[HN Gopher] 'Tokenized': Black Workers' Struggles at Coinbase
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'Tokenized': Black Workers' Struggles at Coinbase
Author : xwvvvvwx
Score : 193 points
Date : 2020-11-27 15:44 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| Chris2048 wrote:
| > Still another said managers spoke down to her and her Black
| colleagues, adding that they were passed over for promotions in
| favor of less experienced white employees
|
| I hate this kind of sloppy writing. _who_ added that, the
| colleague or the manager?
|
| EDIT: Downvoted. I guess clarity in the NYT isn't allowed to be
| questioned..
| mazamats wrote:
| It reads fine to me, it's obviously the employee mentioned in
| the beginning of the paragraph "Still another"
| an_opabinia wrote:
| > [Brian Armstrong] attributed [bad stuff] to being "on the
| spectrum," according to a recording of the event.
|
| Ah, the ol' James Damore defense.
| AlanYx wrote:
| There's nothing in the article alleging that Brian Armstrong
| attributed "bad stuff" to being on the autistic spectrum.
|
| The only allegation in the article is that Brian Armstrong did
| not speak or make decisions at meetings, and attributed this to
| being on the spectrum. The full quote is:
|
| >"Mr. Armstrong rarely spoke or made decisions in meetings, the
| current and former employees said, leaving them uncertain about
| his opinions. In a staff meeting this summer, he said he knew
| his style made many employees uncomfortable and attributed it
| to being "on the spectrum," according to a recording of the
| event."
|
| There's nothing wrong or "bad" about managers who don't speak
| and make quick decisions at meetings. It's just a management
| style, and it's disingenuous IMHO to spin it as some kind of
| bad behaviour.
| an_opabinia wrote:
| Obviously they were talking about decisions regarding the
| treatment and complaints of black employees.
|
| I mean honestly what is there to think about? What are the
| other stakeholders he'd need to consult, racists? What other
| considerations, what is the other side, what downside is
| there about being against harassment?
|
| Every educated person could issue a quick decision: reprimand
| the people harassing your black employees! So surely you can
| see why it makes "the inability to quickly condemn and
| reprimand harassers" is bad.
|
| He adopted some really fucking stupid, untested, non
| mainstream cultural policy. Of course there are going to be
| consequences. Am I the only person who sees he's bad at this
| job? And that it is a complete and utter insult to people
| with actual social disabilities when he blames "being on the
| spectrum" for being bad at his job?
| 2-tpg wrote:
| > And that it is a complete and utter insult to people with
| actual social disabilities when he blames "being on the
| spectrum" for being bad at his job?
|
| That cuts both ways. Discrimination on neuro-diversity is
| also bad.
|
| > And that it is a complete and utter insult to people with
| actual problems with racism when she blames "being Black"
| for missing a promotion?
|
| The autism-jab was in bad faith, and it worked on you. You
| turned his inability/carefulness not to make split
| decisions into a poor-faith excuse for being a racist tech
| bro oblivious to the struggles of others.
| snicksnak wrote:
| This piece paints coinbase as a company with racist tendencies
| and a hostile place to work for black people. Based on the
| evidence or lack there of provided the article and after reading
| coinbase's rebuttal, I must say this NYT piece feels like an
| attempt to bully coinbase/armstrong into reverting its/his stance
| on engagement in issues unrelated to coinbase core mission and
| into submission to the cause.
| xoxoy wrote:
| this seems like it's also a struggle between different teams at
| the same company. Customer Service teams are very often looked
| down upon as "less than" other teams like engineering, and this
| article states that a disproportionate number of the black
| employees were on that team.
| polartx wrote:
| Customer Service is often regarded in companies like insurance
| is regarded by most people--you gotta have it, in a perfect
| world you'd never need it, and very few people brag about how
| _much_ they pay for it.
|
| That's why Customer Service isn't treated like the _Rock Stars_
| that Sales or Engineering is treated like in a company.
|
| It also tends to have the most _natural_ turnover, and tends to
| be the lesser skilled positions in a software company (not
| often requiring specializations, like developers).
| xoxoy wrote:
| yeah it's unfortunate even at a finance startup that CX is so
| disregarded. Coinbase doesn't exactly have a great CX
| reputation eg lots of horror stories plus it seems to go down
| every time there's a big move up or down.
| cbthrow91 wrote:
| 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.
| slg wrote:
| This is in the wake of Coinbase decision to be a "mission focused
| company" and prevent their employees from speaking out about
| political issues at the workplace. It shows the dangers of being
| apolitical when saying "Blank employees should feel safe and
| welcome at their job" is apparently still a political statement.
| seibelj wrote:
| I don't see why we need to be debating politics all day in the
| work place. I can guarantee you my politics (libertarian /
| capitalist / corporatist / anti-collectivism) will do nothing
| but enrage you and debates in public chats, lunch, etc. will
| serve nothing of purpose. Isn't it better if we save the
| philosophical debates for beers and the ballot box? I don't
| want to hear your soap box and you don't want to hear mine.
| slg wrote:
| You missed the point of my comment entirely. The issue is how
| "politics" is defined. I couldn't care less if Coinbase
| banned people from talking about the estate tax or free
| trade. However it is a problem when people can't speak up
| about the discrimination they feel at work.
| seibelj wrote:
| You are talking about something that is so wrong it
| warrants a front page NYT expose and results in potentially
| multi-million dollar lawsuits. I can understand why a
| company wouldn't want to promote sessions where everyone
| accuses the corporation of systemic discrimination.
| jonsno56 wrote:
| It seems "corporations are people too" but employees aren't
| briane80 wrote:
| >Blank employees should feel safe and welcome at their job
|
| If only that's what it was about and not one group trying to
| force woke politics into the workplace.
| slg wrote:
| This is exactly my point. What in this article is "woke
| politics"? It is all just basic "don't be racist" problems.
| When that is labeled as "woke politics" and you can't talk
| politics, we have a problem.
| briane80 wrote:
| If you read the rebuttal Coinbase did 3 investigations, 2
| of them by external reviewers (with the doucmentation made
| available to the nytimes) who found no evidence in the
| complaints. This is a hatchet job by the woke nytimes using
| identity politcs to cow a company who refused to kneel.
| Pils wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > _Ms. Butler said she was not told how to make an
| official complaint; Ms. Sawyerr said she never spoke to
| an investigator and was not informed of the findings_
|
| "Absence of evidence" etc. etc.
| snicksnak wrote:
| they did three investigations because coinbase only
| received three official complaints.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| If there is no evidence, what are they being pressured to
| "kneel" to?
| briane80 wrote:
| Maybe you're not aware of the back story. Coinbase was
| one of the few large companies that did not go all woke
| over the George Floyd incident.
|
| The identity politics activists in the company took
| offence to this and demanded management make a statement.
| When management refused to bend the knee the activists
| made allegations of racism and took them to the nytimes.
| sfkdjf9j3j wrote:
| I feel like someone needs to put a big flag at the top of
| the comments section asking people to at least skim the
| article. Maybe the problem is the paywall? Anyway, the
| people they spoke to all left the company prior to George
| Floyd's death.
| chandra381 wrote:
| > One Black employee said her manager suggested in front of
| colleagues that she was dealing drugs and carrying a gun, trading
| on racist stereotypes. Another said a co-worker at a recruiting
| meeting broadly described Black employees as less capable. Still
| another said managers spoke down to her and her Black colleagues,
| adding that they were passed over for promotions in favor of less
| experienced white employees. The accumulation of incidents, they
| said, led to the wave of departures.
