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Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

blog.coinbase.com

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Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#511

Post by fluctor »

ghaff wrote: post #360
mytailorisrich wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wor…

I've seen both sides of this: a PIP for a person who was falling behind that wasn't possible for the person to achieve because they were in a role without the skills needed to succeed in that role, and a PIP that was based on one supervisor's bad opinion of a particular person that was easy to accomplish when put in place by a different supervisor.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#513

Post by q1w2 »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #396
dvt wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

...and the shareholders literally determine his salary.

Why do you care what these people pay each other?

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#514

Post by ev1 »

TekMol wrote: post #425

So they scaled from 1000 to 2000 employees in a year because ... 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. ...yet they have not enabled their users to use the Lightning Network? I wonder why. The LN would enable all Coinbase users to do nearly instant and n…

Out of my circle, the only people I know that actually spend BTC as BTC for transactions, usually for things like personal domains, hold their own wallet and don't touch exchanges.

The people that heavily use exchanges hold it purely for speculation and/or gambling and have never once "spent" BTC.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#515

Post by rockostrich »

pc86 wrote: post #499
rockostrich wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a fairly junior manager at the beginning of COVID when my company decided to make a deep cut (20% of the company) in order to make sure we would survive. I didn't even know about the layoffs until after they happened which annoyed me quite a bit. The director of engineering for my team and 3-4 others was the one to do the calls to each laid off engineer. The 2 engineers that got laid off on my team were pretty…

I don't mean any offense by this but it's very clear by this sentiment that you're a junior, (maybe) mid-level still. For myriad reasons, it's not always practical to discuss potential layoffs. It's certainly not ethical to discuss "who should stay?" with more junior folks on the same team who are themselves staying. It's extraordinarily likely that your managers had much better insight into what the other folks were…

I've been here more than 99% of the company and we're now at 2000+ (was ~50 when I started and was ~1000 when COVID hit). I've pivoted back to a lateral IC role but considering the size of the org at the time (not really that large, maybe 30 engineers total under the director) it was totally practical. The salary cut proposition would've been a one time thing to either give the laid off engineer enough time to find another role (because he had a temporary visa) or until we were comfortable enough to pay both of our full-time salaries (this actually would've happened fairly quickly).

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#517

Post by engineeringwoke »

thaway2839 wrote: post #414
danuker wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't use it for payments due to regulatory headaches. But the supply-side economics is not to ignore. It is advantageous to Bitcoin. US M2 money supply grew 8.04% in the past year [0], while Bitcoin's grew ~1.75% [1]. Yes, demand has its 80% ups and downs, but each crash was to a level higher than the previous. [0] - https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_m2_money_supply_yoy [1] - https://charts.woobull.com/bitcoin-inf…

And that makes it a horrible currency. It makes it highly deflationary which absolutely stunts the working of an economy because no one wants to spend anymore. Good currencies are not stores of value. They are means of exchange. And crypto is a horrible means of exchange. It may have some use as a store of value (i.e. digital gold), but it's not clear to me why I would store my value in digital gold, which will requi…

It's funny that you believe the nation states' excuses for de-basing their currency. People just use fiat because it is dominant and has a legal system attached. They de-base because they can.

The fact that they thought M2 and its equivalents across the world could rise faster than inflation in perpetuity is just silly in retrospect. They're the same thing in the long run. It was used to get around the lack of ability to enact fiscal policy and to make old people rich, and you bought it, hook line and sinker.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#518

Post by rootusrootus »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #497
rootusrootus wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> once someone is on a PIP, the handwriting is almost certainly on the wall. My current manager is particularly transparent about this (with other managers, at least). When he puts someone on a PIP, it is a formality. He deliberately chooses a redemption project that is impossible to achieve. Edit: Jeez, guys, don't downvote -me- ;-). It's not my policy.

Ouch. That is unfortunate on several levels. From legal to moral to practical. Depending on the company, that could easily be appealed/disputed.

My assumption is that HR would be irritated to find out he was doing that. Legally, I assume 'at will' handily covers it as long as nobody being targeted is a member of a protect class.

Personally, I do sort of understand his view. He does not like to put anyone on a PIP, and by the time he gets there, he has already concluded that the relationship is not saveable. In his mind, everyone involved should know that the PIP is a formality, and ideally they'd use the time to find another job and have a smooth transition. HR probably would not agree to firing someone with a few months of severance.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#520

Post by EnderWT »

TekMol wrote: post #425

So they scaled from 1000 to 2000 employees in a year because ... 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. ...yet they have not enabled their users to use the Lightning Network? I wonder why. The LN would enable all Coinbase users to do nearly instant and n…

Coinbase has over 5000 employees. They hired 1200 employees in the first three months of this year. That's about the number they had in total just 2 years ago.
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