When I was a child, I often heard adults use "cultured" to describe a person.
I asked curiously, what does it mean to be literate?
Adults told me that it is a kind of temperament that cannot be expressed but can be felt. You will know it when you grow up and work.
When I got a job, I got a "Corporate Culture" manual, and I, who didn't really like reading, finally started to smell the atmosphere of culture.
After all, when you work, your cultural ethos is shaped by your company.
When a person talks all about, "Thinking through the mind, closing the loop, reviewing, empowering, focusing on, benchmarking, settling...", "Brother, let's go to Ali", if he also says, "You are a newcomer, You sacrifice, let’s do it on 3.25 this year”, so the probability is P8.
If a brother in the currency circle shares with you tips on how to use company resources for your own use, you can also smile knowingly and say, "Dude, have you ever worked at XX exchange?"
Corporate culture is like the company's underwear. It may seem inconsequential at ordinary times, and outsiders can't see it anyway, but it must be there, otherwise it will be easily exposed.
Some people say that corporate culture means that employees must do whatever the boss wants them to do, commonly known as PUA.
The true corporate culture should be the values that everyone in the company agrees with, just like a group of like-minded friends who can drink and be passionate about the company's mission until midnight - although you may regret it when you wake up the next day, but At least it was surging.
We can easily think of the corporate culture of some well-known Internet companies, such as Tencent's "Be a respectable company" and Google's "Don't be evil", but what do you know about the corporate culture of companies in the encryption industry?
This article compares the corporate culture of the world's five largest crypto exchanges. Each has its own merits. Who is your favorite?
Coinbase: Pursue winning like an NBA team
Coinbase, a long-established crypto trading platform, has always focused on the construction of corporate culture. Its mission is to promote economic freedom in the world and create an open financial system for the world.
Coinbase often compares the team to a football team. One of its cultural purposes is to play like a championship team. In order to win the game, it needs to:
Put the Company First: As #OneCoinbase, put the goals of the company ahead of any specific team or individual goals.
Acting in service of a greater purpose: working together to accomplish what any one of us could not accomplish alone.
Default trust: We assume goodwill between teammates and assume ignorance trumps malice. We support each other.
Focus on commonalities, not differences: We help create a sense of cohesion and unity by focusing on what we have in common rather than what divides us.
Sustained high performance: Unlike families, where everyone is on board regardless of performance, championship teams work together to raise the bar on talent, including replacing team members when necessary.
Image source: "Deep Wave TechFlow"
Corporate mission: Promote economic freedom in the world.
Coinbase’s top ten corporate culture rules:
Smooth communication: Communicate directly and concisely, share information efficiently, and improve collaboration and productivity.
Efficient execution: Action first, complete high-quality work quickly, and advocate using 20% of the work to achieve 80% of the results.
Act like an owner: Work proactively and seek to improve all aspects of the company, even non-work related issues.
Continuous learning: Value learning, be willing to give and receive candid feedback, and view every setback as an opportunity to learn.
Attract top talent: Committed to attracting top talent, Coinbase will provide generous severance packages to employees with mediocre performance.
Building the Strongest Team: It takes a successful team, rather than creating a warm and loving family atmosphere, we have high expectations for performance and deliverables.
Customer-centric: Focus on using technology to solve customer problems and become the most convenient, reliable and secure platform.
Continuous Innovation: Using technology to improve the world, Coinbase tolerates failure and invests 10% of its resources in risky projects.
Positive energy: Be optimistic about the future and solve problems first instead of blaming for perfection when encountering difficulties.
Mission First: We will not engage in social or political activities unrelated to the mission while at work, and strive to make the workplace a refuge from division and focus on moving toward the mission.
Reading through the entire article, although the expression is very vague, two hidden points can be seen in Coinbase’s corporate culture:
A company is not a home. As long as Coinbase has excellent employees, they will leave if their performance is mediocre. Coinbase's corporate culture still has a wolfish side.
Coinbase emphasizes seeking common ground while reserving differences and emphasizes that it will not participate in social and political activities. Coinbase has previously been accused by employees of gender and racial discrimination, so related social and political issues are industries that Coinbase avoids touching. Political correctness has increasingly become a curse on American companies.
Binance: Committed to achieving monetary freedom and recruiting hard-core employees
As the largest trading platform in the industry, Binance has always been the subject of research by many people, especially on how to achieve effective cross-cultural management under remote working conditions.
In the officially released article "How Binance Efficiently Manages Remote Teams", two points are mentioned: determining corporate values that are conducive to remote work and cultivating a corporate culture of continuous communication throughout the process.