|
| Wow.
| cbthrow91 wrote:
| 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.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| A lot of people traffic in blatant stereotypes in the guise
| of some kind of positive statement, which makes reprimands
| less likely. I once had a speaker tell us - in a diversity
| seminar! - about specific racial groups he thinks are too
| timid to speak up for themselves.
| cbthrow91 wrote:
| 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.
| whymauri wrote:
| >CB is a really great company for any curious nerd to
| join.
|
| Not if they're black or brown, apparently. I have no idea
| how you could say this is a 'great' company after reading
| this article. Like my mind is actually blown.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| So do you believe that all the white employees just laughed
| about this? Did any of them corroborate the allegations?
|
| I work at a FAANG and a massive percentage of employees are
| _rabidly_ anti-racist, and wouldn 't stand for anything like
| that. Are coinbase employees just cut from a different cloth?
| Schiendelman wrote:
| Absolutely. Look at their CEO statements. They seem to hire
| very anti-establishment, anti-pc (in their view). It's easy
| for a culture to then not hire people who don't fit that
| mold.
| briane80 wrote:
| I know it's almost unbelievable! But it's in the nytimes so
| definitely happened.
| refulgentis wrote:
| You're right, just another set of race-obsessed liars
| victimized by the Lyin' New York Times repeating their fake
| accusations!
| ThomPete wrote:
| Hit piece from the now fully woke NYT. This shouldn't be on HN.
| RestlessMind wrote:
| From Coinbase's preemptive rebuttal[1]:
|
| "we hired an external consultant in August of this year who
| specializes in data science and diversity and inclusion to cull
| through all of our historic data related to diversity ... and
| conduct a high volume of interviews with employees representing
| all background, functions, and tenures to understand the employee
| experience. The independent investigation concluded that there
| was no evidence of structural bias in hiring, promotions or
| performance evaluations."
|
| "All of those complaints were thoroughly investigated, one
| through an internal investigation and two by separate third-party
| investigators, all of whom found no evidence of wrongdoing and
| concluded the claims were unsubstantiated. We have shared this
| information with the reporter."
|
| So external investigators didn't find anything wrong and the data
| was shared with the NYT reporter. What else can they do if they
| are really innocent?
|
| [1] https://blog.coinbase.com/upcoming-story-about-
| coinbase-2012...
| slg wrote:
| >What else can they do if they are really innocent?
|
| Innocent of what exactly? At a certain point whether the
| leadership of Coinbase is racist or not doesn't matter. What
| matters is their actions. The article says "roughly three-
| quarters of the Black employees" left the company over a 6
| month span due to feelings of being discriminated against. That
| isn't an accusation. It is a fact. It also isn't something that
| will just happen accidentally. That alone is a problem that
| demands urgent attention regardless of what is in the hearts of
| Coinbase's leadership team.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| It's a fact, but it means nothing without context.
|
| I punched a man in the face yesterday. To determine if I'm a
| violent person it's important to know whether I punched a man
| who was pushing his child on a swing set, or whether I
| punched a man who was crawling through a window in my home.
| slg wrote:
| What context would exonerate Coinbase of fostering an
| environment that results in 75% of its Black employees
| feeling discriminated against? And if that context existed,
| why didn't Coinbase mention it in their preemptive
| rebuttal?
| oh_sigh wrote:
| I can think of contexts, especially when n=15(if this was
| a statistical study on insulin response to artificial
| sweeteners, people would be saying the sample size is too
| small to draw conclusions), but I don't know if
| developing hypothetical scenarios is useful.
|
| Learning the true context is most important. This could
| be done by corroborating allegations for example.
| fractionalhare wrote:
| _> I can think of contexts_
|
| Yes that's what was asked; _which ones_?
|
| _> especially when n=15(if this was a statistical study
| on insulin response to artificial sweeteners, people
| would be saying the sample size is too small to draw
| conclusions)_
|
| And those people would be wrong. It's incorrect to
| dismiss a study based on sample size without a discussion
| of significance and effect size in the context of the
| data.
|
| Moreover I reject the premise that you should be
| assessing this story quantitatively rather than
| qualitatively. But if you insist: what are your priors on
| whether or not a given company engaged in discrimination,
| and how do these change if you're told 75% of employees
| of a particular demographic _stated_ there was
| discrimination?
| googlryas wrote:
| Okay - one context is where one department has a large
| number of black people, and that department is defragged
| for purely business reasons to a different office across
| the country. Most people never choose the relocation
| package, and so a big chunk of black employees end up
| quitting. That's the event that triggered 8 black
| employees of the 15 who left as I understand it from the
| article.
|
| > what are your priors on whether or not a given company
| engaged in discrimination, and how do these change if
| you're told 75% of employees of a particular demographic
| stated there was discrimination?
|
| I completely agree that it's a very bad look. It is
| probably even more likely than not that given those
| facts, it is due to racism. I guess the question comes
| down to, philosophically, how one answers the following
| question: In the quest to eradicate racism and racists,
| is it better to be over-zealous and destroy a few non-
| racists to make sure you get all the actual racists(the
| chemo approach) - or is it better to be slightly more
| circumspect and let a few racists slip through the cracks
| so that far fewer non-racists are punished (the US
| judicial system _ideal_ )?
| slg wrote:
| >I can think of contexts, especially when n=15(if this
| was a statistical study on insulin response to artificial
| sweeteners, people would be saying the sample size is too
| small to draw conclusions), but I don't know if
| developing hypothetical scenarios is useful.
|
| N = 15 while p [?] 20. It has been a while since I have
| taken a stats class, but that sample seems plenty large
| enough to me.
|
| >Learning the true context is most important. This could
| be done by corroborating allegations for example.
|
| Corroborating is exactly what journalists do. From the
| article:
|
| >five people with knowledge of the situation said.
|
| >But according to 23 current and former Coinbase
| employees, five of whom spoke on the record, as well as
| internal documents and recordings of conversations
|
| >according to a recording of the session shared with The
| New York Times
|
| >In a company email he sent later, which was also shared
| with The Times
|
| >wrote in a Slack message that was viewed by The Times.
|
| >three people briefed on the situation said
|
| >according to a recording of the event
|
| >according to a copy of the message seen by The Times
|
| >according to a copy reviewed by The Times.
|
| >two people with knowledge of the situation said
|
| The NYT talked to dozens of people, watched/listened to
| multiple recordings, and viewed numerous emails and Slack
| messages. This story is corroborated.
| [deleted]
| oh_sigh wrote:
| If you order the claims in the article on a scale of not
| racist at all to clearly racist, you'll see basically all
| of the corroboration comes from claims on the left side
| of that scale, and few if any on the right side. The
| claims I was specifically thinking about were things
| like:
|
| > One Black employee said her manager suggested in front
| of colleagues that she was dealing drugs and carrying a
| gun, trading on racist stereotypes. Another said a co-
| worker at a recruiting meeting broadly described Black
| employees as less capable. Still another said managers
| spoke down to her and her Black colleagues, adding that
| they were passed over for promotions in favor of less
| experienced white employees. The accumulation of
| incidents, they said, led to the wave of departures.
|
| These have no corroboration, even though they allegedly
| happened in front of multiple coworkers.
| slg wrote:
| We don't need to corroborate each individual complaint.
| The story here isn't that one employee was passed over
| for a promotion. The story is the trend that all these
| anecdotes support. There is corroboration for the trend.
