Sources: Coinbase is testing an app from Ray Dalio's company Principles that lets staff rate each other on how well they exemplify Coinbase's 10 cultural tenets
often a terrible idea, but occasionally game-changing! We should all thank Coinbase for their service 😅 https://twitter.com/... Emma Jacobs / @emmavj : Coinbase lets employees evaluate co-workers, including their managers, on how well they exemplify the crypto firm's 10 cultural tenets—which include clear communication, efficient execution and positive energy https://www.theinformation.com/ ... Matt Pearce / @mattdpearce : Companies should experiment with allowing workers to vote out the CEO. https://www.theinformation.com/ ... Josh / @joshuaogundu : Coinbase having some of their employees rate each other in real time on how well they exemplify the companies values, I feel like can get messy really quickly https://www.theinformation.com/ ... Casey Newton / @caseynewton : It's giving Severance https://twitter.com/... @carnage4life : The idea of being able to rate coworkers who run a meeting poorly is both exhilarating and terrifying. Coinbase is becoming a ground zero for rebooting tech culture - no discussions of politics, stock grants in 1 year chunks and now this. https://www.theinformation.com/ ... Casey Newton / @caseynewton : Workshopped a variety of takes for this one but have settled on “LOL” https://www.theinformation.com/ ... Jessica Lessin / @jessicalessin : I have no idea how this will play out but I do admire that @brian_armstrong does exactly what he thinks is best, perception be damned. https://www.theinformation.com/ ...
The Information
Context & Ripple Effects
The peer-rating pilot lands four days after Coinbase's hiring freeze and project pause, when the exchange is cutting costs after its stock fell more than 75% in six months. It also extends a culture project Brian Armstrong has run since 2020, when his push to keep Coinbase apolitical made cultural tenets the company's official operating system.
That system now faces a credibility test: twenty-three current and former employees alleged mistreatment and ignored discrimination complaints in late 2020, so codifying 'positive energy' and 'clear communication' into peer scores will read to some staff as measurement and to others as enforcement.
First-order effects
Coinbase employees — including managers being rated by reports — are now subject to quantified peer evaluation against the ten tenets, making culture a scored input rather than a stated value.
Ray Dalio's Principles gets its highest-profile live deployment in crypto, converting the firm's dot-connector methodology into a product Coinbase is actively testing internally.
Second-order effects
With headcount frozen and projects paused, rating data gives Coinbase leadership a ready-made justification layer for who stays and what gets cut — pricing loyalty to the tenets at exactly the moment jobs are scarce.
Other crypto firms watching their own burn rates get a template for replacing management judgment with software-scored conformity, and Dalio's company gains a reference sale into an industry already primed by Armstrong's mission-driven framing.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds, culture becomes an auditable dataset: companies under pressure increasingly buy third-party tools that turn values into metrics, shifting power over careers from managers to whoever designs the scoring rubric.
For a workforce that already alleged complaints went ignored, instrumentation without independent recourse risks hardening the gap between stated tenets and lived treatment — pushing regulators and employee activists toward demanding process, not posters.
The trend: Companies under financial stress are turning workplace culture into software-measured compliance, with Coinbase's tenets pilot as the sharpest crypto-era example.
Have you ever wanted to grade your colleagues during meetings, giving them a thumbs up or down in real time? Brian Armstrong at Coinbase seems into it. @matousekmark https://www.theinformation.com/ ...
@CaseyNewton Seems more relevant than an annual paragraph of platitudes from a manager. If workplaces think reviews are important, then I don't see the issue with doing it this way.
Coinbase is testing an app invented by hedge fund Bridgewater Associates that lets employees evaluate each other on the company's “cultural tenets” in real-time. Story from @matousekmark @amir https://www.theinformation.com/ ...
@pardesoteric I'm worried about what effects it will have on women and POC in particular, since they're already forbidden from discussing “politics” here. seems likely to chill speech and force employees to waste brain cycles gaming the system
Coinbase is testing real-time employee feedback software invented by Ray Dalio's hedge fund, Bridgewater. Meanwhile, Coinbase is projecting 10%-20% of its workforce will depart this year for performance-related reasons. https://www.theinformation.com/ ... via @theinformation
The idea of being able to rate coworkers who run a meeting poorly is both exhilarating and terrifying. Coinbase is becoming a ground zero for rebooting tech culture - no discussions of politics, stock grants in 1 year chunks and now this. https://www.theinformation.com/ ...
Honestly I like that companies are trying stuff like this! It's the managerial equivalent of being the first person to try escargot or kombucha — often a terrible idea, but occasionally game-changing! We should all thank Coinbase for their service 😅 https://twitter.com/...
Coinbase lets employees evaluate co-workers, including their managers, on how well they exemplify the crypto firm's 10 cultural tenets—which include clear communication, efficient execution and positive energy https://www.theinformation.com/ ...
Coinbase having some of their employees rate each other in real time on how well they exemplify the companies values, I feel like can get messy really quickly https://www.theinformation.com/ ...
I have no idea how this will play out but I do admire that @brian_armstrong does exactly what he thinks is best, perception be damned. https://www.theinformation.com/ ...