In July this year, Binance co-founder He Yi also said in an interview with the media that the better thing about Binance in the past seven years is that Binance’s corporate culture is very solid.
Binance’s corporate values can be summarized in a sentence from CZ: “We regard cryptocurrency as a basic means to improve monetary freedom. Therefore, we work hard to promote cryptocurrency and let it circulate around the world. Every product of Binance and Every service contributes to this goal, and user focus is our key driver.”
Vision: Binance is committed to increasing global monetary freedom and believes that by spreading this freedom, it can significantly improve the lives of people around the world. People should have the freedom to access, use, own, store and earn currency.
Mission: Binance’s mission is to provide core infrastructure services for cryptocurrencies.
Core values:
User-centered: Users and communities are the reason for Binance’s existence. Their job is to serve and protect users, putting user interests first.
Freedom: Perform responsibly and work autonomously, empower those around you, have a diverse team, and challenge the status quo.
Collaboration: open communication, teamwork, common goals, and jointly building an ecosystem.
Hardcore: Focus on results, get things done, be passionate, work hard, learn quickly and get back on your feet after failure.
Humility: Accept criticism and feedback, treat everyone equally, and remain humble about success.
Code of Conduct:
Effective communication: Concise oral and written communication, direct and honest, no "whitewashing" or selective reporting, clear requirements, and provide sufficient background.
Stay Passionate: Passionate about industry and important work, proactive, driven by mission rather than money.
Continuous Learning: Be an early adopter and keep learning and adapting to this emerging and dynamic industry.
Respect other people’s time: Be on time and pay attention to details (e.g. mute sound, have camera ready) to show respect.
Cultivate strong leadership: Build a streamlined team, guide and train, have a strong backup force, continue to learn, and lead by example.
Understand the company's strategy: Understand the big picture, develop a keen sense of the business and industry, develop good judgment, prioritize the team, and focus on execution.
Develop a grassroots mentality: stay relevant to the community, stay authentic, and rely on social media rather than traditional media.
Demonstrate radical candor: Speak up, provide comprehensive data, focus on the issue rather than the person, accept direct feedback, and do not shy away from escalating issues.
Through the above, we can not only see the values advocated by Binance, but also get a glimpse of its operating style. It can be summarized as pursuing direct peer-to-peer communication, advocating relying on social media to connect with users instead of traditional media, and relying on its own platform to speak out, rather than Three-party channels. Therefore, we can also see that CZ and He Yi often communicate directly with users on X. Internally, Binance also maintains a flat communication style. Many Binance employees have said that they have received calls from CZ in the middle of the night to communicate about work matters.
Bitget: Huawei in the currency circle, let the results speak for you
Speaking of wolf nature, I have to mention a Chinese company, Huawei.
Huawei's corporate culture and management philosophy have always been highly praised by many bosses in the cryptocurrency industry. For example, Bitmain co-founder Zhan Ketuan has a "Huawei belief". He not only learns from Huawei in all aspects, but also poaches employees from Huawei many times.
Although Huawei's wolf culture has also been controversial, it is undeniable that Huawei's management and culture implement "pragmatism" and "efficiency" to the extreme.
No matter which industry it is, if Huawei sets foot and becomes a competitor, everyone in the industry will have trouble sleeping and eating, and the industry will also face a reshuffle.
Since Huawei and Cyrus jointly launched Wenjie, the new car-making force with the highest sales, Ideal, has made it clear that it must fully learn from Huawei in terms of organization, R&D, and management. Its founder Li Xiang called on every senior executive to buy at least 10 books about Huawei. Book research.
In the currency circle, which company is most like Huawei?
A subjective opinion is - Bitget.
Bitget’s wolf culture is widely known in the industry, but most people’s understanding of wolf culture is quite simple.
According to a previous interview with Bitget CEO Gracy, in addition to a vision and mission, Bitget’s corporate culture has four core values:
Vision: We believe that the crypto revolution will create a fairer future world.
Mission: We create the ultimate trading products to make future finance accessible, safe and efficient.
Values:
User first: always put the needs of users first;
Integrity and honesty: zero tolerance for any form of dishonesty;
Frank communication: Encourage team members to communicate and feedback problems directly instead of avoiding or reporting them;
Get results: Emphasize data-oriented and results-oriented working methods.
