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cbthrow91on Bye-bye, Bitcoin: It's time to ban cryptocurrencies

https://cointelegraph.com/news/synthetix-is-already-tokenizi...

"The Synthetix (SNX) project, one of the biggest ecosystems in decentralized finance (DeFi), recently launched the Hadar upgrade, which enabled tokenized real-world assets like Brent oil and the Nikkei stock index."

cbthrow91on ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

Can anecdotally list 5 people who opportunistically took the package and were planning to make moves anyhow

cbthrow91on ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

@tptacek: you are imputing a motivation out of thin air. having fought hard for wfh/remote at companies against it, I can imagine far more benign reasons to be plausible.

cbthrow91on ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

It's unclear but I think when it's mentioned PHL employee is able to work remote, they mean they are able to work out of the NYC office which is remote relative to the PDX office. It was not my read that they are working remote from home.

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.

cbthrow91on ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

I don't see anything in the article that implies the PHL employee was given a choice of office. For all we know they made the request after CB decided against WFH teams.

cbthrow91on ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

On my direct team nope. I can imagine folks being treated differently in Eng vs CX at other companies, and have seen that. I have trouble imagining that at CB, but anything's possible.

CB stands out in my career for the number of good human beings I've gotten to meet and work with. And my read when I see Brian, Emilie, Surojit, and Manish speak at weekly AMAs is they genuinely care about everyone in the company. It's a gut instinct, and so far I have no personal experience or anecdotal from within my circles to the contrary.

My sister used to work in CX (outside of tech) and it was really damaging work for her. It'd be devastating for me to learn our folks are not supported.

cbthrow91on ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

"Ms. Milosevich said the white employee lived in Philadelphia and was allowed to commute to and work from the company’s New York office"

Unless I am missing something seems pretty clear the employee switched from WFH in Philadelphia to commuting to NYC to work at that office.

cbthrow91on ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

You are omitting the fact that the one white employee switched to working out of the NYC office. There's no mention of a black employee making the same request and it being denied, just the request to wfh being denied for both white and black employees.

And then you are extrapolating two uncorroborated anecdotes of inappropriate comments as evidence of widespread discrimination.

cbthrow91on ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

I work on a diverse team at CB that has engagement scores through the roof. And you don't need to know the survey data to know that; just join us for lunch. We're curious, we care about each other, and we care about the mission.

The NYTimes is like the Daily Prophet for muggles. Don't over-index on a hit piece.

cbthrow91on ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

Just went back to double check the article and am actually not certain how you are getting to the number 75%. 11 employees cited a complaint to HR according to the article. Where are you getting the denominator for total number of black employees in 2019?

There's a data mismatch between the CB blog post and the article. CB cites that only 2-3 formal complaints were filed iirc.

11 employee complaints matches pretty closely with the PDX group.

FWIW I'm not dismissing the complaints. I've worked and studied in places where I've felt like an outsider; I've seen people make inappropriate comments about race+stereotypes in past work environments; I've also seen people make fishing claims of racial discrimination.

I wasn't on those teams in 2019, so the truth is I simply don't know.

From what I see today and the lack of concrete evidence in the article, I do have some doubts about the overall impression the article tries to give. I have the sense that certain information might have been omitted that might paint a clearer picture. I could totally be wrong as well.

cbthrow91on ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

Without the additional context from the article, I think citing 75% is a bit misleading.

"When Coinbase announced it would be opening an office in Portland, Ore., several Black employees in the compliance department who worked remotely were told to move there or reapply for new jobs, four former employees said."

"All of the Black workers in the compliance division ended up among the group of 15 who left."

Without concrete evidence of discrimination in the article, my mind jumps to this being the pivotal cause of the stats, one team getting asked to relocate and that team being disproportionate in its demographics.

I know from co-workers that the company once had a strong stance against remote work and made limited exceptions. I can see that being a source of a lot of discontent. Asking folks to move to a new city is a big ask too; I could see the company having handled that poorly.

On the upside CB shifted to remote-first which should be great for being able to have a more diverse workforce. And contrary to some of the comments here, I take that as strong evidence of the ability for our leadership team to acknowledge mistakes and course correct.

cbthrow91on ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

CX folks at CB are doing God's work. Nothing but respect for them on my eng team at CB. At past companies I had to do a lot more legwork to dive into an issue; our CX folks are incredibly technical and have great instincts on identifying, grouping, and triaging issues as well as providing just the right amount of context.

cbthrow91on ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

Our execs have short text guides on how to work best with them and everyone on my team has been encouraged to share similar. The default assumption is everyone should be working together to accommodate on how we can all work best together.

I've been in environments where certain communications styles are labeled more correct or ideal. So I've really loved this guidebook + accommodation approach.

I went into this article with an open mind about there possibly being toxicity I haven't witnessed w/i the company. But tbh the evidence comes up short and just doesn't match with what I've seen. I have interviewed at companies where some level of toxicity was easy to pick up on during the onsite (eg Uber during peak growth years).

My fear is that this article might scare away diverse folks from Coinbase, and possibly even crypto at large given some of the descriptions about the industry at the end. CB is a really great company for any curious nerd to join. I'd also say the Ethereum community and associated startups+labs are especially welcoming and friendly.

cbthrow91on ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

@slg: I believe CB has internally discouraged politics in the workplace not related to the mission since before 2020

cbthrow91on ‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

I find this hard to imagine without someone getting reprimanded. Not disbelieving the person's quote, but not accepting it as fact either. Seems like it would be easy to get corroborating witnesses for a situation that inappropriate.

The only group I've seen it be permissible to make stereotyped observations about in the last decade in an SF tech office is european/indian/chinese workers. FWIW I don't think that's okay either; we should be striving to make an inclusive workspace for everyone.

cbthrow91on An upcoming story about Coinbase

it's possible to believe black lives matter and be hesitant to cave to the demands of a mob.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iV8X8ubGCc -- as comically illustrated by Seinfeld