Even better, don't discuss them on the internet, either.

you can when interest rates are down and everyone is hiring like in 2022. you can even protest CEO in the office. just check interest rates and proceed accordingly.

Yes. I’ve maintained this as a personal policy for the last 25 years of my career.

I have zero regrets.

I have also seen how engaging in politics at work has (sometimes significantly) negatively impacted others over the same period of time — and how people have alienated themselves from professional contacts often without even realizing it.

There is no upside. Save your visible activism for outside of work.

I’ve seen amazing teams, teams I was fortunate to be part of, thrive for years, only to be torn apart during the political ‘awakening’ of the 2020s.

The experience left me deeply cynical and firmly against bringing politics into the workplace.

It also made me view the ‘everything is political’ mantra with suspicion, because it reminds me of the saying: argue with a fool, and he’ll drag you down to his level and beat you with experience. People who see everything through a political lens want to make everything political, because that’s how they gain power.

This post is very simplistic.

—-

You live in a country called Politistan, you own a tech startup in which 75% of engineers are foreigners on a PL-VISA. A new party comes into power, and draft a proposal do abolish said visa.

Do you expect your employees - that could be at risk of not being able to renew their visas - to not discuss politics at work?

—-

I know my example is flawed, I don’t have a good proposal either, but hard “Don’t, just don’t” isn’t enough for extreme cases.

I agree with this despite having strong feelings politically. Particularly in a country like the US with an archaic and expensive healthcare system tied to employment, work should be as welcoming as possible. We're all one uninsured medical diagnosis away from ruin.

On the other hand, I can't believe the author thinks our political unrest has peaked in the 2010s. I wonder what country they live in; it can't be the US. Maybe they don't read the news. Someone at their workplace should inform them.

Citing the Coinbase CEO (https://www.coinbase.com/en-ca/blog/coinbase-is-a-mission-fo...) as a reason to not talk politics at work is pretty weird.

He says you shouldn't engage in diversity hires, but he himself has been going around hiring ex-DOGE people to join Coinbase, an explicitly political move:

> In a May 13 X post, Armstrong said members of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team, spearheaded by Elon Musk, though not set up as an actual department, would be welcome to implement cost-cutting changes at Coinbase after leaving the US government.

> Armstrong offered to set up an accelerated onboarding process with the exchange, responding to an interview in which at least one DOGE staffer felt ostracized from Harvard University, where he had been enrolled.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/brian-armstrong-coinbase-poli...

This is Coinbase UK advertising and it is aligned with the UK right - saying the system is failing:

https://x.com/coinbase/status/1950843893240496564

He is doing that to curry favor with the US and UK right. No doubt.

He is an explicitly political person who wants his employees to not be. This is just two separate systems of rules depending on whether he agrees with you or not.

Also known as don't rock the boat. There are many ways to play the corporate game, if you're there just to pick up a paycheck, then you do you and all the more power to you. However, that doesn't mean it's the only way to play. There's a lot room to get to know both your team and yourself more if you try and learn more about one another. The key thing is to read the room because the other side might not be open to the same level of candidness as you are, or on the same topics. Your mileage may vary, but as usual, absolutes are rarely correct.

This thread is an amazing example on why not to talk about politics.

My rule for discussing ANYTHING at work: Does this move the current project forward? Are we painting bike sheds and shaving yaks and beating around the bush? Or are we here to get shit done? Everything else is a waste of time, politics included. If you want to be friends after work, we do that after work where I'm more than happy to discuss my thoughts on the current government.