Reading Between the Lines of Brian Armstrong's Mission Memo

Oct 8, 2020 at 16:42 UTCUpdated Oct 8, 2020 at 18:25 UTC.Last week, Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase, published a Medium post stating the company would not engage in broad societal issues, would not take on activism and would not be a forum for political debate and discourse.

Reading between the many lines of PR-appropriate language, the message Armstrong is sending is: If you want to push a progressive social agenda in the workplace, this is not the company for you.

I believe the indirectness of Armstrong's memo speaks to the very issue that he is working to change within his company.

Cancel culture and the performative wokeness pervasive to Silicon Valley have left little room for discussion around questions like where, when and how social justice issues should be addressed.

What is performative wokeness? To be "Woke" is to be cognizant of issues related to social justice.

Performative wokeness is the act of signaling to the world how woke you are, regardless of your actual engagement in the issues.

A company changing its logo to a rainbow during Pride Month does not strike me as harmful, even if the move may ring hollow.

A CEO stating publicly that "Black Lives Matter" may not be damaging but may turn out to be rather hypocritical depending on the company's priorities and culture.

Shaming others for their political views or demanding the dismissal of a colleague because of whom they voted for might be on some level understandable given the emotional and divisive nature of many of the most salient issues today.

The wound to heal will be even deeper the next time the fire around these issues ignites, whether that happens across the country or within a single company.