421–430 of 616 posts
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In finance it's pretty common practice (and in that sense Coinbase is similar to a broker). I remember stories about how half (?) the people working at UBS London came to work one morning to find that their badges didn't unlock the entrance gates anymore. And lots of stories like that in the years following the 2008 crash.
Wouldn't their Blackberries be remotely deactivated first?
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It is not generous everywhere. In the Netherlands you get 1/6 salary for every 6 months, so only two months salary if you’ve been at the company for six years .
Helped me a lot a few years back and got me from "you are fired without severance" to "you are paid for six more months, you don't have to come in and here is half a year's pay in severance". Companies want to shock you into submission, hand it to an external party, lean back end enjoy.
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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
Employees from the HN sphere maybe, but ask a temp worker. They can get fired on the spot — in Germany!
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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 was at a startup that had massive layoffs during the pandemic. I was able to protect my team (though I had to rescind a few offers).
The problem was that after the layoffs, while everyone was still grieving, management decided to come down really hard on my team and others. I realized at one point I could either keep my job, or protect my teams sanity for the next few months.
I chose the latter. Upper management didn't like it, but my team got time to heal and after I was let go and my team survived for another two years.
I had never been fired before, but when I was I honestly felt a bit a pride that this "leadership" team felt I wasn't a good match.
I don't know if there's a point to this story other than that, when the shit hits the fan, you can standup for what you believe in and fight to make the tiny bit of this world you have some say in a bit better. I've known plenty of people who just shrug their shoulders in such times and say "what can you do?", but you can do something and in my experience it is worth it to take a stand at these crucial points.
There were new use cases enabled
by crypto getting traction practically
every week. We saw the opportunities but
we needed to massively scale our team to
be positioned to compete in a broad
array of bets.
I wonder why. The LN would enable all Coinbase users to do nearly instant and nearly free transactions. Wouldn't that help crypto adoption big time?
> 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…
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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…
It’s totally normal here and done to protect the company. It’s one of the reasons Americans are paid considerably more than Euros. Companies can take on more risk and pay more because they aren’t burdened with strict employee relationship laws. What Coinbase is giving in severance is quite generous. They don’t have to do that but it’s really nice and I’d say it improves their reputation. These types of things (layoff…
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.
Reduction in pay and/or bonus. Loss of options. Reduction in his health cover to the same amount being offered to the people being sacked. Temporary or permanent removal from the board (probably not legally possible, but...).
Obviously none of those things will happen because, short of gross misconduct, they basically never happen to people in the executive layer - especially founders.
> 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.
I think it would have been better for him not to claim personal accountability when everyone knows there is none. It's false and un-empathic. He has a net worth of $2.4 billion: there are no consequences and so no accountability.
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We may be mixing things up. You can definitely be paid laid off employee for a period of time, while having your access revoked. They're completely orthogonal. Depends on role, company, situation. It's an assessment and tradeoff - is it worth / do I need the next two weeks of work and KT from this person, vs the risk of having access. The notion of revoking security access to limit risk is definitely not a US thing.
He is not mixing things up. The idea that immediate revoking security access to everything is only way how to do things is definitely a US thing.
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 agree and am in general a big fan of FTX and the guys that work there. The CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried one of these HFT guys from Jane Street and his net worth shot up from 0 to $24 billion in just a few years. He kept things super lean and focused. But in the last few months it looks like he's hired a PR team and is all over the place: podcasts, obviously planted news stories, etc. He even hired a head of fashion and l…
On Philanthropy maybe. He's pretty dedicated to the EA movement and has explicitly said he intends to give everything away.