This expression is slightly abstract, but during the Token2049 period, Bitget held nearly 10 events, which made people marvel at the efficiency and execution of Bitget employees. It became the exchange with the most presence during 2049: signing for La Liga (Spanish Football) League A (LALIGA), the number of global users exceeded 45 million, the average daily transaction volume exceeded 10 billion US dollars, the monthly visits exceeded 30 million, BGB outperformed Bitcoin... Various labels impressed the participants.
According to the author’s experience of dealing with Bitget at work, Bitget’s corporate culture has two major characteristics.
First, high requirements and the courage to boldly challenge the existing structure.
This is quite similar to Huawei. When Huawei first started its wireless business in the European market, Yu Chengdong once told the team that Huawei would be number one in the wireless industry in the future and surpass Ericsson. At that time, most people inside "looked like idiots." "Looking at Lao Yu"; in 2012, Yu Chengdong also said that Huawei would launch a flagship mobile phone that was much more powerful than the iPhone 5, which attracted everyone's ridicule... However, an awesome team can often turn the boasted into something awesome. Reality.
For example, when most people think that the encryption wallet track has reached its extreme and the pattern is set, Bitget Wallet has suddenly emerged recently.
In August this year, Bitget Wallet App downloads reached 2 million, ranking first among global Web3 wallets, with more than 12 million monthly active users (MAU).
At first, the editor doubted the authenticity of the data and privately asked BG related people whether the volume had been brushed. The other party firmly denied, "Absolutely not" and said "the actual data is higher than this" because the above data only counted two Big mainstream stores.
Asking the reason, thanks to Bitget Wallet’s early support for the MPC wallet solution of the TON main network this year, and cooperation with more than 50 projects such as Catizen, Tomarket, and Notcoin, on-chain data shows that in August, Bitget Wallet contributed to the TON chain 17% of active addresses.
Second, delegate power to lower levels and make everything result-oriented.
After many companies become big, it is easy to fall into "political dilemmas". Infighting and taking sides make the company fall into internal friction. At this time, "employees with high emotional intelligence" who are good at upward management can often create a world, but this does not seem to exist at Bitget. Such a problem arises from the corporate culture of "No matter how much you talk, let the results speak for you." Secondly, everyone is too busy and has no time to engage in internal conflicts. It can be said that they are only busy involving others and have no time to engage in internal affairs. High demands are bound to be accompanied by high pressure, but Bitget also has a corresponding rule, "Rewards are based on merit, and those who achieve results will be fully authorized and rewarded."
To sum up, unlike other corporate cultures that partially emphasize ideology, Bitget's corporate culture is all about pragmatism and everything is result-oriented. Those who have no results are eliminated, and those who have the ability and results are rewarded. It is simple and efficient. It seems It also explains from a cultural perspective why the Bitget exchange and its wallet, investment and other ecosystems have grown by leaps and bounds in the past two years.
Kraken: Ten Commandments, a must-read for anyone in the crypto industry
Before starting Kraken, Jesse Powell ran a video game virtual goods marketplace called Lewt, but was plagued by payment issues.
When the Jesses discovered Bitcoin in 2011, they sold Lewt and started Kraken, believing that if they could drive adoption of Bitcoin, it would improve the lives of billions of people.
Since its inception, Kraken has carried the cyberpunk and liberal values of founder Jesse. However, like Coinbase, Jesse has been accused by the American media of gender and racial discrimination in the increasingly politicized United States.
After the public outcry, Kraken issued a corporate culture declaration called "Ten taclemandments," or Kraken's Ten Commandments, and encouraged sensible people who were not in line with the company's culture and values to leave with four months' salary.
Kraken’s Ten Commandments have also become a classic of crypto corporate culture.
1. Crypto is for everyone
Bitcoin removes politics from money. This means that anyone can freely conduct transactions on the Bitcoin network as long as they can cryptographically prove control of their keys.
2. You must have a sense of mission and belief
At Kraken, our mission is to accelerate the global adoption of cryptocurrency because we believe it will improve the lives of billions of people and enable a new era of human prosperity.
3. Keep up with the cryptocurrency industry or get left behind
Reconnaissance and intelligence gathering is a key part of our strategy, and decentralized decision-making requires us all to be informed.
4. Know yourself and know your enemy
Every customer-facing product should be familiar to every Kraken person. No Kraken person should ever flinch if asked to describe or demonstrate any product used by our customers.
5. Professional but “comfortable”
Kraken people are focused on results, which is why we value skills and knowledge over credentials and performance. That’s why we work remotely in our pajamas instead of in a suit in the office.