| googlryas wrote:
| But the point is that the corroborations are all on the
| lesser or non-complaints of the article, not the most
| egregious ones. To make an extreme example, posting a
| series of actual facts that culminate in aliens have
| visited earth doesn't make the latter assertion any more
| true.
|
| edit: Sorry, I'm the poster from above, I just posted
| from my phone which has a different account logged in
| that I originally intended to give hiring advice unlinked
| to my main account(opsec fail).
| slg wrote:
| The egregious complaints are corroborated by the other
| egregious complaints.
|
| Let's use another example in which evidence is hard to
| find: sexual assault. If one woman accused Bill Cosby of
| sexual assault, the burden of proof for her story is
| high. She would need some pretty strong evidence to get
| Cosby charged let alone convicted. She probably wouldn't
| even receive coverage in the mainstream media without
| some other form of evidence. However the entire situation
| would change if she was one of 60 women coming forward.
| Suddenly the burden of proof for that first woman is
| greatly diminished. Each individual's story is
| corroborated by someone else having a very similar story.
| cbthrow91 wrote:
| 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.
| slg wrote:
| Ok, let's accept what you say as fact and ignore that an
| exception was made for the single White employee in that
| department which wasn't made for any of the Black
| employees you are referencing. Let's also ignore the
| weirdness of 40% of the company's Black employees being
| on a single seemingly small team. That still leaves 7
| other employees in other departments who left the company
| in a 6 month window due to feeling discriminated against.
| 35% is obviously a better number than 75%, but it doesn't
| allow you to dismiss this problem.
| cbthrow91 wrote:
| 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.
| slg wrote:
| The first sentence of the second paragraph of the
| article.
|
| >The 15 people worked at Coinbase, the most valuable U.S.
| cryptocurrency start-up, where they represented roughly
| three-quarters of the Black employees at the 600-person
| company.
|
| "[R]oughly three-quarters" implies there were likely
| either 19 or 21 employees Black employees at the company
| since 20 would be exactly three-quarters. I was just
| using 75% and 20 employees because that is the best
| estimate we got. The article also stated clearly that 8
| Black employees were part of the PDX group.
|
| The Coinbase rebuttal was worded very specifically.
|
| >only three of these people filed complaints during their
| time at Coinbase.
|
| The New York Times wasn't being as narrow with their
| counting and they said:
|
| >11 of them informed the human resources department or
| their managers about what they said was racist or
| discriminatory treatment
|
| There is obvious middle ground between these two quotes.
| 11 people complained to their manager or HR at some point
| including potentially after they left the company however
| only 3 filed official complaints while working there.
| Keep in mind that simply complaining about something to a
| coworker isn't the same thing as "filing" a complaint.
|
| If this middle ground scenario transpired as I described,
| doesn't the NYT's recounting sound much closer to the
| truth than CB's? Also ask yourself who has a bigger
| incentive to stretch the truth here. Is it the newspaper
| that could instead report on literally anything else or
| the company that is being accused of discrimination?
| zpeti wrote:
| How about the CEO refusing to align with far left
| politics? Whether you think that is good or bad, that
| could well be the reason for them leaving, but it doesn't
| actually mean that there was overt racism.
| tptacek wrote:
| I don't understand the premise here. Most of their
| _Black_ employees left, not their _far left_ employees.
| polartx wrote:
| If you're truly ignorant to the social pressures the
| black community places on each other (specifically the
| prevailing majority on the 'dissident' thinkers), than
| it's a topic I suggest you read in to.
| tptacek wrote:
| Black Democrats (most Black people are Democrats,
| something for which there is some social pressure) are
| generally more conservative, and significantly more
| religious, than other Democrats. So: no, this isn't
| responsive to what I said.
|
| (One good source: White & Laird).
| polartx wrote:
| All that means is that social pressures (in this case)
| weren't exerted using the lever of religion or political
| affiliation.
|
| That doesn't at _all_ mean that other levers don't exist
| or weren't leveraged. Such as the common, 'uncle tom' or
| 'not black enough' social pressure commonly applied in
| the black community.
| tptacek wrote:
| "Uncle Tom" and "Not Black Enough" have nothing to do
| with far-leftism. As I just said, with an academic
| source: Black people are relatively more conservative
| than other Democrats. To the extent that we're including
| Black Republicans in the mix, the analysis gets even
| weirder.
| slg wrote:
| Can you expand on what you mean by "far left politics"?
| Reminder, this happened in late 2018 and early 2019. It
| was before this year's round of Black Lives Matter
| protests. It was also before Coinbase issued its no
| politics edict. I am really struggling to think of what
| "far left politics" you are referring to here that would
| be important enough to the Black employees of Coinbase
| that it results in 75% of them leaving.
| ergocoder wrote:
| Far left politics is an extremist. For example, if you
| criticize BLM for looting, you will be labeled racists.
|
| Looting small shop owners makes no sense. Many shop
| owners are even black. This happened in Seattle where
| many shop owners support BLM.
|
| You might say, well, that was an exception. But Noah
| Trevor (an influential person) also justified looting
| because police breaks social contract first. Now why
| would you loot random shops because of that? The fact
| that Noah hasn't been canceled makes me think a lot of
| BLM supporters see looting as positive.
|
| To sum up, you basically can't say anything bad about
| BLM. Otherwise, you would be labeled as racists and
| canceled.
|
| This is a trend in the far-left politics. They would
| force you to _personally_ sacrifice to better society.
| Another example is homeless people camping in front of
| your shop. If you try to make them go away, you will also
| be canceled. This far-left politics is just evil, IMO.
| slg wrote:
| To repeat myself, this happened in late 2018 and early
| 2019. That was before the round of protests that you are
| speaking about. What far left political issue was
| Coinbase potentially fighting against during the relevant
| time window that would have pushed these employees out?
|
| Also I think you mean Trevor Noah and not Noah Trevor.
| cbthrow91 wrote:
| @slg: I believe CB has internally discouraged politics in
| the workplace not related to the mission since before
| 2020
| aparsons wrote:
| Here's the catcher though: these people never personally
| sacrifice themselves, and a good number of them are
| closet racists themselves.
| 6c9be5fc6b39 wrote:
| It is possible for a Black person to feel discriminated
| against because of their race even when such discrimination
| has not occurred. The event mentioned in the article
| referring to a Black person dealing drugs and having a gun is
| bad, but the rest of it just sounds like normal annoying work
| crap. Being talked down to and belittled in a work meeting?
| I'm a middle-aged white programmer and that's happened to me
| a number of times over my career.
| slg wrote:
| >It is possible for a Black person to feel discriminated
| against because of their race even when such discrimination
| has not occurred.
|
| This explanation's believability has an inverse
| relationship with the number of claims. I could buy the
| idea that a couple people perceived "normal annoying work
| crap" as discrimination, but would that happen 15 times?
| 75% of the Black employees left the company in a 6 month
| window. You don't see anything like that at any other
| company.
| 6c9be5fc6b39 wrote:
| The article implies that a number of the Black people who
| left did so because the compliance division was relocated
| and they didn't want to relocate with it. It doesn't say
| how many people's decisions were influenced by annoying
| work crap that they interpreted as discrimination.
|
| This is a really dishonest article. It tries to lead one
| to believe things (e.g. that 15 Black people left
| Coinbase because they were belittled in meetings) without
| stating it outright or making a case for it. Just
| insinuation spun up from a few concrete situations that
| themselves are mostly vague or not obviously
| discrimination (the gun and drugs thing being the obvious
| exception).
