Why focusing on the mission drives belonging

At Coinbase, we’re on an ambitious mission to increase economic freedom in the world. 

To achieve this, we need a laser-focused team of extraordinary people, and a work environment that minimizes division and distraction. This is why, in September 2020, we announced Coinbase would be a mission-focused company.

Practically speaking, this means that we do not engage in social or political activism that is unrelated to our mission while at work, and that we seek to make the workplace a refuge from division, so that we can stay focused on building. Externally, our mission-focused approach has sometimes raised questions from those who want to understand it better. We know that to advance our pro-crypto agenda – whether with policymakers, mainstream audiences, or even potential candidates – we need to make sure our approach is understood and also highlight the fact that being mission-focused has helped, not hindered, our collective sense of belonging. 

Early on, we saw the writing on the wall and realized that we needed to think creatively about how to ensure Coinbase can attract and retain the best talent. We were concerned that important events and issues occurring in the world around us could distract and divide us at work rather than bring us together.

We know that Coinbase is not for the faint of heart - we default to transparency on who we are and how we operate so employees can self-select in. In that spirit, we’re sharing more detail about how ‘mission-focus’ and ‘belonging’ co-exist and thrive in our culture at Coinbase.

Diversity, equity and inclusion…our way.

Coinbase deeply values incredibly sharp people who bring diverse viewpoints and come from different walks of life. We push for fairness in our processes, making sure that bias and faulty thinking don’t hijack us from making the best possible decisions when it comes to hiring and promotions. And inclusion is mandatory if we are going to get 1B users into the cryptoeconomy and engaging with our products. Though some of our activities look and feel similar to our peers - partnerships with diverse universities and organizations, supporting employee connection, and connecting our mission with the communities we care about - the mindset and motivation behind it is very different.

Everything we do is in support of the mission. Our shared sense of purpose creates a deep sense of belonging that goes beyond personal politics, identity or team. We are passionate, strong-willed, and unique individuals who welcome and acknowledge our differences but choose to focus on what we have in common - this audacious goal to increase economic freedom in the world. 

Belonging is the outcome of our evolution as a company.

In 2021, we shifted to Belonging at Coinbase to support our desire to create an environment where belonging unlocks the best work from the best people.

We measure belonging annually through our employee engagement survey and data shows our collective sense of belonging has increased since our bold mission-focused declaration, with 86% of employees stating “they belong here”. We’ve seen belonging increase 7pp companywide since our decision. Moreover, belonging scores of our employees from underrepresented backgrounds has increased YoY, and in many cases, exceeded the company average. Anecdotally, we’ve heard from employees that our mission-focused approach has provided a welcoming environment where their identity isn’t the focus, but instead they can just lean in with like-minded colleagues to do great work. Additionally, belonging is not just for our employees from underrepresented backgrounds. Our data shows that belonging drives engagement, performance, and retention of all our people. In fact, Coinbase employees who report having a strong sense of belonging are 1.5x as likely to stay at the company and 3x more engaged overall.

Even with these promising results, we will continue to evolve and push ourselves to make sure more of our employees experience a strong sense of belonging.  

We are serious about meritocracy. 

We reject hiring quotas because we feel they conflict with our belief in meritocratic systems. We are a meritocracy, but we know that maintaining a true meritocracy requires deliberate steps to ensure there is equal access to opportunity and to prevent biases from affecting how we make decisions. Some of the ways we do this include:

• Remote work and access to talent pools - Our continued commitment to remote-first gives us access to talent from a diverse range of backgrounds and locations, both globally and within the US. Four years into remote-first, and we are more geographically diverse than ever, with 83% of our employees working outside of the Bay Area and 31% working outside the US. At Coinbase, your trajectory is determined by your performance and not by your location. 

• Compensation philosophy - Our single pay targets (instead of pay ranges) effectively eliminate unequal compensation outcomes, and our pay-for-performance culture means that employees’ rewards and promotions are driven by their overall contribution to the company’s mission and goals, not their resume. 

• Increased objectivity and accountability - We use assessments to help us to better objectively measure skill and potential and reduce bias from individual interviews. Anyone who makes it through our rigorous hiring process should be confident they were chosen because they were the best person for that role. Additionally, we consistently monitor our hiring and promotion processes to confirm that we are making these important decisions for the right reasons. If gaps are identified, we hold ourselves accountable to understand why and correct them.

• Employee sentiment - We closely track employee sentiment trends to understand engagement holistically and also within specific demographic groups. We take targeted actions that produce consistent gains in belonging, engagement, and morale for all employees. As an example, we’ve seen that a lack of consistent recognition has impacted engagement scores, and thus we’ve recently added driving recognition to the scope of Belonging at Coinbase.

Conclusion

We are proud of our purpose-led mission to increase economic freedom in the world. We are equally proud that though we have faced criticism for our mission-focused approach, 86% of employees report they ‘belong here’. As we continue to grow into a more talent dense organization, we will push ourselves to experiment with new ways of driving belonging, and remain committed to our world-view that a clear and unwavering focus on the company mission is a unique advantage in accelerating belonging.

If our mission-focused approach appeals to you, check out our open roles.