The avaricious misanthropy of Brian Armstrong

You can tell from Brian Armstrong's opening words that he's a numbers guy.

According to Armstrong's recent blog post, Coinbase's mission is to "Create an open financial system for the world".

Because Armstrong doesn't address economic freedom in his letter.

Armstrong's "Mission focused" missive, which commits the company to apoliticization, conveniently overlooks the fact that economic freedom is a political and human issue.

Taken in conjunction with the email he subsequently sent to employees in which he offered severance packages worth between four and six months' pay to those who agreed that "Life is too short to work at a company you aren't excited about", Armstrong's posturing on the subject of non-posturing appears to be nothing more than a love letter to stakeholders in a potential IPO, complete with a rich dowry - the excision of dissent from Coinbase's body politic.

It's surely no coincidence that Armstrong's email to employees was penned just a couple of weeks after Karp told investors, ahead of his own IPO, that if they want to change the client base or culture they should "Pick a different company".

It's almost as though Armstrong were reading the Palantir IPO playbook.

It's into this morass that Armstrong has waded, tepidly wielding a commitment to create an anodyne workplace bereft of political discourse that will surely thrill potential investors in Coinbase's will-they-won't-they IPO. There was a time when Google's motto was "Don't be evil." It was a simple, elegant exhortation that helped align the company with the motivations and beliefs of its employees, customers, and yes, even investors.

Try as Armstrong might, it cannot be extricated from its historical context and neatly packaged up as a marketing slogan.

Cointelegraph is interested in hearing the stories of Coinbase employees and their reaction to Mr. Armstrong's letter.