| dstola wrote:
| Babysitting employees is not really a function of the
| employers. If people wish to leave it's their choice
| acdha wrote:
| They could respond to the specific points raised in the
| article. An "independent" investigation setup, run, and
| reviewed only by the alleged perpetrator isn't exactly
| definitive - especially if you see the points in the article
| where they acknowledge the complaints are valid (note the non-
| denial about the only white person in the compliance group
| getting an offer which wasn't extended to anyone else) and
| think about how a "cull through our historical data" might not
| yield the full story if, as described, not everyone had formal
| reports included in that data because they were not informed or
| discouraged from doing so. "Unsubstantiated" only means they
| couldn't prove it, not that it didn't happen or even that all
| of the possible evidence was fully disclosed.
| vmception wrote:
| "Proving innocence" is as tone deaf as their autistic CEO
|
| (who in the article is quoted himself as saying his behavior is
| because he's on the spectrum.)
|
| Brian Armstrong shut himself in because he doesn't want to deal
| with it. He doesn't know how to deal with it. All of Coinbase's
| actions are guided by the consequences, for example, they never
| needed to address their flash crash because they just needed to
| placate customers while they were closing a 9 figure funding
| round announced a few weeks later. They aren't worried about
| precedent, they are worried about keeping the ship afloat long
| enough to sell shares to Robinhood traders. This strategy
| works.
|
| They can _also_ create an inclusive environment that allows
| them to address underserved markets more accurately. They didn
| 't.
| zpeti wrote:
| Nothing, they refused to participate in valley politics and are
| now the enemy. They can do nothing. In the eyes of NYT
| reporters and similar, they are evil.
| tptacek wrote:
| Did they disclose who the "external investigators" are? It
| matters. There are firms you can hire to rubber stamp a
| conclusion and others who with serious reputations.
| pvg wrote:
| The external investigators were hired and paid for by Coinbase
| and we know nothing about the details of their findings (or who
| they even were) other than that single mention in the company's
| own blog post. There's no mention in the post about 'data'
| shared with the NYT, they just told them the investigations
| cleared them. Here's NYT's version:
|
| _Ms. Milosevich said Coinbase hired a consultant over the
| summer who did interviews and looked at the company's history,
| and found "no evidence of structural bias."
|
| "Employees reported a strong culture, fair employee treatment,
| high employee satisfaction and high energy for belonging,
| inclusion and diversity," she said.
|
| Managers in the customer support team, where many of the Black
| employees work, wrote their own report last month._
| treis wrote:
| As far as I can tell the NYTimes was unable to find evidence
| either. There's no corroborating witness, emails, slacks,
| voicemails, statistics, or anything else concrete that you
| can point at in the article. It's a collection of accusations
| and color to lend them credence.
|
| When a group of people say they see smoke I tend to believe
| them. But I'm also not a national news paper. I'd have like
| to see the NYTimes get some concrete facts before making such
| a serious accusation.
| yunohn wrote:
| The NYT are not the police/FBI. They do not have access to
| those things, unless employees are able to exfiltrate said
| info at significant personal risk.
| treis wrote:
| Seems a bit incongruous to suggest that people willing
| and able to accuse Coinbase of racism in the NYTimes are
| not willing or able to exfiltrate evidence of those
| accusations.
| ygjb wrote:
| It's only incongruous if you evaluate it in the context
| of people who expect to be treated fairly when they
| report mistreatment.
|
| There is a pattern of behavior minimizing the scope and
| impact of abusive or discriminatory actions across the
| tech industry, and it is very prevalent on this site as
| well.
|
| The simple reality is that unless an employee is able to
| obtain clear, slam-dunk evidence of directly legally
| actionable abuse or misconduct, then it is a huge
| personal risk to come forward. Most businesses that are
| large enough to have systemic problems have enormous
| resources to litigate against those claims.
|
| In contrast, for employees to collect and use evidence,
| it is required that they: a) experience the abuse or
| discrimination, repeatedly b) collect evidence and
| documentation of that behaviour c) exfiltrate that
| evidence in contravention of legal contracts that can
| include NDAs, binding arbitration clauses, morality/non
| desparagement clauses, etc d) be in a strong enough
| financial position to defend against litigation e) be
| confident enough in their own skills, reputation, and
| network to be able to give up future career prospects
| based on A-D.
|
| And this is just from the 5 minutes it took me to compose
| this message.
|
| I get that HN is a bastion of support for meritocracy,
| and that founder worship is a strong bias for many on
| this forum, but as a community, and as an industry we
| have got to stop undermining and destroying the folks
| trying to hold people and firms accountable for bad
| behavior.
| treis wrote:
| Thinly veiled insults aside, you didn't address my actual
| point. The people in the article risked all the
| repercussions you mentioned by formally reporting the
| abuse and speaking with the NYTimes. Saying that they
| would do that but not risk snapping a pic of a racist
| e-mail, as an example, doesn't make any sense.
| ygjb wrote:
| Insulting people wasn't my intention, but I have some
| uncharitable views of the HN community members that cry
| meritocracy and find founders blameless.
|
| You are correct that the people in the article that
| either filed complaints, or spoke with the New York Times
| risked repercussions, but not all of the folks the Times
| spoke with are identified. People were willing to talk,
| but not necessarily on the record, or to be identified.
| That is because they are fearful of reprisal, based on
| past experiences and observations.
|
| That is the biggest challenge for people confronting
| systemic issues like racism, poverty, homelessness, or
| any number of topics. It's not enough for victims to
| stand up for themselves, because there is a _systemic_
| imbalance in the ability to pursue remedies through the
| courts or other means. Getting justice in civil matters
| often boils down to the size of a victims pocket book
| (and especially in contrast to pocket books of the people
| or organizations that have made that person a victim).
| There are so many individuals who have left the tech
| industry after experiencing bad behaviour,
| discrimination, and abuse, and any one of those people
| could be the next Hedy Lamarr or Philip Emeagwali, and
| the industry is worse for not having those people in it.
|
| Again, as a community we do our peers a disservice by not
| trusting them when they say there is a problem,
| especially when they are so consistently proven right.
| treis wrote:
| >You are correct that the people in the article that
| either filed complaints, or spoke with the New York Times
| risked repercussions, but not all of the folks the Times
| spoke with are identified. People were willing to talk,
| but not necessarily on the record, or to be identified.
| That is because they are fearful of reprisal, based on
| past experiences and observations.
|
| You're arguing against a straw man here. I did not say
| that the only acceptable proof was an on the record
| statement. Anonymous corroboration or reporting a general
| description of an e-mail to preserve anonymity would be
| fine. There's nothing even like that.
|
| >Getting justice in civil matters often boils down to the
| size of a victims pocket book
|
| That's not really true. Susan Fowler blew up Uber with a
| single blog post. The difference is making specific
| accusations and providing some level of detail. There's
| essentially none of that in the NYTimes piece.
| pvg wrote:
| These are right in the article:
|
| _wrote in a Slack message that was viewed by The Times._
|
| _according to a copy of the message seen by The Times_
|
| _according to a copy reviewed by The Times._
| treis wrote:
| None of those are messages/documents contain racist
| action by anyone at Coinbase. They are (1) a reaction to
| a blog post, (2) a reaction to a letter, and (3) a
| conclusion in a report. They are not concrete evidence of
| racism.
