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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

#171

Post by kiba »

Johnny555 wrote: post #45
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…

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…

Having a billion dollars is a side effect of our current system. Much more useful to focus on system level incentive than to focus on a small minority at the top.

If there's people with budgets for yacht, then there are a much larger group of people with budgets for fancy houses.

And an even larger group of people whose incentive is to see the price of their homes rise, contrary to the societal goal or providing affordable homes for everyone.

If you implement a nationwide land value tax, I believe the wealth disparity will start to disappears and there may be less billionaires, but everyone will benefit.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#172

Post by missedthecue »

unethical_ban wrote: post #35
daenz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing wrong with people collectively giving someone money.

With the context of what wealth inequality is doing to society and what political power raw money brings to people, I posit there is a line where it is wrong.

Bezos is probably the most unpopular person in Washington. We don't have a president Bloomberg. I submit to you that you are vastly overestimating the amount of political power having money automatically brings someone.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#173

Post by pphysch »

Grustaf wrote: post #104

How can they even have 1100 employees? That's more than the East India Company needed to run a whole subcontinent, probably.

EIC was working in concert with other major British institutions including the military. They probably had 100,000s of personnel in total.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#174

Post by isoprophlex »

mjr00 wrote: post #100
ssharp wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm struggling to find a good analogy to these crypto boom/bust cycles, where the market continues to survive/thrive after the busts. The closest I can come up with is real estate, but there is a core underlying value in real estate in that people need space to live/work/shop/whatever -- so when speculative bubbles burst, there is pretty significant underlying demand. I have a hard time drawing that parallel the cryp…

Not an asset class, but I'd draw parallels to Texas Hold 'Em. In 2003, Chris Moneymaker wins $2.5 million at the WSOP as an amateur who qualified through the internet; within a year, everyone is talking about hold 'em, their bankroll strategy, having poker nights with their buddies, how they're playing 12 tables at once online, etc. Culminates in massive mainstream acceptance, ads for Pokerstars running on major netw…

Lets just hope the next craze doesn't use a bazillion kWh's of electricity

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#175

Post by elefanten »

flashgordon wrote: post #122
tomcam wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much money should people be allowed to have?

Ok let me take a stab at it. I actually am on the fence on this so purely a thought exercise for me. Plus as someone getting into midlife crisis this has been on top of mind for me. How about take (in no order): 1. 1 or 2 fancy cars/suvs 2. Be able to travel business class (say once a month) for vacations and stay in decent hotels 3. Nice education (say 2 degrees at a top college) 4. Nice house (say 2 rooms per famil…

Add social expenses -- what it takes to fit into a society or community.

Add a buffer for risk and uncertainty about the future.

And then consider what role location has on the whole package. If you want proximity to one of the global hubs / power centers, then you're looking at doing this all in a top-tier cost market.

Then you easily push into tens of millions. Breaking a hundred million to super thoroughly check those boxes isn't a stretch.

This is before considering an agenda / passion that you want to see changed in the world. And before any ambitious desires from family members and close friends.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#176

Post by joezydeco »

kingboss wrote: post #152

Wasn't this guy one of Paul Graham's darlings? Weren't the "geniuses" at YCombinator invested in this pile of trash? I would really like one of those "insightful" posts from pg telling us how to pick winners right about now.

We went over this 9 years ago.

When you posted anything negative and mentioned YC in the headline, the mods edited the headline. When Coinbase went dark during the first crypto winter (or was it the second?), asking for some/any help here was ridiculed by the YC powers that be (i.e pg)

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#177

Post by criley2 »

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 problem isn't the 91% to the 99% in my opinion. In the United States, the 99th percentile for income is ~$300,000, which is a ton of money in a low cost of living (rural) area and a decent amount of money in a high cost of living (urban) area.

But these are not the "capitalist class". They don't own significant portions of a company unless they started a small business (a lawyer or doctor running their own practice). They also generally had to go through an enormous burden to get there. A doctor for example might be nearly 40 years old with $500,000+ in debt before they're making $300k, and many doctors will never make that much, period.

The funny part of "limiting income" is that it only affects the working rich, not the capitalist class. Steve Job's salary was $1 and many CEO's famously have basically no salary and compensation in stock.

So what do you do? Tax their stock sales? We do and should do more. Force them to sell their stock for the benefit of the taxpayer? Ban them from even owning large amounts of the company? Have the government automatically own part of the company? All of these sound yikes to me.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#178

Post by hpkuarg »

Swenrekcah wrote: post #124
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.

This is the real problem. In theory it could be argued that a wealth tax and estate tax are the only really fair taxes in a capitalist economy. He who owns then capital is king, so tax the capital. But in reality it would as you say force all sorts of unwanted liquidation and monetisation of assets just to pay the tax.

Land value tax is the only really fair tax.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#179

Post by valar_m »

Grustaf wrote: post #104

How can they even have 1100 employees? That's more than the East India Company needed to run a whole subcontinent, probably.

East India Company employed 260,000 soldiers alone, not even counting the entire rest of the company. That took 20 seconds to find.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#180

Post by hourago »

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?

> Does someone earning more than you hurt you?

The economy is not a zero sum game. But billionaires are getting all the growth while middle class and the poor see their share of the economy shrink.

This is not about my neighbour earning more than me, it's about corporations that take over big chunks of the economy.

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