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Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

blog.coinbase.com

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Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#231

Post by UncleMeat »

vishnugupta wrote: post #107

Compare and contrast CB’s hiring with that of FTX[1] Coinbase “ We have now exceeded the limit of how many new employees we can integrate while growing our productivity. For the past few months, adding new employees has made us less efficient, not more. We have seen ourselves slow down considerably due to coordination headwinds, and difficulty fully integrating new team members.” FTX “ It’s a race–between how quickly…

The FTX quote applies in so many circumstances. Tons of companies, organizations, and even teams have boom/bust hiring. No headcount for ages and then BOOM suddenly piles of headcount. This makes culture and knowledge sharing almost impossible.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#232

Post by meatsauce »

a_chris wrote: post #131
nemo44x wrote: 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

And instances of employee sabotage are elevated in Europe. Imagine that.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#233

Post by danielcampos93 »

Barrera wrote: 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…

Common practice. In places where I have worked if you told the company you had a competitive offer the standard practice was to take 15 minutes to try to get you a matched offer. If you declined or they couldn’t match it was automatic walk off the premise

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#234

Post by rchaud »

Maximus9000 wrote: post #215
Barrera wrote: 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…

> we made the decision to cut access to Coinbase systems for affected employees Apparently they used to do this at Microsoft. Microsoft stopped doing it though because people would freak out if the network ever went down - employees would think "oh my god, I'm about to get fired".

Perhaps Coinbase is speedrunning the evolution of modern HR practices, just as the market it serves is speedrunning through the history of financial regulation.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#235

Post by avinassh »

vdddv wrote: post #129
symlinkk wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

crushing might be a bit too far, but they are certainly ahead of Coinbase in volume with lower opex https://coinmarketcap.com/rankings/exchanges/

I had no idea that Binance is so far ahead. Why do most people use it? Some trust factor?

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#237

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

hourago wrote: post #174
samwillis wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You are completely right. Sensitive customer information should be only accessible as a per need basis. It's very bad practice, possibly illegal in many countries, to have free access to production customer data. It's also quite dangerous for a big company. Production databases should not be accessible by developers, logs should need enough to debug problems, and should be scrapped after some time. Metrics can be sto…

A responsible company would consider "sensitive customer information" to be pretty much every bit of customer information - names, addresses, phone numbers, bank accounts. Maybe low-level developers won't have access to that but every member of the infrastructure and customer facing teams will in some fashion because it's 100% part of their job and odds are good that's the majority of the people in the company.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#238

Post by aetherson »

UncleMeat wrote: post #208
NikolaNovak wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately it's common enough. It's harsh, it's cold, but ultimately for companies it's a real necessity. The explanation is blunt and correct - even a single malicious actor can enact HUGE devastating harm. It doesn't have to be hot wallet / cold storage. Source code, business plans, revenue & profit statements, SSH to servers, physical access to datacentre, client contact lists, etc etc... there's a myriad thing…

> Friendly, smiley, fake. My father had to lay off a bunch of people in 2008. I am now a manager. He told me that if I am ever forced to do this to not ever do this crap to my team. Tell them that this is bullshit. Tell them that you are upset. Tell them that you haven't slept. Tell them that the are right to be mad, disappointed, and even to hate you for choosing their head to roll. Anything better than fake smiles…

I've never laid people off, but I've fired them.

It's hard to know what emotional tenor to put on it. On the one hand, of course you're right that upbeat positive optimistic is fake and maybe feels like it's more for you than them. On the other hand, being like, "this sucks and it's bad for you and I hated doing it" feels like kicking people when they're down, making them feel like it's even worse than it already is.

I have generally give with a pretty emotionless affect, but tried to convey respect for them as a person, even if they didn't work as an employee, but that's hard to convey. It's a generally fraught situation.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#239

Post by boringg »

UncleMeat wrote: post #208
NikolaNovak wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately it's common enough. It's harsh, it's cold, but ultimately for companies it's a real necessity. The explanation is blunt and correct - even a single malicious actor can enact HUGE devastating harm. It doesn't have to be hot wallet / cold storage. Source code, business plans, revenue & profit statements, SSH to servers, physical access to datacentre, client contact lists, etc etc... there's a myriad thing…

> Friendly, smiley, fake. My father had to lay off a bunch of people in 2008. I am now a manager. He told me that if I am ever forced to do this to not ever do this crap to my team. Tell them that this is bullshit. Tell them that you are upset. Tell them that you haven't slept. Tell them that the are right to be mad, disappointed, and even to hate you for choosing their head to roll. Anything better than fake smiles…

A friend of mine's manager had to lay him off but the manager was the nicest guy and was basically in tears through the exit process. My friend essentially had to do the break up. We felt for the manager but also, keep your isht together. If you can't then you are putting that on the individual that you are letting go.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#240

Post by anarticle »

bambax wrote: post #52
nojito wrote: post #12

>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 ensur…

Wow. The language is nice but the behavior is horrendous. Also illegal in many parts of the world: IDK if they have employees in Europe but if they do it will be a big mess. Suddenly cutting off an employee from a company, with no way to even say goodbye to their former colleagues, is despicable. It really shows who you are. Let's hope they will have a hard time hiring back anyone in the future. Edit: as pointed out…

2008 speaking: It is totally normal. We fly high ($$$) and it's part of the game. It's not personal, the company is in trouble and they're making moves to save themselves. Many places will be happy to hire ex Coinbase people.
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