| pvg wrote:
| I'm not sure what your standard is, you said
| 'corroborating evidence'. This is evidence that
| corroborates what the employees told the NYT. Now you're
| at 'concrete evidence'. What would that be? That someone
| yelled racial slurs at employees and then handed out
| signed receipts? The coinbase 'prebuttal' doesn't
| concretely dispute much either, it says you're going to
| see some stuff in the NYT that's 'hard to read'. If
| anything, it's striking how little both pieces disagree
| about the employees' allegations.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| For example, the article talks extensively about Layllen
| Sawyerr's case. So I'd expect corroboration to look
| something like "we talked to suchandsuch other people who
| confirmed she was treated unfairly", "we read this email
| in which she was treated unfairly", or perhaps "we heard
| about this specific personnel decision which was unfair
| to her". A lack of corroboration doesn't mean her
| accusations are false, but a lack of _attempt_ to
| corroborate is very troubling from a national newspaper,
| especially when the subject of the article is going on
| the record to say the accusations aren 't true. Either
| Milosevich and Coinbase are lying about their
| investigation or Sawyerr's story is false - isn't the NYT
| curious to figure out which one?
| pvg wrote:
| The NYT didn't title their piece 'Coinbase is racist'.
| It's reporting on 'lots of Coinbase's black employees
| feel the company handles race and diversity issues
| poorly'. The reporting looks into that and, well, reports
| on why the employees think that.
|
| The 'other side' of this is a Coinbase blogpost that says
| 'we hired a consultant who told us we don't have such
| problems'. You are certainly free to decide which of
| these is better supported.
| pjc50 wrote:
| This isn't Scottish Law, you don't need to corroborate
| every single item with third parties.
|
| (I wonder how many people apply this level of
| corroboration requirement to forward-looking statements
| about the benefits of bitcoin?)
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| You don't _need_ to do anything. Newspapers are free to
| publish whatever they 'd like. But if the NYT isn't
| interested in discovering the truth of the accusations,
| that lends credence to the idea that their primary
| motivation is not the accusations but Coinbase's lack of
| support for racial justice politics.
| tptacek wrote:
| Again: the NYT is a newspaper, and isn't vested with
| subpoena powers. They operate within the limits all
| newspapers operate in, and there is more than enough meat
| in this story to understand why they ran with it. "Isn't
| interested in discovering the truth of the accusations"
| is hardly a fair criticism here.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| A lack of subpoena powers doesn't mean they can't look
| into it!
|
| Take this article on the US Meat Animal Research Center
| (https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/20/dining/animal-
| welfare-at-...) as a good example of an organizational
| misconduct investigation done right. Dr. Keen told the
| Times they're doing some abusive things to the animals.
| So the Times talked to a bunch of employees, and reviewed
| a bunch of documents, in order to make sure they could
| accurately and concretely describe specific instances of
| wrongdoing. This is the quality of journalism the New
| York Times is generally known for. It would be a much
| worse article - both less fair to the research center and
| less convincing about the accusations - if they hadn't
| dug in like that.
| tptacek wrote:
| See upthread, with examples of how the article does
| exactly what you ask it to.
|
| It seems like your criticism is that the article implies
| that Coinbase's executive management has racial bias
| problems, and the article doesn't establish that bias to
| your satisfaction. But that's always going to be a
| problem with news articles. Some will present evidence
| that is dispositive to you, some won't.
|
| I find the reporting in this piece damning. I understand
| how others would view it more charitably. That's what
| we're meant to be discussing. Less productive: a
| discussion of the legitimacy of the reporting itself.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I don't see it as a discussion of legitimacy. It's about
| the strength of evidence the article offers, and whether
| there's anything the article could have done to offer
| stronger evidence or to better defuse suspicions that the
| author had motives unrelated to the evidence. That seems
| more productive to me than a discussion about whether
| Coinbase's management actually _is_ biased, which will
| inevitably degrade to a dispute about how biased we
| thought they were before reading the article.
|
| (For what it's worth, the article's lede is well-
| corroborated, and I agree it provides strong evidence of
| a serious problem with retention of black employees.)
| 2-tpg wrote:
| I do not give a hoot about skin color. MLK taught me to judge
| people not by the color of their skin. If I were to tone down my
| speech, because I focus on the color of the skin of my audience,
| I would feel bad and awkward: "these people deserve coddling due
| to their skin color" ranks close to "these people deserve scorn
| due to their skin color".
|
| Accusing others of racism is a serious faux-pas. It is also
| delusional to think someone talking down to you, is caused by the
| color of your skin, and not, maybe, because you deserved a
| talking down to, or the person is just an asshole, and talks down
| to everyone.
|
| Saying someone else got a promotion, because their white skin,
| despite being lower skilled than you, is a horrible thing to say,
| and a horrible thing to believe. It would be vile distracting
| paralyzing racism, instead of an opportunity to reflect and grow.
|
| If racial equality activists make you feel that way, judge others
| on the color of their skin, and paint decision-making of white
| people that way, then this activism is not doing you any favors.
| It is not making you stronger. It is making you a victim. It
| sours inter-racial relationships.
|
| If a manager really says something along the lines of "watch out
| for her, she is dealing crack in the ghetto, and secretly carries
| a gun everywhere." then that manager is fired everywhere in the
| world, and the Black employee is compensated for this evil. No
| company wants to keep such managers around. No need to invoke
| tricks like paying off an external investigator. That manager is
| gone.
|
| Yet, that manager is still around. No complaint was filed. No
| colleague stepped up. So what really happened? A joke gone wrong?
| Being above racism led to problems with an employee for who being
| black and female is the major two traits of their group/social
| media identity, and now they can't help but relate every
| interaction, to whites hating their skin color, or the patriarchy
| keeping them down?
|
| Racism is gross, but this "I am being discriminated against by
| these elite white tech bros, because they notice my skin every
| day, promoting their dumb jocks over me, again due to the color
| of my skin, and nobody is willing to stop that" is even grosser.
| It is sexist, slanderous, weak, prejudiced, generalizing,
| blameful, divisive, _and_ racist.
|
| The taboo-ness of the topic is wielded as an effective weapon by
| activists. They realized early on what the power of calling
| someone's employer, conference organizers, or hinting at company
| racism can do to stifle opposing views and criticism, and the
| economic damage they can inflict on a brand. Even if totally out
| of line and false, such as accusing white business owners of
| cultural appropriation by selling Asian food, can get such a
| business cancelled, because people are afraid to be tarred and
| feathered by association. Socially ostracized without ever a
| court to fairly validate if you really furthered (illegal!)
| racism. Portrayed by international media as some sort of neo-Nazi
| libertarian hellscape momcorp, without ever a court or
| independent investigation finding anything of real substance.
| Acquitted by a judge, yet constantly called a murderous racist,
| because you killed a black-skinned person at a traffic stop.
|
| So what happens if you loudly overreact to perceived company
| racism? You start to promote diversity and inclusion programs.
| You start asking applicants for their skin color or gender. You
| bring back the focus on skin color, ideally looking for a Disney-
| style PR diversity representation that's obvious for the outside
| (black, female, flamboyantly gay). You, of course, hire a black
| gay female to run these diversity programs, because white
| straight males are not suited for the job. Start policing
| language and technical jargon, as to not offend their favorite
| social scholars. And what happens to me? I look twice at a new
| colleague. The second time I notice skin color and gender. And I
| can't help but wonder... did those factors contribute or was this
| the best candidate for the job? Well done, activists! I still
| take full blame for that sub-second racist/sexist take (which I
| abhor), but it didn't have to be that way.
