Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by autokad 1636 days ago
> FWIW, I really like how the Coinbase CEO handled the toxic woke employees they got burdoned with."

I haven't heard of this, is there a good source I can read up on it?

2 comments

Summarizing the event from memory, it seemed during the BLM virtue signalling craze -- he told his staff, "Coinbase exists to make money and not to be political. If you are unhappy about the lack of political expression and you need to leave because of discomfort over this -- the employer will apologize with a parting gift of a large sum of money."

Essentially, he bribed the toxic political radicals to leave and take the payout.

It's kinda strange that coin base would choose such a political sphere to make money in if they don't want to be political.
Perhaps they want to limit their corporate position on political issues to the ones directly relevant to them, so as to not repel people who disagree on an unrelated issue.

Their original memo (https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-is-a-mission-focused-comp...) puts it this way:

> We don’t engage here when issues are unrelated to our core mission

They walk a very fine line. It seems like a difficult balancing act of compliance with regulators while appealing to users who expect hyper inflation and envision a libertarian utopian future.
I believe it's a reference to this open letter:

https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-is-a-mission-focused-comp...