I am caught in two minds on this, I’m personally extremely political, but I want to clearly understand both sides of arguments as deeply as I possibly can. For example I often argue things in my own mind from a conservative, let’s keep everything stable, work hard, individual responsibility POV even though I firmly believe probably 80% of people’s success is down to luck and consequently think a strong welfare state and 99% inheritance tax is the correct way to run things.
Now bringing these ideas to work and using that as a vehicle for change is not something I’m comfortable with, but if you as a company have a mission, you can’t expect your staff to not also have missions that might be aligned or orthogonal to the company.
It might make your company work better getting rid of politics (that disagrees with yours anyway) from the workplace by paying people. I wonder if it leads to a filtering out of potentially difficult conversations that people should have.
Anyway I’m against corporate stuff like this and I think you can cut this down quite a lot without the fluff. I wonder what the specific internal conversations were to prompt this public plea for apolitical-ness outside of the company’s political mission.
I think the common challenge leaders are facing is the missions employees bring into the offie in fact aren't particularly aligned or orthogonal to the company's mission.
This is exacerbated by a decade+ of claiming the company is "making the world a better place by X," when really of course it's not. It's selling ads or what have you.
So, I think part of the insistence to bring politics into work is also driven by that - the employees were sold a bill of moral goods at 23, slowly realize the company doesn't actually have the PR mission it says it does because it's a profit seeking company, and employees start trying to overcorrect.
At least CB is being open about what they're about :shrug:.
Every company has a mission, some are just more explicit about it.
I spent a lot of years as a traveling consultant. Every company I visited broadcast it's culture and in doing so, it's mission. It's in the way companies bring products to market, it's in the words it uses to describe itself. It's in the way it treats its employees.
The mission could be "We want to line the pockets of the founder's family." It could be "we want to build products that make people's lives better in these distinct ways." It can even be "We want to shine this turd just long enough to get acquired by our largest competitor." As employees, we buy in one way or another.
Each of those is a mission, just a very different mission from the way Coinbase is positioning their mission.
> I firmly believe probably 80% of people’s success is down to luck and consequently think a strong welfare state and 99% inheritance tax is the correct way to run things.
So you think wealth is based on 80% luck and your solution is to reset the family wealth every time?
So a family who isn't "lucky" can't pass on their little wealth to their children and have that compound over time? You'd prefer the children get the reset button?
You have some flawed understanding of how people can actually increase the probability to generate wealth.
I would say 99% maybe 100% above maybe ten million dollars or so, sure. Why do you think hereditary wealth is positive? Maybe everyone would have to improve society and try to make sure the bottom of it isn’t quite so horrendous as it is now. But I understand where you’re coming from, there’s nothing like working hard and doing well to make you think the money is yours not something you are lent largely by being born in the right place, at the right time, with the right parents etc. etc.
Because I have the right to provide for my children and ensure they can live their best life.
I don’t care if it’s “not fair” or if I “lucked out.” My family comes in first. Not the government, not anyone else - if I make something or earn something, it is my right to provide for my family.
> largely by being born in the right place, at the right time, with the right parents etc. etc.
You just think you have that right, but really it’s an opinion you hold strongly. My opinion is different from yours on this, and I certainly don’t think we’re about to persuade each other here.
Now bringing these ideas to work and using that as a vehicle for change is not something I’m comfortable with, but if you as a company have a mission, you can’t expect your staff to not also have missions that might be aligned or orthogonal to the company.
It might make your company work better getting rid of politics (that disagrees with yours anyway) from the workplace by paying people. I wonder if it leads to a filtering out of potentially difficult conversations that people should have.
Anyway I’m against corporate stuff like this and I think you can cut this down quite a lot without the fluff. I wonder what the specific internal conversations were to prompt this public plea for apolitical-ness outside of the company’s political mission.