Inside a Corporate Culture War Stoked by a Crypto C.E.O.

Jesse Powell, who leads the crypto exchange Kraken, has challenged the use of preferred pronouns, debated who can use racial slurs and called American women brainwashed.

Jesse Powell, a founder and chief executive of Kraken, one of the worlds 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.

And he told workers that questions about womens intelligence and risk appetite compared with men were not as settled as one might have initially thought.

In the process, Mr. Powell, a 41-year-old Bitcoin pioneer, ignited a culture war among his more than 3,000 workers, according to interviews with five Kraken employees, as well as internal documents, videos and chat logs reviewed by The New York Times. Some workers have openly challenged the chief executive for what they see as his hurtful comments. Others have accused him of fostering a hateful workplace and damaging their mental health. Dozens are considering quitting, said the employees, who did not want to speak publicly for fear of retaliation.

Corporate culture wars have abounded during the coronavirus pandemic as remote work, inequity and diversity have become central issues at workplaces. At Meta, which owns Facebook, restive employees have agitated over racial justice. At Netflix, employees protested the companys support for the comedian Dave Chappelle, after he aired a special that was criticized as transphobic.