Coinbase released an announcement on Wednesday that it was making steps to shut down its former headquarters in the Golden Gate City in 2022 as part of its resolve to move to a remote first environment. The announcement released on Twitter stated that the Nasdaq-listed crypto exchange was committed to not having an HQ and that it was crucial to show its decentralized workforce that no location was more important than the other.
The announcement went further to explain that the closure of the Sf office was an important step in making sure that no office became an unofficial HQ, meaning that career outcomes would no longer be based on location but on capability. Coinbase is planning to offer smaller offices to its employees to work from when and if they please.
Coinbase is committed to being remote first. We announced we no longer have an HQ and as a next step, we’re closing our SF office (our former HQ) in 2022.
— Coinbase News (@CoinbaseNews) May 5, 2021
The firm’s intention to become remote-first and decentralized was first made public by Coinbase CEO and co-founder Brian Armstrong in February 2021. According to Armstrong, at the time of the announcement, 52% of Coinbase employees had joined the company in a post-office world. Even after workers can return to working fully from their offices, 95% of Coinbase employees will have the option of working from home, in an office or mixing it up depending on their schedule.
After the remote working call, many employees who used the SF office are now spread all over the world. The announcement claimed that close to 250 employees from the SF office have relocated worldwide with more than 150 having left San Francisco. The numbers represent about 21% of Coinbase global and 29% of the San Francisco workforce.
Coinbase claims that the move is more in line with the spirit of crypto that’s built on the inherent benefits of decentralization. The company has seen several benefits by not having an official HQ in one city. For company states that there has been autonomy, flexibility to focus as well as reclaiming commute hours. However, one of the best pacts is the ability to hire more of the best people since before the move, less than 1% of the world could easily access any of the company offices.
Coinbase is not the only company to follow this route as Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange has the same stance. Back in 2019 after media reports on a supposed raid of Binance offices in China, a spokesperson stated that the Binance team is a global movement consisting of people working in a decentralized manner wherever they are in the world. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao is also quoted saying that offices and headquarters are old concepts like SMS and MMS.
Image courtesy of Flickr
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