The New York TimesThe New York Times

Inside a Corporate Culture War Stoked by a Crypto CEO

By Ryan Mac and David Yaffe-Bellany

15 Jun 2022 · 6 min read

Editor's Note

As cryptocurrency values touch record lows, crypto-exchange firm Kraken's CEO has started a culture war on company's Slack channels and asked people to leave, if they don't agree with company culture.

Jesse Powell, a founder and the chief executive of Kraken, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, recently asked his employees, “If you can identify as a sex, can you identify as a race or ethnicity?”

He also questioned their use of preferred pronouns and led a discussion about “who can refer to another person as the N-word.”

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