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Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

blog.coinbase.com

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Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#351

Post by bushbaba »

blowski wrote: post #97
togaen wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course: governments around the world flooded markets with stimulus cash and it all had to go somewhere. Now they are unwinding stimulus and it’s going away. Every reasonable observer has just been waiting for this to happen.

I thought crypto would collapse every year for the last 14 years, and I've been proven wrong every time. So I'm wondering why this time I'm right.

My theory. There was substantial DeFI loans being taken out to invest in Luna/UST. When UST de-pegged, you had these DeFI loans get margin called putting further pressure. This then caused a bank run with significant sell pressure. This caused roughly 40Billion of assets lost. Some exchanges and DeFI lending platforms had user funds either through loans or by the exchange itself invested into UST/Luna and suffered losses. This caused a broader bank-run to many interest baring platforms out of fear. Celcius just recently had a bank-run leading to a liquidity crises and pausing withdrawals. Celcius started selling it's assets to cover withdrawal pressure, further pushing the price down. Binance paused withdrawls for a bit further causing fear and continuing the bank run, leading to sell pressure.

Personally, there's many Crytpo platforms which do not have enough funds to cover user deposits. As the bank run continues fraud will be exposed and continue driving more sell pressure, in a positive feedback loop. By the end of this large players who survive will come out much stronger.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#353

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

leokennis wrote: post #270
kgermino wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every tier 1 support rep needs to be able to pull up at least some of my account information. Sure IT and other internal teams shouldn't have direct access, but when your business is managing other people's accounts/money a lot of people will need to have access to customer data.

I have a lot of access to very confidential customer information at my job. But based on passwords I need to request that require someone else to approve. Based on a ticket/incident/change number that actually needs to exist. The password rotates as soon as it expires. All password requests and usage are logged and audited. If you need to completely revoke someone's account overnight to prevent adverse impact, you de…

> If you need to completely revoke someone's account overnight to prevent adverse impact, you designed your "access matrix" incorrectly.

This doesn't make any sense to me, and is in fact exactly how it should work.

So you're telling me that every time, say, a CS rep needs to access some sensitive customer information (which is almost every single call), you think they should need to go through some password approval process? Security procedures that are so cumbersome to getting work done get bypassed.

The whole point of SSO systems is that you can immediately revoke access to any and all systems at once by just changing one setting.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#354

Post by sz4kerto »

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…

> Tell them that you are upset. Tell them that you haven't slept.

Dunno. I find it pretty bad when managers talk about their difficulties when e.g. firing people. It's about them, not about you. I agree about the part about fake smiles.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#355

Post by mytailorisrich »

aetherson wrote: post #238
UncleMeat wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

Firing someone is the result of poor performance or unacceptable behaviour.

In many jurisdictions (not in the US I suppose), before firing someone for poor performance they must be told that their performance is inadequate and be given a chance to improve.

Bottom line, in general being fired is fully on the person being fired so no need to sugar-coat or to feel bad.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#357

Post by [deleted] »

xyzzyz wrote: post #260
tdudzik wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Europe I think it's far less common to be fired in the first place, I actually know zero people that was ever fired (but I'm not saying that it doesn't happen, I think it even happened recently at Klarna).

I’ve known dozens of people fired by Google in a mass layoff, when they decided to close one of their offices. The process has stretched for months.

[deleted]

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#358

Post by bombcar »

Symbiote wrote: post #227
bombcar wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very common in Finance or anywhere where employees have "potentially unreasonable access". Often you get perp-walked or called to the boss's office, and someone boxes up everything in your desk for you, and you'll be escorted offsite afterwards. Most will pay you your two weeks or whatever in cash, the risk of an employee using their access to do harm is considered too great. For many other types of jobs, includ…

> Most will pay you your two weeks or whatever in cash Really? I assume you're in the USA, and in finance that could be several thousand dollars of cash you're handed. Everywhere I've worked (UK/EU) would pay you in the same way as they were already paying you, i.e. electronically, or decades ago by cheque. Isn't this much easier?

Ah, by "in cash" I meant in funds immediately, which, yes, usually would be the last direct deposit they send you.

They don't literally hand you a stack of hundreds, though that may happen in some manual labor jobs.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#359

Post by wickoff »

llamaimperative wrote: post #62
greatpostman wrote: post #44

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…

He is pointing out that it is in fact a ponzi and explaining the mechanism. There are no regulations against letting people trade this type of ponzi so his company isn't doing anything illegal. I think the problem here is that people outside crypto take it more seriously than insiders.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#360

Post by ghaff »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #355
aetherson wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Firing someone is the result of poor performance or unacceptable behaviour. In many jurisdictions (not in the US I suppose), before firing someone for poor performance they must be told that their performance is inadequate and be given a chance to improve. Bottom line, in general being fired is fully on the person being fired so no need to sugar-coat or to feel bad.

>In many jurisdictions (not in the US I suppose), before firing someone for poor performance they must be told that their performance is inadequate and be given a chance to improve.

Performance Improvement Plans are a thing at larger companies. That said, once someone is on a PIP, the handwriting is almost certainly on the wall.

I've also worked with people who were incredibly oblivious about the quality of their work, however much feedback they received and however much rework others had to put in. I can think of at least one case where this went on far too long and they were incredibly shocked when they were let go.

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