Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

coindesk.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 1001 posts

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#181

Post by panda-giddiness »

elefanten wrote: post #94
qbasic_forever wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can put a wealth tax on billionaires without putting taxes on poverty level workers ($500/month in the US). You're making bizarre nonsensical arguments here--slippery slope, strawman, etc.

That was clearly not the point. The point is there's always someone with a different bar for what is excessive wealth. Chances are that 80%+ of the world population would find your income staggering, the same way you consider a billionaire's wealth staggering. So how do you decide who's scale to use?

> So how do you decide who's scale to use?

Like the way all other murky subjects are settled, you just decide on one. We don't legalize murder just because some slayings are justified. The existence of grays areas does not preclude the black and white.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#182

Post by CardenB »

toephu2 wrote: post #170
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 should be a heavy wealth tax that makes it hard to become a billionaire Why does everyone want to tax the billionaires? What are you going to get out of it? Do you think taxing the billionaires is actually going to help the poor people? If so, riddle me this: Name one efficiently-run government organization.

Maybe it is less about the tax revenue and more about preventing power imbalance. Why is it good to have so much power concentrated in the hands of one person?

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#183

Post by whimsicalism »

adastra22 wrote: post #146
flashgordon wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have the rock, it is now worth 1 billion dollars. I take out a 50 million dollar loan from the rock and put it into the stock market, which lets say has 2% average real returns over interest (probably low if i have 1 billion in collateral).

I pass the rock on to my children and die 20 years later. The 50 million is now worth 74 million.

Both the rock and 74 million are stepped up to their current value when I pass it on to my children. The children repay the loan with their 50 million and now have 24 million and the 1 billion dollar rock still, tax free.

How is that not tax avoidance?

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#184

Post by toephu2 »

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…

> if it meant equalizing opportunities for everybody

It doesn't though. Taxing the rich, limiting the existence of billionaires is not going to do anything for equalizing opportunities.

If you think so, then please tell me the name of one efficiently-run government organization?

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#185

Post by jfoutz »

toephu2 wrote: post #170
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 should be a heavy wealth tax that makes it hard to become a billionaire Why does everyone want to tax the billionaires? What are you going to get out of it? Do you think taxing the billionaires is actually going to help the poor people? If so, riddle me this: Name one efficiently-run government organization.

Medicare?

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#186

Post by criley2 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #150
xtracto wrote: post #92

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? 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.

Historically it was much, much worse. The only way you can make an argument for saying inequality is greater now (when global poverty/subsistence farming is at the lowest % since human settlement 12000 years ago) is to point to the sheer amount of wealth we generate compared to any other period and nit pick about it's allocation. That's fine, but if you want to go back to farming for your life, like most humans for most of history, you'll probably find it a worse life than being in a developed country middle class, even if "your wealth is technically more equal to a king than a middle class to a ceo"

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#187

Post by dylan604 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #150
xtracto wrote: post #92

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? 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.

with minor blips where the peasants revolt and take out those above them only to settle back under the rule of someone new. it is a minor annoyance to those amassing wealth to keep in mind.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#188

Post by FabHK »

chrisseaton wrote: post #150
xtracto wrote: post #92

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? 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.

I am fairly sure inequality is more extreme than that (top 10% hold 70%) at the moment, and it was less bad in the second half of the 20th century. The top US marginal income tax rate was 90% in the 1960s, and 70% in the 1970s, and it did not seem to discourage GDP growth or innovation.

https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-highes...

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#189

Post by elefanten »

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.

Coinbase is one of the top competitors in its space. They picked a winner.

What's your point? Are you confusing the market they're in contracting (alongside the whole market) with them losing?

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#190

Post by hintymad »

julianlam wrote: post #27
hintymad wrote: post #20

Why they need these many people for an exchange is puzzling. I’m sure there are many things to do, but shouldn’t they grow their headcount organically and slowly?

When you have obscene amounts of money, your perception of what is normal goes out the window.

I thought people would have learned from Uber’s gross failure of overhiring by now and taken a few pages from Netflix’s playbook
Post reply on HN