This week, one of the major crypto exchanges in the US, Kraken released what
they're calling a culture statement about what they will allow and
what they won't allow in terms of their corporate culture.
And if you went into this conversation about crypto,
thinking well that's kind of a right wingish libertarian thing that very
much plays out in this culture statement.
They say that employees must not call someone's words toxic, hateful,
racist exphobic, unhelpful a whole bunch of things like that.
And that, they will have diversity, but
it'll be diversity of thought not based on physical features.
They we're gonna dive into a couple of aspects of this because it is just so
perfectly encapsulates the like right wing like fight against the woke and all that.
They're so obsessed with this.
They said, someone must be offended some of the time they don't want brilliant
jerks but Kraken moves fast and we collectively understand that there is no
time to spend sugarcoating every interaction especially,
as many are text based and lack explicit tone.
The ideal Krakenite, is both thick skinned and well intentioned.
So, we can't waste time sugarcoating things.
So, they said you can't call things X phobic.
So you can't identify a comment as being transphobic, I suppose.
And they're allowed to say transphobic things,
because you can't take the time to sugarcoat your transphobia.
This is obviously getting out in front of the idea that the fact that
they're going to allow people who say hateful things,
as you're gonna see with the CEO he is very much leading on that area.
They say, they have these basic principles.
Everyone is responsible for their own feelings.
Being offended doesn't make you right.
Being offended doesn't mean that you're harmed words nor
silence are never violence.
We say why we disagree and commonly challenge ideas with logic, reason and
better ideas.
And what I love about that, is that always,
people who who want free speech but don't want to be able to be criticized.
That's a weird view on free speech.
They always believe that they're baked in biases, their misogyny homophobia racism,
transphobia, is based on cold calculated logic.
And other people who think that we should treat each other with respect or
basic human dignity.
They're the ones who are wasting time with emotion.
And I've never understood that.
I think that a workplace a crypto exchange, there is no place for
weird homophobia and transphobia.
I don't know why you would allow that.
How is allowing that not more of a distraction than people
trying to keep it out of the workplace, David?
I don't understand this weird right wing corporate culture.
>> Well, there's something about the libertarian sort of culture,
the first step I sort of agree with in that.
Yeah, I mean, we all have our feelings and
we all have the power to act on our feelings or not act on their feelings.
So I may be offended by something that doesn't mean that I have to ruin my day,
my week, my month, my year over that.
I get that.
However, [LAUGH] studies have proven, that when there is racism, when there is
homophobia, when there was sexism in the workplace, that is not conducive to
the best productivity it causes your, some of your people not to perform very well.
So just for that reason alone, why can't you just say just be nice to everybody.
Don't tell the off color jokes.
Don't be racist.
Don't be transformed.
I mean, there's this idea that everybody has to sort of
accept their own feelings and just sort of deal with it.
That's an anathema to what you're looking for in the workplace to begin with.
>> Yeah, yeah, 100%.
Like, there's some stuff that they're allowed to do, we can take issue with,
they're allowed to do it.
So for instance, I'm going to jump ahead of graphic four.
They say in their manifesto that the company quote, will engage in lobbying as
a single issue donor, supporting controversial politicians and legislation
that furthers the mission possibly to the detriment of other civil rights causes.
They're gonna advertise and sponsor controversial content and
incorporate firearm and self-defense training.
So, they are saying,
we're gonna support politicians that are gonna deregulate crypto effectively.
And if those same politicians also wanna strip away the rights
including of our employees.
What are you gonna do about?
Just deal with it, which they can do, they can do.
And I would say, it's obviously tough.
It's not the best job market everything.
They're at least being very honest about how
little they care about the rights of their employees.
A lot of times, corporations will pretend they'll put out a pride message or
something and then donate to a bunch of people who sponsor the don't say gay bill.
Or they'll pretend that they have an issue with democracy being destroyed America and
then they'll support the people who are voting to overturn the election results.
So David, I at least appreciate that they're being more open about that.
>> Yeah, but did I miss here that, John I mean it sounds like they're suggesting
that if people wanna carry weapons to their work, that this
is a company who believes in the right to bear weapons, the right to firearms.
And to me, it just, [LAUGH] it seems a little bit troubling when, okay?
Where you're gonna allow people to sort of make jokes that could offend other people.
And you can allow this sort of locker room kind of banter,
which sometimes creates locker room fights and by the way, go ahead and
bring your gun to the workplace as well.
That doesn't sound like a kind of place that I would wanna work.
Never mind that it's crypto which certainly I don't have no interest in.
But I don't know, it's just, it's sort of a recipe for
attracting some really weird people to Kraken.
>> Yeah, yeah, and the leadership is really weird likes,
to jump ahead a graphic eight they've apparently taken legal action
against people who gave the company bad reviews on Glassdoor.
The CEO Jesse Powell is part of a slack group called trolling-999plus.
The group is labeled and you thought 4chan was full of trolls, okay?
So they don't have time to sugarcoat interactions.
They do have time to have trolling slacks, I guess.
Anyway, back in April a Kraken employee posted a video internally on
a different slack group that featured two women who said they preferred $100 in
cash over a Bitcoin, which at the time cost more than $40,000.
One employee commented,
but this is how the female brain works to which the CEO chimed in.
He said the debate over women's mental abilities was unsettled quote,
most American ladies have been brainwashed in modern times.
So, I can understand how female employees would have an issue with the CEO on
the company slack saying those things.
But at the very least I thought you were super busy man,
I thought you had no time for sugar coating.
Why are you weighing in on viral videos about women who have nothing to
do with you or your company and talking about female brain science.
So again, get your story straight.
You either have the time or you don't, you do have the time.
You're just choosing to use it for trolling and misogyny rather than just
getting business done and not attacking people for their identity.
>> And I'm now so glad that you chose to do this segment.
Because initially, like, I don't care about crypto and
I don't really care that they've lost hundreds of millions of dollars or
billions of dollars, but now I'm glad that they have.
Because clearly it attracts a certain kind of misogynistic racist,
sexist kind of leadership and I'm glad that they're losing their shirts and
that crypto is dying.
Because who wants to be associated with this nonsense?
>> I agree, for people like him.
I do feel bad for regular people who might have been brought in
by like the Matt Damon ads, the fact that the staples center is now the crypto.com,
like they are preying on when you look at how bad the stock market is doing.
And how wages are losing ground against inflation and interest rates and
houses are going up.
Like, there are so there's so many economic pressures and in desperation,
people might well turn to something like crypto and
I think they're being preyed on in that way.
And so, that's the thing that always hurts me a lot of the money being lost is
by these rich douches.
But yeah, yeah, they make it easy to a post them.
I will say that, I agree with you there.
[MUSIC]