CEO of Kraken, the Cryptocurrency Exchange, Steps Down

CEO of Kraken, the Cryptocurrency Exchange, Steps Down(nytimes.com)

31 points by prions 3 years ago | 17 comments

boxmonster 3 years ago |

Obviously Jesse Powell isn't right for the CEO position but I do have a tiny bit of sympathy because I refuse to put my preferred pronouns in my profile. I think it's an invasion of privacy to force me to announce to the whole world my gender identity. Friends and coworkers know on a need-to-know basis.

DoktorDelta 3 years ago | |

I don't think anyone is being forced to add their gender identity to any profile. Powell seems to have questioned the inclusion of the option to add them at all.

boxmonster 3 years ago | | |

Some places do place pressure on you to do so if what I read on the internet is to be believed

contingencies 3 years ago |

First employee and chief architect for Kraken here (2011-2015). I'll be professional and state only that this news is "unsurprising".

witheld 3 years ago |

https://archive.ph/qur2R

shagie 3 years ago | |

Gift link - https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/21/technology/ceo-kraken-cry...

JumpCrisscross 3 years ago |

"The conflict at Kraken began this spring after Mr. Powell questioned employees’ use of preferred pronouns and engaged in a lengthy discussion about whether women are inherently less intelligent than men.

Some employees voiced complaints, and Mr. Powell released a company culture document outlining what he described as Kraken’s libertarian values. He told employees that if they disagreed with the document, they should quit."

jbirer 3 years ago | |

Sounds pretty reasonable to me. If you don't like it that our company allows freely talking about anything, you can leave to find a coddling safe space you are seeking.

skyyler 3 years ago | | |

>Kraken laid out a vision of its corporate culture that includes prohibiting employees from calling speech “racist,”

There goes "freely talking about anything".

It seems that racists at Kraken needed a safe space... Kinda cute! Maybe if they don't like their speech being labelled "racist" they could work somewhere else?

https://fortune.com/2022/06/15/kraken-culture-crypto-exchang...

mrkramer 3 years ago | |

That's wild.

pcthrowaway 3 years ago | | |

You should hear the part where he said he could use the n-word on the company chat, because if people can just identify as other genders willy-nilly, he can identify as black

stoplying1 3 years ago | | |

I got a pretty complacent or even celebratory vibe from folks around here when a very similar played out at Coinbase...

tmpz22 3 years ago | |

> Kraken’s libertarian values. He told employees that if they disagreed with the document, they should quit."

Isn't this an oxymoron. "I believe in an ideology based around self-determination, if you deviate from my directions by asserting your right to self-determination, like the literal definition of your own name, you should quit".

Sometimes the announcement of libertarian values just seems like a dog-whistle.