe that the Kraken CEO is avoiding a situation that just happened to Netflix and it indeed seems to be very reasonable to eliminate 20 bad eggs dragging everything down as a mission focused company and they have made it clear that they won't change any of that.

Sound very fair as the goal is to make money and to continue to pay the salaries of your employees.

My friend, DEI efforts hasn’t caused Netflix to lose subscriptions. They did that by consistently producing garbage shows, canceling the ones that were promising, and losing the rights to the good ones they licensed - raising prices all the while.

I personally stopped watching Netflix because of the high ratio of brainwashing culture wars IN THE SHOW CONTENT.

To each their own, I suppose. It’s frustrating to me, personally, that Netflix produces a handful of shows not catering explicitly to the dominant groups in America and suddenly there’s cries of “culture wars.”

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