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.
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.
>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.
I work on a diverse team at CB that has engagement scores through the roof. And you don't need to know the survey data to know that; just join us for lunch. We're curious, we care about each other, and we care about the mission.
The NYTimes is like the Daily Prophet for muggles. Don't over-index on a hit piece.
You mention diversity. Do any black folks work on your team? Do you think it’s possible that black engineers are treated well and black CX are treated poorly?
On my direct team nope. I can imagine folks being treated differently in Eng vs CX at other companies, and have seen that. I have trouble imagining that at CB, but anything's possible.
CB stands out in my career for the number of good human beings I've gotten to meet and work with. And my read when I see Brian, Emilie, Surojit, and Manish speak at weekly AMAs is they genuinely care about everyone in the company. It's a gut instinct, and so far I have no personal experience or anecdotal from within my circles to the contrary.
My sister used to work in CX (outside of tech) and it was really damaging work for her. It'd be devastating for me to learn our folks are not supported.
You are wrong, apparently. 4 out of 7 members of the exec team have last names indicating they are people of color. Check yourself: https://www.coinbase.com/about
If the head of product and the head of engineering are brown people, I am very confident that CB is a great place to join for brown nerds since culture flows from the top.
Really missing the forests for the trees, here. It's clear that there are under-represented groups at CoinBase that are routinely discriminated. It is unthinkable to me for HN readers to defend that, but here we are regardless.
Maybe I should have used the term 'under-represented minorities,' because I don't see a single black or latino person (admittedly, this is what I meant as 'brown' since I'm Hispanic).
> It is unthinkable to me for HN readers to defend that
> admittedly, this is what I meant as 'brown'
I mean, if you are going to use 'brown' to exclusively refer to latinos when half the world (or more?) is brown, then obviously you are going to sow confusion on forums like HN with participants across the globe.
I think it’s much less an issue with people who have relocated and spent a few years adapting to us, but to succeed with foreign cultures you have to know how directly they prefer to communicate. Dave Barry tells this story:
(Beth) “… and then we want to take a plane from Point A to Point B.”
(Japanese travel agent) “I see. You want to take a plane?” “Yes.”
“From Point A?” “Yes.”
“To Point B?” “Yes.”
“Ah.” “Can we do that?”
“Perhaps you would prefer to take a train.” “No, we would prefer to take a plane.”
“Ah-hah. You would prefer to take a plane?” “Yes. A plane.”
“I see. From Point A?”
This mystified his wife but apparently between Japanese this is virtually screaming “THERE IS NO PLANE, YOU ZITBRAIN!”
Yeah, for working with non-American employees this kind of training would make a lot of sense. This guy in particular was talking about American Latinas, though.
Being timid is strongly connected to your upbringing, your upbringing is strongly connected to culture and culture is strongly connected to race.
Sure, saying "X are too timid" is a stereotype, but pointing out at a diversity seminar that you should be extra observant around X because they tend to not speak up for themselves is just good advice. Many cultures value being quiet and doing your job a lot more than others, and those values get passed down by parents for at least a few generations after immigrating. If that group doesn't have a good support structure (no BLM equivalent), that only adds to the fear of speaking out.
If you're a manager that gets many complaints from group Y but very few from group X, knowing that might lead you to do some more investigating and discover group X is being treated even worse, they're just not reporting it. Using a heuristing to optimise your search given imperfect information, if you will.
See, that's the kind of thing I've never understood - how could it not be connected? Race has been historically mostly a geographic thing. You'd see Asian people in Asia, African people in Africa, etc. Anyone else had to have immigrated, or is the child of an immigrant however many generations ago. Culture is also very geographic. Immigrants tend to bring their culture with them (which is a good thing!) and parents usually want to raise their children at least partially in their culture.
Eh, I'm not sure what point I was trying to make, and to be clear I don't think your comment was racist.
Culture is obviously correlated with race in some respects. It's when you start talking about the reason behind some of those correlations that you risk (rightly or wrongly) being called a racist.
