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Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

coindesk.com

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Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#141

Post by objclxt »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #15

I think if employees feel slighted by being fired, they're fooling themselves. The best mindset is that you could be gone tomorrow. It gives you clarity and purpose. It also happens to be the truth. Coinbase was also extremely generous with severance. 12 weeks plus two for every one year at the company, I think. I've had the experience of being let go without notice and without severance. Devs seem a little more griz…

> Coinbase was also extremely generous with severance. 12 weeks plus two for every one year at the company, I think [...] Three and a half months of dev salary is pretty incredible.

...literally this is the minimum they can get away with in some jurisdictions. It's illegal in plenty of countries to conduct mass layoffs without either a consultation period or putting people on garden leave (i.e, severance).

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#142

Post by Johnny555 »

tomcam wrote: post #62
Johnny555 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep pointing to Armstrong's $110M house like it's some sort of injustice. If you think billionaires should exist at all, then that's one of the least-bad injustices imaginable Ok, I'll admit it, billionaires should not exist at all, there should be a heavy wealth tax that makes it hard to become a billionaire. Will a CEO work less hard if he (and his peers) can only ever gain $100M in net worth before a wealt…

There are plenty of people in the world who would think that anything over $500/month is way more than enough for one person. Should your compensation be reduced to that amount? Does someone earning more than you hurt you? Also… do billionaires employ people? Do you want their employees to have their jobs seized from them when the johny555 tax goes into effect?

There are plenty of people in the world who would think that anything over $500/month is way more than enough for one person

You're not making a serious point if you're looking at world income to guide policy in the USA, or any other first world country, you're just making up a strawman.

do billionaires employ people

I'm sure they have a small household staff, maybe security, yacht staff, private pilots, so maybe in the small hundreds.

But Tesla employees a 100,000 people, SpaceX employes 10,000 - both of those companies would exist regardless of Elon Musk's personal wealth. In fact, having so much wealth in one person is a liability to the company -- Musk can singlehandedly tank Tesla's stock.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#143

Post by Apocryphon »

ipnon wrote: post #107
john_yaya wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“companies like Amazon and Tesla that have a net positive effect on society” Citation needed.

My claim is that if these companies weren't useful than they wouldn't exist. People hate Bezos but they spend their money at Amazon. Methinks they doth protest too much!

Amazon is immensely useful, but perhaps they are no longer a net positive to society. The goods and services they provide are certainly useful. But their status as a monopoly prevents a flourishing, competitive market that could address their failings. Amazon as a product is arguably poorer in quality than it used to be: just look at the state of their spammed-out reviews, scam products sold on their platform, etc. Their logistics offerings (built on poor working conditions) and AWS have certainly improved compared to the past. But other aspects have fallen short.

Maybe we shouldn't speak of companies as being "net positive" or "net negative", but rather speak of what could be improved if there was more competition, more companies, more market. Less monopolies.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#145

Post by dubcanada »

oh_sigh wrote: post #70
DoubleDerper wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coinbase is notoriously poor at customer service, so this doesn't make sense. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27653022

1 employee per 2000 customers seems like it makes perfect sense as to why customer service would be bad.

Why? Presumably your product works, so at best you'd only have like 1% (20) customers with issues on any given day. 1 customer service agent should be able to attend to 20 issues in a 7-8 hour shift.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#146

Post by adastra22 »

flashgordon wrote: post #129
oh_sigh wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just a run of the mill average joe, who has a rock that has been in my family for generations. Turns out some weird little cult likes my rock and wants to buy it for $1B. Should I be forced to sell my rock, because I'm getting a $500M tax bill from the government because some weird little cult said they would pay $1B for it - regardless of whether I want to sell my rock?

So here is the thing. Your rock, your wish. It is wierd when you get to take interest free lines of credit on the 1B valuation on the rock and never pay the 500m in taxes :)

Either the rock gets sold and the income is realized and the taxes are paid then, or the rock ends up being worthless and the loan margin called for possession of the rock and the remaining value is taxed as income. Either way the taxes get paid in the end.

Tax deference is not tax avoidance.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#147

Post by spullara »

planb wrote: post #117
nightski wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wealth taxes seem so dumb to me. In many cases it's forcing sale of private or public company ownership from those who know the company best often to - you guessed it - institutional investors. It's bad enough how much control institutional investors have, but to force it by law seems even more ridiculous. There has to be a better solution.

You had me for one second with that argument. But if you sell off your company, you would still get rich and be taxed - so why wouldn't you stay on board and your goal is not to get richer, but to create the best business you can?

You have to sell the business to pay the tax. That is why wealth taxes are pretty dumb without carve outs for many kinds of assets.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#148

Post by jstanley »

SantalBlush wrote: post #89
jstanley wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Will a CEO work less hard if he (and his peers) can only ever gain $100M in net worth before a wealth tax on assets kicks in? He'll certainly work a lot less hard after the wealth tax kicks in.

Then another entrepreneur who hasn't yet made $100M can start a business in the same space. If the market can bear both businesses, then they both win. If it can't, then they're in direct competition and we're still better off. This actually sounds better than what we have now: monopoly as the end goal.

Then why don't we set the cutoff at £10k instead so that the very poorest have a chance?

Or set the cutoff at just above the poorest person's net worth. When they make some money they won't be the poorest any more and next year it will be updated to the new poorest person's net worth. That way we make sure everybody has a fair chance at getting rich.

Or is it possible that those who have a demonstrated history of wealth creation are actually better at it, and we're all better off if they continue to do more of it?

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#149

Post by panda-giddiness »

tomcam wrote: post #62
Johnny555 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep pointing to Armstrong's $110M house like it's some sort of injustice. If you think billionaires should exist at all, then that's one of the least-bad injustices imaginable Ok, I'll admit it, billionaires should not exist at all, there should be a heavy wealth tax that makes it hard to become a billionaire. Will a CEO work less hard if he (and his peers) can only ever gain $100M in net worth before a wealt…

There are plenty of people in the world who would think that anything over $500/month is way more than enough for one person. Should your compensation be reduced to that amount? Does someone earning more than you hurt you? Also… do billionaires employ people? Do you want their employees to have their jobs seized from them when the johny555 tax goes into effect?

> There are plenty of people in the world who would think that anything over $500/month is way more than enough for one person. Should your compensation be reduced to that amount?

This is an absurd slippery slope, and a bizarre appeal to "plenty of people" to boot. There is a significant and categorical difference between $500/mo and $1 billion. You undermine your own point by not addressing it.

In fact, if there were a wealth cap of $500/mo as you posit, it would take over 150000 years to accumulate $1 billion, which frankly only reinforces how excessive that amount of money is.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#150

Post by chrisseaton »

xtracto wrote: post #92
tomcam wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of people in the world who would think that anything over $500/month is way more than enough for one person. Should your compensation be reduced to that amount? Does someone earning more than you hurt you? Also… do billionaires employ people? Do you want their employees to have their jobs seized from them when the johny555 tax goes into effect?

> There are plenty of people in the world who would think that anything over $500/month is way more than enough for one person. Should your compensation be reduced to that amount? Disclaimer: I live in a 3rd world country and my salary is 1/3 of what the standard US salary is. YES, I do believe that everybody's compensation (including mine) who are in the top 10% of the population should be decreased/limited. Provide…

> The top 10% of the population hold 70% of the total wealth. That's just crazy and unsustainable.

Been sustained so far throughout all of human history.

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