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Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

blog.coinbase.com

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Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#391

Post by dogman144 »

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…

Very, very typical. Insider threat teams are a thing at many tech or otherwise companies. Nothing specific to crypto other than a higher incentive to have an ithreat team. You should be doing nothing and no one on a work computer that is not 100% work related. Blows my mind that people do otherwise.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#392

Post by UncleMeat »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #289
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…

There's a lot of advice on how to handle these situations and a lot of it is good, even when conflicting. It's all situational. One thought though, for whatever little it may be worth: >>For me, I think I'd just quit if I was told to lay off people on my team. That has been my personal emotional reaction many a time. As I spend more time as a manager though, I try to force myself to look harder and harder at what wil…

Oh it wouldn't accomplish anything. It'd be 100% hiding from the emotional pain of laying off employees that I believe are productive and good team members. But I've only got one life to live and emotions are real, so I don't have any problem optimizing for my emotions when making life choices.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#393

Post by kayodelycaon »

chitowneats wrote: post #278
senttoschool wrote: post #47

So when the CEO said "leave". He was trying his hardest to get get his employees to leave so he doesn't have to pay severance.

Severance is chump change to a company like Coinbase. It was a filter to find the disgruntled employees.

I've seen companies do really stupid things over small amounts of money. It all depends where budget is allocated.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#394

Post by i13e »

square_usual wrote: post #22

Puts in stark contrast the relatively recent ad they ran for the NBA finals mocking crypto skeptics. Hmm, I wonder how much that ad cost...

It was probably a rhetorical question but about a 30 second ad slot for the super bowl this year cost $7m so quite a lot

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#395

Post by lkramer »

caminante wrote: post #349
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #293

What struck me about this announcement was that the CEO states a couple of times that he is accountable for the decision, but doesn't say what form that accountability takes. I try not to be cynical, but I suspect in this case that there will be no actual, real accountability.

What do you have in mind for "real accountability?" He could've deflected responsibility or hid behind a proxy, which happens all the time. Now, he gets more judgment good/bad directed at him from shareholders, the board, and customers.

Bonus and Salary cut would be a good place to start.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#396

Post by andyjohnson0 »

dvt wrote: post #379
jakebasile wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's his fault and the buck stops with him, but guess who is remaining employed?

I mean, it's his company. Kind of a weird comment to make.

> I mean, it's his company. Kind of a weird comment to make.

Its a public company, so it belongs to the shareholders. Brian Armstrong is one of the founders, and is the largest share owner, but a cursory google suggests that he owns just about 10% of the shares by value.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#397

Post by UncleMeat »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #297
boringg wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's exactly the thing. Don't make it about you! How much of telling employee "this is bullshit, I could't sleep over this" is actually doing for them? Vs absolving yourself of guilt, having them like you, and making you look like the victim you definitely aren't? Respect and support and empathy and sincerity are the key, always. Deflecting blame and ranting are not long term helpful.

It isn't doing anything for them. But it is sincere (I didn't say this in my post, but the idea is that my father actually did lose weeks of sleep over this). It, of course, should not be about you in this moment (this is hard to convey in a short post). But it seems far more supportive and honest than pretending that everything is okay and normal or acting like a robot.

Maybe it is also bad. I don't know. But the fake smile seems much worse.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#398

Post by Cthulhu_ »

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.…

It's a thin line to walk; never make it sound like you are the victim as well, or that you're even worse off than they are.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#399

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

tdudzik wrote: post #176
a_chris wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 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).

Firing is very common in Europe depending on specific country and it's laws and the industry we're talking about (is it unionized? are the employees easily replaceable? immigration, etc).

In Austria it's super easy to fire jobs like white collar tech workers and sales people without any reason as the employee protection laws are very weak (you just have to give them their notice period). At every company I've worked here I've seen people get fired after not meeting their performance goals(PIPs), or even having too slow velocity in Jira's charts, or just some manager having an axe to grind.

There's no magic protection aura from the government to save you from getting fired here.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#400

Post by anotherfounder »

cj wrote: post #38
jstx1 wrote: 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?

Just 3 months ago many people thought the markets could potentially bounce back (e.g. if the ukraine conflict didn't escalate and if inflation came down on its own - neither of which happened). Not so long ago, CNBC was still talking about the probability of a recession a quoting probability percentages less than 50%. I think the reality is that 2-4 months ago, very few people thought things would get as bad as they…

Um, just a month ago, in the earnings call, he reiterated continuing to grow and invest. For those following the markets and economy closely (like any public company CEO should), literally nothing in the last month has been a much of a surprise. So, to go from, 'we're so totally gonna hire to' to 'pause' to 'cancel' to 'fire' in a month doesn't seem to inspire much confidence in them.
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