Live data from Hacker News

Coinbase is rescinding already-accepted job offers

sfgate.com

241–250 of 461 posts

Re: Coinbase is rescinding already-accepted job offers

#241
post #7

Coinbase tried to recruit me last summer. I politely told the recruiter that I felt it was all bubble speculation mania. Also the amount of equity sold by the CFO at the public listing indicated little confidence in the long term prospects. I guess I was right? Not trying to brag or anything. Just a tip to everyone job hunting I guess. Watch what executives do (not what they say). Well, and human history of speculati…

I honestly don't get the point of Coinbase. Isn't it a centralized system to manage what is supposed to be decentralized and that kinda defeats the purpose? I may be dumb.

Email is a decentralized protocol and the fact that you use a centralized provider such as gmail only somewhat defeats the purpose of email being a decentralized protocol instead of Google Messenger.

Re: Coinbase is rescinding already-accepted job offers

#242
post #7

Coinbase tried to recruit me last summer. I politely told the recruiter that I felt it was all bubble speculation mania. Also the amount of equity sold by the CFO at the public listing indicated little confidence in the long term prospects. I guess I was right? Not trying to brag or anything. Just a tip to everyone job hunting I guess. Watch what executives do (not what they say). Well, and human history of speculati…

I honestly don't get the point of Coinbase. Isn't it a centralized system to manage what is supposed to be decentralized and that kinda defeats the purpose? I may be dumb.

Coinbase is the lowest-friction, most legal, way to buy into crypto. They make it easy for nontechnical novices to get set up, and they comply with KYC laws etc. This has helped them build a large customer base and stay on regulators' good sides. Think of them as Crypto Robinhood, if that helps, though once you get into the weeds they have very different business models.

Re: Coinbase is rescinding already-accepted job offers

#243
post #139

"While we did not make this decision lightly..." Yes but you aren't doing it humanely, either. I've been through the dot com crash and several hard economic downturns. It really puts your company's humanity on full display. It's the real test. Preserving cash flow is important. But you also have to do things carefully, openly, and with genuine care for the people who've believed in your vision. People will respect th…

The worst part is that Coinbase's interviews are difficult. If I'd spent months studying, rejecting other (good faith) offers, and then had this happen I'd not only be in a bad spot (without a job entering a recession) but I'd be furious at the inequality of input and output. I've been interviewing for the past month and I made a rule that I won't be doing any algorithm interviews. I didn't have time to study; some f…

What position did you interview for at Coinbase? I made it to offer stage and did not have to do any algorithms.

Re: Coinbase is rescinding already-accepted job offers

#244
post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst part is that Coinbase's interviews are difficult. If I'd spent months studying, rejecting other (good faith) offers, and then had this happen I'd not only be in a bad spot (without a job entering a recession) but I'd be furious at the inequality of input and output. I've been interviewing for the past month and I made a rule that I won't be doing any algorithm interviews. I didn't have time to study; some f…

This sentiment seems common on Hacker News but I'm not sure its wise. Companies that have high standards are far more interesting places to work at and with more interesting colleagues. They all require whiteboards and leet code. It's definitely true that not all companies that use these algorithm interviews are worth working for. But, at least in my experience, companies that don't require them at all are pretty awf…

I have advised, consulted for, or worked full time at 20+ companies, interviewed at too many to think about counting, and conducted technical interviews at 10+.

Without exception the companies that weighted academic algorithm skills over practical architecture skill and implementation experience had some of the most confident and brazen mistakes in security or scalability and some of the poorest work-life balance.

Re: Coinbase is rescinding already-accepted job offers

#245
post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s ok to be mad at a company if they fuck you over by rescinding a signed offer.

Of course. If someone wants to be angry, that's their choice. Yet a lot of people get angry easily, and being an easily-triggered person works against a person's life. No one wants to constantly have to walk on eggshells around another person in order to be their friend, partner, child, etc. Personally, I don't enjoy the emotion of being angry. If you do, more power to you.

