False dichotomy. You can have political opinions and simultaneously not feel the need to express them at work.

> What if OP is an extremely productive programmer who lives to build product and has a huge impact, but also cares about black people or LGBTQ+ people?

Then they are not compatible with Coinbase's culture, and Coinbase seem to place more important on cultural fit than on raw ability. It's nothing new, really. How do you think an interview at one of the big FAANG goes if you show some controversial opinions? You're rejected for lack of cultural fit. Coinbase's difference isn't in their practice, but in the values that they focus on.

> What if OP is an extremely productive programmer who lives to build product and has a huge impact,

Thankfully there are dozens of thousands of people as capable who do not intent to discuss social justice on the clock.

No, if he’s* a poor culture fit he’d likely be. If he’s doing activism during his personal time, he would probably be a value add. * or she or they

If someone wants to work at a place because of ideology, then the might be worse than worthless, they might have negative worth.

That said, I'll bet there's far more agreement among all of us than not on these issues, it's just that they get all blown up.

Outside of Twitter wars and the most radical voices in a company, I strongly believe we would just all get along pretty darn well actually.

I agree with all of your points, but also point out that a small vocal minority can really ruin the culture at a company and be quite divisive. That is true even if most of us would get along and most of us just want to focus on work. So you have to do something about the social justice crusaders. In some sense, this type of widespread culture wars within companies is only possible because we have so many monopolies and therefore you can destroy a lot of value and still have the business not only remain viable, but grow.

So it very much depends on whether we solve the problem of monopolies. Make progress on that front, and firms wont be able to support these types of employees because they'll be driven out of business by competitors in which employees are not attacking each other but really are just focusing on work.

That's a good point as well, though I'll bet the 'ruinous minority' may not screw everything up along classically ideological lines. More likely bad acting, corruption, general toxicity.