> > Would you consider "sorry, I didn't get a lot of sleep due to police sound grenades going off until 3am" a political statement?
> No, of course not.
Awesome. So it follows that you would have no issue then with a coworker stating: "Police activity in SF has negatively impacted my ability to do work". Congratulations, you have a significantly broader definition of acceptable workplace speech than Coinbase.
one inconsistency is that Coinbase is based in SF. Would you consider "sorry, I didn't get a lot of sleep due to police sound grenades going off until 3am" a political statement?
> The vast majority of employees prefer a work environment that is stripped of political conversation
While I generally agree, I think there is a tacit assumption that Armstrong's actions will work exactly as intended. 5-8% of workforce is...honestly I don't know if it's high or low, but is certainly non-trivial. These weren't strategic layoffs or restructurings, so certain business-critical projects might be delayed due to headcount issues/loss of senior staff. If we hear about another walkout at Coinbase 6 months from now, this might just look like a catastrophic management blunder.
Literally firing the walkout organizers would probably have led to a worse media cycle, but likely fewer staff quitting in protest (Google firing the walkout organizers seemed to have little to no effect).
> No, of course not.
Awesome. So it follows that you would have no issue then with a coworker stating: "Police activity in SF has negatively impacted my ability to do work". Congratulations, you have a significantly broader definition of acceptable workplace speech than Coinbase.