“Personally, I don't enjoy the emotion of being angry.”

no one cares

Re: Coinbase is rescinding already-accepted job offers

#246
post #7

Coinbase tried to recruit me last summer. I politely told the recruiter that I felt it was all bubble speculation mania. Also the amount of equity sold by the CFO at the public listing indicated little confidence in the long term prospects. I guess I was right? Not trying to brag or anything. Just a tip to everyone job hunting I guess. Watch what executives do (not what they say). Well, and human history of speculati…

I honestly don't get the point of Coinbase. Isn't it a centralized system to manage what is supposed to be decentralized and that kinda defeats the purpose? I may be dumb.

You are indeed not dumb. Coinbase is a bit of an oxymoron. If decentralized value exchange takes off, that will surely be the end of Coinbase. To a degree, Coinbase's demise is baked into crypto's success - which is kinda funny to think about. Coinbase has always seemed like a bit of a money grab, and crypto veterans sort've treat it this way.

Re: Coinbase is rescinding already-accepted job offers

#247
post #204
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-repudiation is an important problem. Some things we can rely upon trusted third parties, but all kinds of things we rely on imperfect systems with notaries and trusted third parties can be more effectively solved with ledgers. A whole lot of the interesting applications are non-monetary-- proving that a record was produced and made available before a certain time and has not been tampered with since. As a world e…

> big fraction of this could be done cheaper and with a higher agree of assurance by distributed ledgers than notaries These theoretical benefits have been around for 10+ years with little to show for it. Ledger-based solutions tend to focus on a tiny technical step of a big process without considering whether that's a bottleneck or even a non-negligible part and whether improving it actually results in a better solu…

> I used to sympathize and engage with the theoretical arguments; but at this point a more productive approach is: if the advantages are such and such,

Distributed ledgers are being used for real business cases in banking. Realizing these full benefits will take a very slow process of societal adoption and legal/evidentiary recognition.

I said "not going away". These use cases are going to slowly grow and become ubiquitous, but it will be a very slow process. It isn't some overnight disruption where notaries vanish and banking is dis-intermediated in the next 5 years.

> where are the companies benefiting from this competitive advantage

E.g. JP Morgan and Liink are quietly connecting hundreds of banks and using it to more robustly and quickly move payment-related information between banks.

Re: Coinbase is rescinding already-accepted job offers

#248
post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason you cannot say Coinbase is isn't a scam is because it is impossible to prove that the people involved were lying in regards to the viability of crypto not being effectively a Ponzi scheme.

There is value in a global blockchain with the level of participation of crypto. And sure there are scams, there are scams in the real economy too. Ponzi is not an acronym for “I don’t understand its value therefore it’s a Ponzi scheme”.

I think the Ponzi claims stem from the fact that so many people are in the market for speculative profit (and not to revolutionize finance or whatever), and the fact that earlier investors can only capitalize on their investments by proselytizing, recruiting, and ultimately selling their bags to new investors. Framed that way, it’s quite Ponzi-ish.

Re: Coinbase is rescinding already-accepted job offers

#249
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Growing tulips isn’t any more of an “investment” than buying tulips… Regardless of whether or not it’s profitable, it’s a speculative endeavour.

Tell that to the Dutch companies currently making tens of millions of years growing and selling tulips of all colors! See https://scitechdaily.com/dutch-tulip-fields-come-into-bloom-...

It's a reference to the tulip bulb mania.

Re: Coinbase is rescinding already-accepted job offers

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't get the point of Coinbase. Isn't it a centralized system to manage what is supposed to be decentralized and that kinda defeats the purpose? I may be dumb.

Email is a decentralized protocol and the fact that you use a centralized provider such as gmail only somewhat defeats the purpose of email being a decentralized protocol instead of Google Messenger.

Email is _a bit_ similar, but the analogy doesn't work too well. While email might be a decentralized protocol, participation in the protocol requires quite a bit of technical effort. Whereas in crypto (e.g., Bitcoin) you can participate by just downloading a simple client and sending transactions via a nice little UI. In your example, Google actually provides a pretty huge value add by abstracting the complexities of participating in the email protocol away from the user. Crypto protocols (insofar as the assets provided by Coinbase) don't really get _that_ complex
Post reply on HN