| 2-tpg wrote:
| [flagged]
|
| > I do not give a hoot about skin color. MLK taught me to judge
| people not by the color of their skin. If I were to tone down my
| speech, because I focus on the color of the skin of my audience,
| I would feel bad and awkward: "these people deserve coddling due
| to their skin color" ranks close to "these people deserve scorn
| due to their skin color".
|
| > Accusing others of racism is a serious faux-pas. It is also
| delusional to think someone talking down to you, is caused by the
| color of your skin, and not, maybe, because you deserved a
| talking down to, or the person is just an asshole, and talks down
| to everyone.
|
| > Saying someone else got a promotion, because their white skin,
| despite being lower skilled than you, is a horrible thing to say,
| and a horrible thing to believe. It would be vile distracting
| paralyzing racism, instead of an opportunity to reflect and grow.
|
| > If racial equality activists make you feel that way, judge
| others on the color of their skin, and paint decision-making of
| white people that way, then this activism is not doing you any
| favors. It is not making you stronger. It is making you a victim.
| It sours inter-racial relationships.
|
| > If a manager really says something along the lines of "watch
| out for her, she is dealing crack in the ghetto, and secretly
| carries a gun everywhere." then that manager is fired everywhere
| in the world, and the Black employee is compensated for this
| evil. No company wants to keep such managers around. No need to
| invoke tricks like paying off an external investigator. That
| manager is gone.
|
| > Yet, that manager is still around. No complaint was filed. No
| colleague stepped up. So what really happened? A joke gone wrong?
| Being above racism led to problems with an employee for who being
| black and female is the major two traits of their group/social
| media identity, and now they can't help but relate every
| interaction, to whites hating their skin color, or the patriarchy
| keeping them down?
|
| > Racism is gross, but this "I am being discriminated against by
| these elite white tech bros, because they notice my skin every
| day, promoting their dumb jocks over me, again due to the color
| of my skin, and nobody is willing to stop that" is even grosser.
| It is sexist, slanderous, weak, prejudiced, generalizing,
| blameful, divisive, and racist.
|
| > The taboo-ness of the topic is wielded as an effective weapon
| by activists. They realized early on what the power of calling
| someone's employer, conference organizers, or hinting at company
| racism can do to stifle opposing views and criticism, and the
| economic damage they can inflict on a brand. Even if totally out
| of line and false, such as accusing white business owners of
| cultural appropriation by selling Asian food, can get such a
| business cancelled, because people are afraid to be tarred and
| feathered by association. Socially ostracized without ever a
| court to fairly validate if you really furthered (illegal!)
| racism. Portrayed by international media as some sort of neo-Nazi
| libertarian hellscape momcorp, without ever a court or
| independent investigation finding anything of real substance.
| Acquitted by a judge, yet constantly called a murderous racist,
| because you killed a black-skinned person at a traffic stop.
|
| > So what happens if you loudly overreact to perceived company
| racism? You start to promote diversity and inclusion programs.
| You start asking applicants for their skin color or gender. You
| bring back the focus on skin color, ideally looking for a Disney-
| style PR diversity representation that's obvious for the outside
| (black, female, flamboyantly gay). You, of course, hire a black
| gay female to run these diversity programs, because white
| straight males are not suited for the job. Start policing
| language and technical jargon, as to not offend their favorite
| social scholars. And what happens to me? I look twice at a new
| colleague. The second time I notice skin color and gender. And I
| can't help but wonder... did those factors contribute or was this
| the best candidate for the job? Well done, activists! I still
| take full blame for that sub-second racist/sexist take (which I
| abhor), but it didn't have to be that way.
|
| I feel like the sort of people who flagged this comment benefit
| the most from reading it.
| whoknew1122 wrote:
| Hmmm. A 'mission focused' company that bans discusses political
| and societal issues also has issues with diversity and how it
| treats its non-white workers?
|
| I'll go ahead and file this in the 'In other news, water is wet'
| category.
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| 11 of then ~20 Black employees by early 2019* had complained to
| HR about racism. That's over half! And that's only the people
| with the fortitude or optimism to talk to HR (HR is notoriously
| useless at many companies). That's a complete disaster. 15 of
| that 20 quit! Why wasn't that treated as an emergency?
|
| *At the end the article says at the end of 2019 there's 31 Black
| employees of 1000. At the beginning of the article about the
| beginning of 2019 it's about 20 of 600 before 15 Black employees
| quit.
| snicksnak wrote:
| According to the article 15 black people left in total between
| late '18 early '19. It seems that the compliance team makes up
| the major part of the departures (up to 8 quit, depends how you
| read it). From the article this could be attributed to coinbase
| opening an office in portland and employees declined to move.
|
| The headline also mentions that black people were fired, but
| never follows up on it.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > Why wasn't that treated as an emergency?
|
| Companies can be _incredibly_ callous about retention issues,
| especially if fixing them involves noticing which managers are
| responsible for behaving badly towards their staff.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| Especially when the solution to these issues is also a
| retention issue as you likely have to fire other people for
| their behavior.
| drewcoo wrote:
| > retention issues
|
| Well we allow those companies to continue to dismiss their
| interactions with most of the people in the company as
| "retention issues," so I think I can spot an actual cause
| here. Roll in typical treatment of customers as barriers to
| profit and we have a theme starting.
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| Or if the real problem is at the top.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| "Callous" would mean it's about you, but think about it from
| the viewpoint of the company. If the aggrieved employee
| leaves, the problem is solved.
| skywhopper wrote:
| Only if the issue is with that individual employee. In this
| case, that obviously isn't the case. Ignoring a systemic
| problem in your company solves nothing.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| Don't know if that's true. The big goal is to avoid
| federal lawsuits and other scandals. If the can can be
| kicked down the road for a few more years, fine! Uber
| only blew up because Susan Fowler was better connected
| than most, and you'd like to know how much the scandal
| affected the company. Uber is fine, Kalanick is fine, a
| few HR drones lost their jobs, business as usual.
| [deleted]
| pjc50 wrote:
| Hiring and onboarding costs money. Having people quit costs
| money in replacing them. Allowing managers to drive them
| out and incur the cost of replacement is basically allowing
| them to light money on fire for their entertainment.
|
| Not from the POV of the _company_ , but from the individual
| actors within it, is the problem solved. Principal-agent
| dilemma, innit.
| sonotathrowaway wrote:
| It was treated as a disaster - they labeled the leavers as
| "political" and announced they instituted policies to prevent
| future "political" employees.
| briane80 wrote:
| Ah more power to them. No sane person wants political
| activists in your company, spreading identity politics and
| wokism.
| [deleted]
| renewiltord wrote:
| It's the NYT. These guys told us there was WMD evidence in Iraq.
| Complete bullshittery.
| [deleted]
| eznzt wrote:
| I hope Coinbase does not bend the knee. I don't like the idea of
| crypto too much, but it should be for everybody.
| t0astbread wrote:
| I'm not sure I understood correctly - wouldn't removing
| discrimination or other hurdles for marginalized groups in your
| organization be more "for everybody"?
| briane80 wrote:
| There was no evidence of discrimination after 3
| investiagtions. 2 done by external auditors. This isn't about
| discrimination it's about a group of woke activists trying to
| sieze power for themselves.
| pjc50 wrote:
| .. including black employees?
| demarq wrote:
| > I know it's frustrating and distracting. Let's keep focused on
| building an amazing company together.