6. The pursuit of life, liberty and sound money
The crypto movement is rooted in "dangerous" ideas, such as the fundamental rights that all humans have: cryptography\free speech\free markets\currency choice\open source software\personal and financial privacy...
7. At some point, you will be offended
If no one is offended, we either don’t have enough diversity of thought or enough transparency in communication. If it always feels easy or comfortable, you're probably doing it wrong. The ideal Kraken is both thick-skinned and kind-hearted.
8. Our mission is unique
We do not have a second mission, which means that when we encounter some problems, the only basis for judgment is whether if we do this thing, it will help achieve our ultimate mission.
9. A global perspective drives true inclusivity
Recruitment should be based on merit rather than just qualifications or vision as admission criteria. Diversity is not just differences in superficial physical characteristics, but diversity from different backgrounds and cultures around the world. Silicon Valley’s view of diversity in the world is dangerously limiting and commodifies individuals, and we emphasize equal opportunity regardless of background.
10. The key to being a Kraken: Chivalry
Bureaucracy must die, and we are determined to avoid the vicious death cycle of nonsense and bureaucracy that comes with growing a company. So we try to keep the team small, designate DRIs, and despise office politics.
After the release of Kraken's Ten Commandments, it quickly fermented. Most people internally and even in the crypto industry were on Jesse's side. Less than 1% of Kraken employees left their jobs. And due to the influence of the Ten Commandments, Kraken received a large number of job applications. It also seems to illustrate the importance of corporate culture.
It is not difficult to see that, similar to Coinbase, Kraken is also disturbed by ideology and political correctness. At this time, a clear corporate culture is particularly important, not only to attract like-minded employees, but also to set up a "warning sign" to inform Some people don't want to come.
Upbit: Trust and Endeavor
A little trivia: Upbit, South Korea’s largest crypto trading platform, is not a native crypto exchange, but one of the subsidiaries of a financial technology company.
In 2012, South Korea's financial technology Dunamu Inc. was officially established and received investment from K Cube Ventures (now Kakao Ventures) the following year. In 2014, Dunamu launched the securities trading platform Stockplus. It was not until the second half of 2017 that crypto in the United States With the help of currency exchange Bittrex, Upbit was officially launched and is now the most valuable company under Dunamu.
When it comes to Upbit's corporate culture, it is essentially Dunamu's corporate culture. It can only be said that it is very financial technology and not Crypto at all.
Dunamu's mission is: Connect & Unlock Value, create new value by connecting different topics, and win the trust of customers with technology that is good for the world.
"We launched Stockplus because we believe that the core of the securities market will shift from desktop to mobile. We are also confident in the evolution of blockchain and launched Upbit, South Korea's first mobile application-based digital asset exchange. We are honored to Accurately grasping the changing trends and continuing to technologically evolve the trading of all value objects to make it convenient and simple for everyone, we now further challenge our borderless technology to expand capabilities to unlock previously unimaginable capabilities. value."
Dunamu has two core values:
Trust: Everyone at Dunamu is an expert in their own industry. Customer trust in our services is our top priority, so we respect the opinions and decisions of our colleagues, and our horizontal communication culture based on trust enables us to launch convenient and safe services.
Drive: Even when we are already at the top, we strive for faster progress. Once we focus on our goals, we can eliminate the fear of failure and seize opportunities to lead change. Customers are at the heart of all our decisions. We are always researching, exploring and working for our clients. Our leaders make fast and accurate decisions based on horizontal communication.
Compared with the meticulous corporate culture of platforms such as Kraken, Dunamu's corporate culture is very simple and direct, and does not particularly emphasize the vision of cryptocurrency and blockchain. They just want to do one thing, keep making progress, and gain the trust of users. .
Perhaps due to the financial industry background of the parent company, Upbit's internal management is extremely strict. For example, they strictly restrict employees and their immediate family members from selling and exchanging crypto assets on Upbit, and have established the Upbit Market Monitoring System (UMO). Dunamu reports on the Upbit website every year publish a transparency report.
In terms of currency listing, Upbit also maintains a very cautious and strict attitude, which makes the entire Upbit very mysterious in the industry.
To sum up, Upbit is essentially a financial technology company that trades encrypted assets. It strictly requires itself according to the high standards of the financial industry and extremely pursues the trust of users.
[Disclaimer] There are risks in the market, so investment needs to be cautious. This article does not constitute investment advice, and users should consider whether any opinions, views or conclusions contained in this article are appropriate for their particular circumstances. Invest accordingly and do so at your own risk.
This article is reproduced with permission from: "Deep Wave TechFlow"
