How the Coinbase Memo Exemplifies Silicon Valley’s Current Political Crisis
Look, I grew up in Detroit. My dad worked the line at Ford for thirty years before they shipped his job overseas. So when I see Silicon Valley billionaires trying to tell employees they cant talk about politics at work, I got opinions.
Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase, just published a memo that’s got the whole tech industry talking. The gist? Coinbase is going to be “apolitical” from now on. No more activism. No more political discussions at work. Just focus on the mission – building cryptocurrency infrastructure – and leave all that messy social justice stuff at the door.
Heres the thing though. This didnt come out of nowhere.
Back in June, right after George Floyd was killed and the whole country was on fire (sometimes literally), Armstrong held an employee town hall. Someone asked why Coinbase hadnt made a public statement supporting Black Lives Matter like basically every other tech company had. Armstrong declined to give a straight answer.
Hundreds of Coinbase employees staged a virtual walkout.
Then Armstrong tweeted “Black Lives Matter” the next day. But clearly the internal tensions didnt go away because here we are four months later with this memo declaring the company will be, and I quote, an “apolitical culture.”
CNBC reported that Armstrong is offering severance packages to anyone who wants to leave over this policy. About 60 employees – 5% of the company – took him up on it.
The problem with Armstrong’s position is that politics and business stopped being separate things a long time ago. Maybe they never were separate. When you got companies like Amazon and Google and Facebook whose decisions affect billions of people, you cant just pretend youre neutral. Your existence is political. Plus – and this is important – “apolitical” usually just means maintaining the status quo. And the status quo aint neutral for everybody. Telling employees they cant discuss racial justice or police brutality isnt neutral. Its a statement. Just a quieter one.
I dont know if Armstrong’s approach is gonna work for Coinbase. I do know that the idea of keeping politics out of the workplace in 2020 sounds like something from another century. We’re all living through history right now. Pretending otherwise doesnt make it less true.