|
| One would hope an amazing company that doesn't cover it's ass
| when it turns out the executive couldn't give a hoot about the
| treatment of black people and now everyone knows
| briane80 wrote:
| Yeah you better kneel whitey or you're definitely a racist.
| dang wrote:
| Regardless of where one is on the underlying issue, flamebait
| like this is beyond the pale. You've been posting a lot of it
| --please stop.
|
| If you wouldn't mind reviewing
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking
| to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| Congratulations on posting the first openly inflammatory
| racist language.
| briane80 wrote:
| Don't be silly, you can't be racist to white people.
| polartx wrote:
| One could argue that it would be unethical to use your
| investors' money as a political (or even idealogical) bullhorn.
|
| Notwithstanding, such a position places _zero_ restrictions on
| doing the same with your own money..but corporations make for
| more interesting headlines than the individuals that run them.
| throwaway2048 wrote:
| This a great example of how being against "politics" is really
| just upholding the (garbage) status quo.
| cwmma wrote:
| The status quo tends to be pretty good for the people who want
| a safe space from politics.
| siberianbear wrote:
| Posting a link to Coinbase's peremptory rebuttal seems apropos.
|
| https://blog.coinbase.com/upcoming-story-about-coinbase-2012...
| sonotathrowaway wrote:
| > As Brian shared with the ColorBlock ERG this morning, we
| don't care what The New York Times thinks. The most important
| thing we care about is you, our employees, and what you think.
|
| (As long as you're of the correct skin tone and political
| ideology)
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| and as long as you don't have any _political_ thoughts. don
| 't want those.
| 2-tpg wrote:
| You can have political thoughts. But these employees
| demanded in tears that upper management break their silence
| on an on-going case (which they decided was due to skin
| color, racism, and police violence/murder, when these
| interpretations are far from clear).
|
| So what about the "political" thoughts, that said that
| Floyd was a career criminal unworthy of sainthood or role
| modeling, dying from a self-inflicted fentanyl overdose,
| and resisting arrest (where the other people in the car
| somehow received fair treatment, despite their skin color).
| It was gross to hear company's talk of police murder and
| police racism, and their devastation of the passing of
| someone they don't know, and wouldn't have known if they
| were Latin or Asian or Indian or basically any other
| minority.
| sfkdjf9j3j wrote:
| As the article says in the second paragraph, the
| employees that they spoke to left in 2018 and 2019, so
| this response is irrelevant. I personally find it
| reprehensible and deliberately lacking context as well
| but you are entitled to your opinion.
| 2-tpg wrote:
| The blog post about leaving politics at the door was in
| response to the death of Floyd and some employees upset
| about their perceived "silence" of upper management,
| where more woke companies did speak up. So it's relevant
| and provides context to that policy of focusing on
| company mission, instead of making statements about
| racial inequality, police brutality, and unfair
| societies.
|
| You are entitled to political thoughts. If you can handle
| it, you are even allowed to share them with colleagues.
| But don't get upset if others have different political
| thoughts. And certainly not get upset enough to accuse
| them of racism.
| jonsno56 wrote:
| > In general, we should expect more, not less, media coverage
| (both positive and negative) as we grow. I'm sorry you'll have
| to deal with these types of questions and comments again -- I
| know it's frustrating and distracting. Let's keep focused on
| building an amazing company together.
|
| Acknowledges that bigger companies deserve more scrutiny. Then
| proceeds to be immature by implying that said scrutiny is
| merely frustrating and not worthy of any further internal
| dialogue.
|
| Also, why isn't this letter signed? It doesn't exactly read
| like a corporate memo as it's rather opinionated and sounds
| like one person wrote it. Is the CEO too chicken shit to put
| his name here?
| frewsxcv wrote:
| "rebuttal" is giving them way too much credit
| 9HZZRfNlpR wrote:
| When minorities get hired just because companies want to show
| they are doing their part, doesn't it make sense people hired
| because of their skin color have harder times to get promotions?
| aparsons wrote:
| You will get downvoted because HN reflects SV groupthink, but
| you are absolutely correct. This is a well-studied phenomenon
| analogous to the Peter principle, and has been observed in
| workplaces (as you described) and schools (black students who
| get in to meet an arbitrary target struggle more and have a
| worse college experience).
|
| We are doing these people a disservice. Even in the most
| "socially forward thinking" companies like Google, this
| sentiment prevails. The loudest non-black advocates for black
| hiring are privately the owners of the strongest fences. But
| when its time to virtue-signal, they're at the front of the
| line. Hire a black employee directly into their team in
| eng/sales? No thanks - but they'll gladly advocate for the
| customer service, recruitment and "diversity officer" roles to
| go to a black individual. Direct result of the push to hire
| disproportionately many black people which has led to them
| having a worse experience at these jobs as the psyche of
| existing employees is they're automatically a lower bar hire
| (very unfair to these people!).
|
| Good job big tech - you have once again turned a target into a
| measure and completely missed the point. Except now the people
| you supposedly tried to help are hurt the most.
|
| Look at Coinbase - the exec team is largely women and
| minorities, yet NYT takes every opportunity to point out the
| percent of black employees (with no context on the number in
| the hiring funnel and at target colleges) as if CB has an
| obligation to hit a certain number.
|
| Disclosure: I worked at Coinbase for a brief period.
|
| Ready for the downvotes, but look around at those in your team
| and within yourself, and ask yourself if there is anything
| untrue in what I said before hitting that button.
| sfkdjf9j3j wrote:
| Sorry, could you clarify what precisely is a "well studied
| phenomenon" and maybe link some of the studies? With this
| sort of research you have to be _extremely_ careful about
| what claims you assert it supports because there are often
| serious methodological issues. I also notice in your post
| that you use the phrase "virtue signal", which suggests a
| certain political view on your part, so I want to make sure
| I'm responding to exactly what you claim so we don't get
| confused by terminology or matters of degree.
| aparsons wrote:
| I am on mobile, so can't find an exhaustive list, but here
| are a few:
|
| https://www.heritage.org/courts/commentary/how-
| affirmative-a... (Relating to drop out rates)
|
| https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-
| sad-...
|
| https://www.jstor.org/stable/3699572?seq=1
|
| https://hilo.hawaii.edu/campuscenter/hohonu/volumes/documen
| t...
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/10/the-
| pai...
|
| I have worked in this industry - on and off - for 3
| decades. This is an ugly phenomenon nobody wants to
| acknowledge.
|
| The mere suggestion that this is a funnel issue, rather
| than a racial bias issue, is met with vehement accusations
| of racism (if coming from an older man like me, even more
| so).
|
| I'd even go as far as to say SV has a real discrimination
| problem - and that is ageism. When supply and demand is
| considered, it is many times as blatant as the supposed
| race issue.
|
| Finally, I did use the term virtue signalling. It is fairly
| unambiguous. There are no political leanings to extrapolate
| from there, yet the subtle accusations put forward based on
| that is abundantly clear here. Once again - before
| dissecting my comment and projecting an image of me to
| attack/downvote, ask yourself if the way SV (likely your
| employer based on HN demographics)and outlets like NYT
| frame these issues is truly honest.
| aparsons wrote:
| Since there seems to be some activity around this comment and
| I can no longer edit the parent comment, let me add a few
| more thoughts here.
|
| Diverse hiring (as in equal outcome hiring) does not
| materially benefit companies.
