Although I think we differ in terms of our sentiment, I'm really glad to see a plausible hypothesis about the proximate motivation for Brian's decision posted.

Erica's theory that this is a way of trimming payroll while eliminating personnel Brian sees as problematic seems to fit all the facts about the pressures Brian and Coinbase are feeling right now.

While I'm not sure this will turn out to be a bad thing for the world, it's a lot clearer why now & why Coinbase with this in mind.

That speaks much worse about herself than it does about Coinbase.

Seriously, I can’t believe grown adults say stuff like this. So much professionalism from the “Director of Engineering at GitHub,” saying that people who don’t share her perspective on politics in the workplace are having “meltdowns.”

I think quite the opposite. We give far, far too much cultural deference to megalomaniacal executives and petty business tyrants; it’s refreshing to see them called out on their bullshit. More refreshing would be seeing more CEOs, founders, and VCs forced to cede control to employees, but I’ll take what we can get.

I don't see how saying "let's focus on work" leads you so call someone megalomaniacal.

Yep. I didn't know who she was before this twitter thread, so the impression it gave off was a typical teenager trying to burn someone.

Why does it speak worse of her?

The part about being pressured to post the statement about BLM may be true. Nothing wrong with pointing that out.

But then she starts to over-speculate about Armstrong's emotions without any basis and tries to frame him as an unstable person. All of this simply because Armstrong posted about his company's mission.

How would she feel if talking about her company's mission resulted in execs from other companies tweeting about her "having a meltdown", simply because she has a different political perspective?

She comes off, to me at least, as:

Unprofessional, ideological, dogmatic, crazy-lady

What specifically did she say that made her come off that way to you?

Spend a few minutes scrolling through her Twitter feed:

https://twitter.com/EricaJoy/status/1307109690917224449

https://twitter.com/EricaJoy/status/1306403761603051521

https://twitter.com/EricaJoy/status/1306280514035179521

https://twitter.com/EricaJoy/status/1303264312354512896

And on, and on, and on. She tweets so much it's kind of sad. Practically none of her tweets have anything to do with actual engineering. It's all identity politics and other leftist nonsense.

I didn't find any of those tweets unprofessional. I found them to be a genuinely interesting perspective on social issues that I am interested in. I am not sure how that's unprofessional of her.

If you think its "leftist nonsense", then that's just your opinion.

She is entitled to tweet whatever she wants to from her personal twitter account. Do you think its reasonable for her to follow your idea of how a Director of Engineering should tweet?

Why would tweets (from her personal account) need to be about engineering?

Like it or not BLM -the organization- does have some pretty leftist ideas that not everyone is fond of (Marxism for example espoused by some of the leaders of the movement). Some of them involve completely dismantling police forces as they're traditionally formed. However BLM the concept of equality for blacks and equal treatment under the law that is something 90% of the population can get behind. I think there is a lot of nuance to this stuff and companies need to be specific and careful about such things.

Every political term has at least 3 layers of meaning.

1. The literal meaning of the term or its original definition.

2. The core ideas proposed by the group or by whoever defined the term.

3. The real actions of people who feel identified by a group or people who use the term.

Many times we have misunderstandings because we are thinking about different layers. Also, these differences in meaning are often astutely used to manipulate and tergiverse things.

Examples of terms with different effective meanings depending on the layer: blm, antifa, alt-right, feminism, neoliberalism, capitalism, communism.

There's a fourth layer of meaning you may be overlooking - the willful misinterpretation of the term used by its opponents.

One obvious example being the use of "all lives matter" and "blue lives matter" to reinforce the false interpretation of "black lives matter" as meaning "only black lives matter," when the phrase more correctly means "black lives matter as well."

Or the way that "fake news" has been re-appropriated to refer to bias within mainstream media, rather than literally fabricated stories and memes posing as news on social media and the web.

Or ask a feminist and a redpiller to agree on what "toxic masculinity" actually means.

I see the issue of compelled speech troublesome. Maybe it's one of my character flaws, but I don't like being bullied into saying some group's mantras. Even if we agree.

Most people like BLM and Marxism, they mostly disagree only if you refer to them by their names.

Thanks for posting this. I think she makes excellent points. I've worked at companies where similar executive retaliation to principled employees has happened before, and I can relate to the changes that seem to have been instituted (pre-vetting town hall questions to execs, shutting down slack channels that allow for asking questions to execs directly).

Funnily enough, I interviewed at Coinbase not that long ago, and almost joined the company. I am glad that I did not, this would have made me quit. One of the things that one of the interviewers mentioned was the openness and transparency of the execs. I wonder if these draconian measures will make these employees think twice about working at such an institution.

“Draconian” is a bit of a strong word, don’t you think? Coinbase isn’t prohibiting employees from doing activism in their free time.

It's corporate erasure (a form of violence) when people aren't able to be their authentic selves at work—something that includes, obviously, being able to speak up about basic human rights and dignities in the workplace.

Maybe we should roll back anti-discrimination laws in the workplace too? I'm sure CEOs find that to be a hassle…

Perhaps every company can offer severance packages to workers who don't want their rights taken away? Don't like the 40 hours work week? Here's a severance package. The rest of you are now required to work 60 hours. Etc. etc. etc.

This kind of behavior is a textbook example of how rights in practice are eroded.

To downvoters: in the past, the LGBT community was asked to "hide" their identity at work, literally, by pretending to be cis at work. This isn't any different.

Imagine offering a severance package to all LGBT individuals today. If that would horrify you, think again about what Coinbase is doing (and why).

From Brian Armstrong's letter:

"We create job opportunities for top people, including those from underrepresented backgrounds who don’t have equal access to opportunities, with things like diverse slates (Rooney rule) on senior hires, and casting a wide net to find top talent."

"Fair talent practices: We work to reduce unconscious bias in interviews, using things like structured interviews, and ensure fair practices in how we pay and promote. We have a pay for performance culture, which means that your rewards and promotions are linked to your overall contribution to the mission and company goals.

Enable belonging for everyone: We work to create an environment where everyone is welcome and can do their best work, regardless of background, sexual orientation, race, gender, age, etc."

"Of course, there are exceptions here around internal employment matters, whistleblowing, etc. And we want all employees to feel safe disagreeing on the work itself. Candor and debate are core to a healthy team, where it is safe to disagree. We consider these to be related to our mission."

His words say X, his actions say Y.

c.f. North Korea, a communist totalitarian state that calls itself the "Democratic People's Republic". Their words say X, their actions say Y.

This isn't hard: you shall know them by their fruits.

I think that term described pretty well what he's instituted.

> Definition of draconian

> 1 law : of, relating to, or characteristic of Draco or the severe code of laws held to have been framed by him > 2 : cruel also : severe

from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/draconian