You're absolutely right, and I'm disappointed that you've been voted down to negative. At the very least this is a well worded argument worth looking at.
Politics, as much as we all hate it, is engaged with everywhere in business.
Choosing to be apolitical is effectively a form of political engagement, usually resulting in a vote for the status quo and/or the pursuit of money eschewing engagement in difficult questions in society.
This can be argued about whether it is moral or not, or even if a company has much of a choice in the matter (There are many entrenched companies that do "immoral" political things that are near impossible not to engage with as a business), and this is not unique to coinbase, but it's not somehow withdrawing from judgement on morality when you say you are "apolitical", and you still should be judged on your politics and lack of engagement in society.
Let's not be naive here, any larger company, even the most "apolitical" company still has large influence, uses services, and makes decisions that are politically charged.
That said, it's not all one direction where all political activism within a company is great, but eschewing all politics is not doing so at all.
The employees have a voice: as private citizens. The workplace is not a democratic community, and the employees are not its constituency. It a place where employer-employee come together to complete a mission that both sides consent to, otherwise they separate. Of course, mission is a negotiable term just like compensation and benefits, an employee is free to ask "in addition to pay you must also dedicate the company's resources and attention to my preferred causes", and the employer is free to decline. Coinbase is simply make it clear that changing their mission is not a price they are willing to pay, so please look elsewhere.
I think this brings clarity to the work relationship, as "the power to direct the political mission of the company" had been previously an unstated, unnegotiated axis of the terms of employment. People are now learning that this need to be crystal clear upfront.
Politics, as much as we all hate it, is engaged with everywhere in business.
Choosing to be apolitical is effectively a form of political engagement, usually resulting in a vote for the status quo and/or the pursuit of money eschewing engagement in difficult questions in society.
This can be argued about whether it is moral or not, or even if a company has much of a choice in the matter (There are many entrenched companies that do "immoral" political things that are near impossible not to engage with as a business), and this is not unique to coinbase, but it's not somehow withdrawing from judgement on morality when you say you are "apolitical", and you still should be judged on your politics and lack of engagement in society.
Let's not be naive here, any larger company, even the most "apolitical" company still has large influence, uses services, and makes decisions that are politically charged.
That said, it's not all one direction where all political activism within a company is great, but eschewing all politics is not doing so at all.