|
| I was on, or closely worked with teams that built early
| versions of modern virtual memory, Excel, Turbo Pascal,
| WebTV, and IIS, and they were largely white men, with a
| sprinkling of Asian men. Would these products be better
| engineering marvels with more racial and gender
| representation? Possibly, but not because of the existence of
| "women algorithms" or "black design patterns". Human brains
| work similarly given similar inputs. There is some revenue to
| be regained in designing for edge case blind spots, but it is
| an overwhelming small fraction when you are working at the
| bleeding edge of an industry. You did not see these
| initiatives in tech at the time for the same reason you don't
| see them in the space travel industry, or anti-aging
| research, or on the teams working on a COVID-19 vaccine (how
| ridiculous would that sound?). The industry was not mature
| enough, as it is now, for such overhead (distractions, to be
| less polite). There was important work to be done, and we
| didn't care who you were as long as you could help. These
| were some of the most open, progressive, intelligent and
| honest teams I got to work with.
|
| Then why is it important? Because diverse hiring (as in
| equal-opportunity hiring) is __the right thing to do__.
| Talent can come from South America or South Chicago just as
| easily as Bangalore or Austin, TX. The next Donald Knuth or
| Jeffrey Dean should not be denied an opportunity because of
| their skin color or gender if they shone through. And in
| those teams, several of them shone through and we scrambled
| to bring them aboard.
|
| What is happening now is analogous to dredging the river bed,
| incurring the costs of that (which is possible because the
| industry is massively profitable and mature, with very little
| paradigm-shifting work left at these companies) to find what
| might be remotely shiny. We can then report our "progress"
| and pat ourselves on the back. Except, this breeds resentment
| from the rocks and diamonds not getting dredged, the
| aforementioned Peter Principle issue, and as I've observed,
| the general unease. You will not find a team at a company
| like Etsy that is as accepting and open as the teams I
| mentioned, because the sacred thing that pulls together smart
| people - the "bar" for lack of better term - _may_ have been
| compromised in bringing in the latest new hire. If there is a
| shadow of doubt about that, even if this person truly is a
| diamond, they are done a disservice because of this dynamic
| at play. It is unfair, and in the long term, actually hurts
| these UR communities in this industry.
| snypher wrote:
| Please don't bother replying to something you know will be
| flagged, as now we have no context for your comments.
| aparsons wrote:
| When I replied, the thread was quite young. I thought that
| comment (vaguely mirroring the first paragraph of my
| comment iirc) was unpopular but certainly not offensive
| enough to be flagged. Or it is on HN?
| ksherlock wrote:
| Sure, but do they use a "master" branch in their git repo?
| aparsons wrote:
| When they change it to main, the employees will return /s
| dang wrote:
| " _Eschew flamebait. Don 't introduce flamewar topics unless
| you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated
| controversies and generic tangents._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| scottlocklin wrote:
| This is a ridiculous political hatchet job.
| [deleted]
| bJGVygG7MQVF8c wrote:
| Nice t-shirt on that cover photo. "Black tech, Green money."
| Smart optics, lady. Really enhances your credibility as a
| witness.
| goatinaboat wrote:
| _"Most people of color working in tech know that there's a
| diversity problem,"_
|
| Interesting. Are Asians or Indians not "people" or "of color" in
| this worldview?
| ankushnarula wrote:
| In the US, being "marginalized" means you are part of a
| cultural minority group that is politically useful to political
| corporatists - typically of the cultural coalition party.
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| Newspeak makes a distinction between "poc" and "non black poc"
| bJGVygG7MQVF8c wrote:
| Techies are usually too naive about how the media works. This is
| a hit piece. Cui bono? Who are Coinbase's competitors? Who would
| stand to gain from Coinbase taking a hit?
| [deleted]
| threevox wrote:
| Ah yes, quality reporting on the most important issues facing our
| society today
| vmception wrote:
| I was willing to support the general message Brian Armstrong put
| out, but with the added context and chronology I cannot.
|
| I would say that this kind of mission statement can only work if
| done at the beginning, as reacting in response to the work
| environment described by their employees was doomed for failure.
|
| I know many people like Brian Armstrong, and the investors. They
| are all cut from a similar cloth and they honestly have no clue
| how to react. They don't know how to get women on a panel, they
| don't know how to get qualified people of color in positions to
| change things. They are just told what they did wrong and just
| shut themselves off from it. The very people with power to change
| anything get marginalized themselves. And yes, some - not all -
| of them actually are not interested in inclusion or really are
| racist and sexist. But for the former, there is room to empathize
| with these kind of people to steer their energy in more
| productive ways.
| RestlessMind wrote:
| From Coinbase's "About us"[1]
|
| > They don't know how to get women on a panel
|
| 2 out of 7 members of the exec team are women.
|
| > they don't know hot to get qualified people of color in
| positions to change things
|
| 4 out of 7 members of the exec team have last names of Choi,
| Chatterjee, Grewal, Gupta.
|
| It's almost as if you have strong biases (or delusions) and
| didn't even do a basic fact check before making bold claims
| against Coinbase.
|
| [1] https://www.coinbase.com/about
| vmception wrote:
| Yeah my point was about empathizing with people being
| expected to make statement after statement, instead of
| vilifying them when they stop jumping when people say jump.
| Aside from the topic sentence of that paragraph it was no
| longer about Coinbase.
|
| I'm saying we can all address this better.
| TACIXAT wrote:
| Where is the Hispanic and Black representation? I see 3/15
| people on that page being women, not a very strong point for
| a group that is 50% of the population.
|
| This is the standard SV makeup. Do a random sample of any
| large tech company and this is the team you'd get. This tells
| me they're not doing anything different.
| 9HZZRfNlpR wrote:
| There are not enough qualified black people in that job
| market, what is this that Americans have that difficult to
| grok?
| TACIXAT wrote:
| If true, what are they doing to change that? When I was
| at Google there were zero paths to bring in people with
| potential and train them up. I'm guessing it is the same
| at Coinbase. Doing nothing to address the problem then
| pointing at your H1Bs and patting yourself on the back.
| blahblahblogger wrote:
| honest Q: why is it their job to fix this?
|
| also: for companies that are global in nature, with
| global operations, offices, employees, etc. is it right
| to take on the issues of the country where they have an
| office? (or are HQ-ed, or have X% of employees (even if
| majority)?)
|
| Why not other things? Why aren't the issues of the
| impoverished of India an issue w/ tech companies,
| especially given the large presence of "well to do"
| Indians or upper-casters?
| 9HZZRfNlpR wrote:
| I would guess through the same system everyone else
| qualifies through, weather it be Google or someone else.
|
| Your local governments have to push the education forward
| instead of doing these racist affirmative action rules.
| vmception wrote:
| The talent pools exist, they can definitely increase
| recruiting at different schools.
|
| America is where it is by not even tapping into the
| productivity of basically up to half of its population
| across various demographics, imagine if it did.
| vmception wrote:
| Americans think that is
|
| a) bullshit
|
| b) even if it wasn't bullshit, the companies improve with
| the representation to adequately ship products to markets
| that they would otherwise ignore
|
| c) both kinds of people are benefits to the companies, as
| there is a greater priority to address markets than cater
| to egos of internal employees
| RestlessMind wrote:
| > Where is the Hispanic and Black representation?
|
| Coinbase aspires to be a global company. What does "Black"
| even mean in that context? People with dark skin color? If
| so, a broad portion of South Asians and sub-Saharan
| Africans would qualify.
|
| What does Hispanic mean? Would Spanish people qualify?
|
| Did you mean only in the context of the USA? If so, how is
| that different than the Nationalist jingoism of Donald
| Trump, where you want US-centric population representation
| in a global company?
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