Live data from Hacker News

Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

blog.coinbase.com

131–140 of 616 posts

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#131
post #72
post #60

> If you are affected, you will receive this notification in your personal email, because we made the decision to cut access to Coinbase systems for affected employees. I realize that removal of access will feel sudden and unexpected, and this is not the experience I wanted for you. Given the number of employees who have access to sensitive customer information, it was unfortunately the only practical choice, to ensu…

Pretty standard to not let terminated employees hang around. It feels cold but it’s just the way it has to be. Sone places will even do this when an employee submits a resignation on good terms. Just a way for the company to cover themselves.

This is absolutely untrue. In Europe we work several days/weeks after the layoff notice. You can fire people from the night to the morning only in US

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#132

> Coinbase has survived through four major crypto winters I don't understand - has crypto been around long enough to have winters? When were they?

If we're talking Bitcoin: - Early 2014 ($1,000 -> $300) - Late 2018/Early 2018 ($19,500 -> $6,800) - April 2021 ($63,000 -> $35,000) - Nov 2021-Now ($67,000-> $22,000)

This one will probably be a lot larger though; crypto hasn’t seen a real economic recession as such and so many people believe (but in religious way) that it can weather it. If might survive but so far it just crashes together with everything and we will see below 10k this year for btc as people want and need cash and inflation hedges.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#134
post #63
post #17

Crypto is clearly crashing but I’m more curious if a reckoning will hit FAANG, particularly Google. I know one person there who is the spouse of a good friend, and they make nearly 7 figures as a middle manager (although I’m unsure what happens with the stock declines and RSUs). Can these companies support legions of absurdly highly paid people? GOOG is down 25% this year, what will happen when it drops 50%?

Netflix is likely the one getting in trouble. Rest likely will do somewhat stable, though stock price might be flat or downwards for a while.

Not too hot about Meta. TikTok has been eating their lunch and they can't seem to catch up.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#135

It’s been pretty interesting watching YC backed Coinbase get absolutely crushed by FTX, which has a higher % of crypto trading volume despite having less than 10% of the headcount. Crypto is a zero sum game, and the old Paul Graham essays and other tired VC dogmas really only work in positive sum games. FTX was founded by traders which is valuable when the ultimate purpose of the crypto industry is to separate uninfo…

I have never heard of FTX until reading your comment just now. Is it really crushing Coinbase?

Crushing in terms of their promotion army heavily shilling it on social media - yes. In terms of users no.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#136
post #3

If we follow the weekly updates: 1. First a hiring "slowdown". 2. Hiring freeze and rescinded offers. 3. 18% layoffs. What's the reason behind announcing it in stages? Don't they receive much more negative publicity this way? Or are they really making decisions from one week for the next?

1 and 2 are signaling to the stock markets that they are doing something to cut costs and internally to warn employees that layoffs are imminent so that they start looking out. Helps companies reduce severance payments and the logistics hassle.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#137
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty standard to not let terminated employees hang around. It feels cold but it’s just the way it has to be. Sone places will even do this when an employee submits a resignation on good terms. Just a way for the company to cover themselves.

This is absolutely untrue. In Europe we work several days/weeks after the layoff notice. You can fire people from the night to the morning only in US

In Europe you have to keep paying the person, but it's not uncommon for them to be told not to come in anymore.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. FTX people clearly know a lot more about market making and how exchanges work. Makes coinbase look like amateurs. Coinbase hired their CPO with a 650 million dollar pay package. They should have spent that money on 2 - 5 million a year hft programmers and traders

What do you make of Sam Bankman-Fried describing his business as a literal Ponzi scheme on Odd Lots podcast? The commentary isn’t necessary to see the insanity but here’s fastest way to get to the relevant content: https://youtu.be/C6nAxiym9oc Edit: To clarify, though not sure how much a mitigation this is, yes SBF is describing much of the underlying activity he takes commission on as a Ponzi scheme. Sure, he’s not…

> What do you make of Sam Bankman-Fried describing his business as a literal Ponzi scheme

Strawman. He described DeFi yield farming as a ponzi scheme. [0] Not his own business.

Nice try though and thanks for playing.

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-25/sam-bankm...

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#139
post #60

> If you are affected, you will receive this notification in your personal email, because we made the decision to cut access to Coinbase systems for affected employees. I realize that removal of access will feel sudden and unexpected, and this is not the experience I wanted for you. Given the number of employees who have access to sensitive customer information, it was unfortunately the only practical choice, to ensu…

To be honest this is the more concerning thing in that quoted statement: > "Given the number of employees who have access to sensitive customer information" Surly they should have very very few employs that have access to that type of information?

[deleted]

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#140
post #87
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FTX's success is a bit questionable. They are the biggest buyer of USDT/Tether and shady things are probably going on there.

Does that say much? They're the biggest buyer because USDT is the biggest stablecoin.

Your logic is backwards. They don’t buy more Tether than other stables. (Well they do but that wasn’t the point)

The point is they are Tether’s largest customer. They buy more Tether than anyone else.

Post reply on HN