In the meantime, the reaction to [Coinbase CEO Brian] Armstrong’s new corporate policy was swift and severe. Former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo was especially fired up: “Me-first capitalists who think you can separate society from business are going to be the first people lined up against the wall and shot in the revolution,” he posted. (Costolo could not be reached for comment on this story.) The social media company’s co-founder, and another of its former CEOs, Jack Dorsey, also chimed in, implying that by not acknowledging the “related societal issues” faced by Coinbase’s customers, the company and its leader were leaving “people behind.”

Another tech insider, entrepreneur Aaron White, tweeted that Armstrong’s statement struck him as “isolationist fantasy” and that by taking an apolitical stance, the CEO was “effectively guaranteeing” he would land on the wrong side of history on “absolutely every issue.”

As Shaun Maguire—who was a partner at GV, Google’s investment wing, from 2016 until 2019—explains: “The culture of Silicon Valley when Brian did that was dominated by Big Tech, and if you go and look at the political donations they were making, it was skewed far left. Even people in the center were afraid to talk four years ago.”

Four years later, though, Brian Armstrong looks more prophetic than blasphemous.