The CEO of Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, is slamming an employee petition by disgruntled workers that was calling for several executives to be replaced.
The petition read, in part, “We the employees at Coinbase believe that the executive team has recently been making decisions that are not in the best interests of the Company, its employees, and its shareholders. COO Emilie Choi, CPO Surojit Chatterjee, and Chief People Officer LJ Brock have been the most prominent executives who have been executing plans and ideas that have led to questionable results and negative value.”
The main decisions which upset the employees were Coinbase’s extension of a hiring pause, a decision to rescind some job offers, and Coinbase’s prioritization of some products over others, which the petitioners feel are more important. Additionally, they noted the launch of the company’s NFT platform was a failure, and finally, they complained about the company’s procedures for reviewing the performance of employees, which they say contributed to a toxic workplace environment.
The petition, which was recently deleted, was named Operation COIN, and it urged employees to use a vote of no confidence to oust the three main executives they felt were responsible, namely, Chief Operating Officer Emilie Choi, Chief Product Officer Surojit Chatterjee and Chief People Officer LJ Brock.
In reply, CEO Brian Armstrong crafted a long twitter response, labeling the petition, “really dumb on multiple levels.”
He went on to say, “First of all, if you want to do a vote of no confidence, you should do it on me and not blame the execs. Who do you think is running this company? Second, if you have no confidence in the execs or CEO of a company then why are you working at that company? Quit and find a company to work at that you believe in!”
He furthermore chastised the employees for airing these complaints publicly, noting Coinbase’s culture would require that employees, “praise in public, and criticize in private.” He continued, “Posting this publicly is also deeply unethical because it harms your fellow co-workers, along with shareholders and customers. It’s also dumb because if you get caught you will be fired, and it’s just not an effective way to get what you claim to want.”
He finished by saying, “Anyway – 99.9% of the company has important work to do, so if you can stop distracting us that be great and we will get back to work building cool stuff!. If you’re unhappy about something, work as part of the team to raise it along with proposed solutions (it’s easy to be a critic, harder to be a part of the solution). If you can’t do that and you’re going to leak/rant externally then quit. Thanks!”
Coinbase has lost 80% of its value since its stock debuted last year.
