
Living up to our values and the Neutrino acquisition - CrazyCatDog
https://blog.coinbase.com/living-up-to-our-values-and-the-neutrino-acquisition-ba98174cdcf6
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paxys
"We had a gap in our diligence process". This is the most bullshit line in the
entire statement. Like, you didn't Google top executives of the company you
decided to buy (CEO, CTO, CRO) and read the first articles that popped up?

~~~
wjnc
And in real business we spend up to millions in external legal advice to audit
and enhance our compliance officers work. I am amazed that in this sector even
the advisors don't seem to have M&A experience. This is basic vetting, or... a
calculated risk with the expected outcome.

~~~
ForHackernews
Everything in cryptocurrencies is like this. It's a recursive pyramid scheme
of clowns selling nonsense to chumps all the way down.

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typeformer
This is good because it shows there are professional consequences to pay when
you engage in unethical behavior on behalf of repressive regimes and against
democratic foundations.

~~~
temp1928384
The reality is that Coinbase through their due diligence process had to have
known about these ties and how they may have been perceived by the
media/crypto community and yet proceeded to buy it anyway because they are
desperate to list new tokens to shore up declining revenue.

The deal was already signed...Coinbase can't just back out because they
miscalculated the backlash despite the background of the founders being well
known. The acquired team probably just gets to vest immediately and leave
Coinbase without having to work for them.

~~~
beaner
Agree with the criticism of the acquisition but neutrino isn't product that
helps them list assets faster

~~~
temp1928384
It is because they need some blockchain analytics provider (in-house or
external) for every chain they list as a compliance prerequisite.
Chainalysis/Elliptic only have a few available.

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chrisco255
Can anyone provide background on this? What is the Hacking Team and why were
former members transitioned out?

~~~
rarecoil
Wikipedia explains it well:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacking_Team](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacking_Team)

HackingTeam is a Milan-based information technology company that sells
offensive intrusion and surveillance capabilities to governments, law
enforcement agencies and corporations. Its "Remote Control Systems" enable
governments and corporations to monitor the communications of internet users,
decipher their encrypted files and emails, record Skype and other Voice over
IP communications, and remotely activate microphones and camera on target
computers. The company has been criticized for providing these capabilities to
governments with poor human rights records, though HackingTeam states that
they have the ability to disable their software if it is used unethically.

~~~
oh_sigh
What's their connection with Neutrino? Does it just so happen that some ex-
members of HackingTeam worked there at that time? Was it founded by ex-
HackingTeam people?

~~~
joshmn
[https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/04/neutrino-employees-who-
onc...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/04/neutrino-employees-who-once-worked-
for-a-controversial-surveillance-tech-company-will-leave-coinbase/)

> Before launching Neutrino, CEO Giancarlo Russo, CTO Alberto Ornaghi and
> chief research officer Marco Valleri, worked at Hacking Team, a security and
> surveillance tech company that has been criticized for selling products to
> governments with a history of human rights violations, including Egypt,
> Kazakhstan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Turkey. As The Intercept
> reported in 2015, Hacking Team’s malware has also been found on the
> computers of activists and journalists.

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tropo
The key part: "those who previously worked at Hacking Team (despite the fact
that they have no current affiliation with Hacking Team), will transition out"

To earn a living, I suppose they will have to go back to hacking. Maybe they
will end up as contractors somewhere in the Middle East, such as Dubai.

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protomyth
Leaving or “transitioned out” are such BS ways to say you fired them. You
kicked them to the curb, grow up and state it like someone who believes it was
justified.

~~~
temp1928384
Actually, I'm interpreting it as "we're making this purposely ambiguous
because we actually negotiated a sweetheart exit deal that allows them to
continue vesting stock without working or staying on as a paid
advisor/consultant."

~~~
justinjlynn
"Arrest and vest"?

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jeffrallen
Too bad they can't be "transitioned into" the Hague.

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sudhirj
TLDR: We bought a company but forgot to Google the founders and didn't realize
they used to sell spying software to bad people, so now we asked them to leave
quietly and don't want to say how much hush money we've paid them. Because
values.

~~~
sudhirj
More realistically: we bought a company even though we knew full well the
founders sold spy software, now that it probably becoming clear that Saudi
Arabia used it for murder, we think it's best that said founders leave quietly
with a good exit package because values.

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TACIXAT
Apparently, in the age of the internet your sins follow you forever. Humans
are imperfect and do not always make sound decisions or decisions that
everyone agrees with. We need to be able to respect this and work together
rather than taking away people's livelihood.

~~~
js2
In the early 2000s I worked for an early cloud company. We interviewed someone
whose name I recognized as someone associated with a very well known person
that had been convicted for computer crimes, and that this someone had
testified to avoid prosecution himself. (Edit: he had plead guilty.)

Despite the someone’s recognizeable name, at no point did he disclose this
aspect of his past. We decided to pass on him.

~~~
oogali
Did you pass on this person because of the prior conviction that he chose not
to volunteer, or because he flunked the interview and wasn't a good fit for
the team?

Did you judge him better or worse because he cut a deal?

More importantly, if we take the implication that he was passed on because he
didn't volunteer info to a question you didn't directly ask -- can you really
blame him for not volunteering the details?

~~~
js2
It’s been more than 15 years and my memory is hazy. The part I remember is
recognizing his name.

But I don’t know. We were a company that provided cloud computing services and
he had previously plead guilty to computer hacking crimes. With more life
experience I wouldn’t hold that against a person today but at the time I
probably did. My thinking then was that it was relevant information that he
should have disclosed.

