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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

#321

Post by Aarostotle »

FabHK wrote: post #188
chrisseaton wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

We live in the most equal time in human history. The actual standard of living of the average person in most developed countries rivals that of royal families from just a couple of centuries ago.

Don't confuse monetary inequality with wealth inequality. Measure by the standard of living, not monetary units.

What are the actual differences between the life of the average American worker and Jeff Bezos? It's not that big. Jeff Bezos has the ability to buy luxuries most of us could never dream of, sure, but what about the essentials?

Nearly everyone can get fresh, nutritious meat, as well as fruits and vegetables. High quality milk and dairy products. Frozen goods. Bacterial epidemics are unheard of. Our recent viral pandemic increased annual deaths by about 10-15% over baseline — compare this to epidemics which used to wipe out entire populations. Life expectancy for all people, regardless of class, ranges between 2-3x human life expectancy in a state of nature (roughly 30 years). You can travel hundreds of miles in a day for only a few hours of labor worth of money. You can cross continents or oceans with a few day's of labor worth of money.

Sure, Bezos can have a fancier car with someone driving or his own jet with a pilot flying, but at the end of the day, you can both take off from LAX and land at JFK 6 hours later. You're both going to eat 2,000 calories of nutritious food. You both have running water. And, you're sitting here, both able to communicate with everyone in the world instantly.

Let's not buy into the political propaganda about inequality, the reality of the situation is right in front of our eyes.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#322

Post by smsm42 »

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…

Yes. For certain definitions of "less hard" - he probably would work the same time, but he would have less new projects, less new investments, etc. - some companies that we know now would not exist, because there would be nobody having that kind of money laying around to be spent on crazy projects. Coinbase would probably not exist, because people who were crazy enough to spend money on that kind of extremely risky investments would not have that money around. It's not that those people would be poor - no, they probably would still have nice mansions from those $100M they were allowed to keep. But they wouldn't have enough money "they don't need" to throw them around on highly risky and completely insane projects like making a platform that trades "currency" which relies on bunch of computers repeatedly running hash functions.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#323

Post by bsuvc »

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?

> shouldn’t they grow their headcount organically and slowly?

You would think so, but a lot of companies who are/were venture backed don't think this way.

There is a tremendous pressure to use funding to accelerate growth, which can work fine in a good economy, but can be a disaster in a recession when no amount of capital can speed up growth.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#325

Post by babyshake »

ausbah wrote: post #316
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…

>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. sorry but this reads like you drank the whole bowl of US corporate kool-aid. the insecurity and stress the comes from not knowing if you'll have a job tomorrow in literal insanity. 14 weeks severance shouldn't be seen an…

Even if doing huge amounts of hiring during good times and quickly pivoting to doing large layoffs during bad times is ethical, it sure does seem wasteful and not indicative of great leadership. Although it does seem to be the norm now, if recent years are any indication.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#326

Post by tomcam »

colinmhayes wrote: post #199
tomcam wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much money should people be allowed to have?

Whatever the people decide. That's why we have democracy.

I don’t know who your “we” is, but in the USA it is precisely why we do not have a democracy. We have a republic in the USA. The Senate and electoral college help temper the intoxicating effects that a pure democracy would produce .

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#327

Post by jquery »

ipaddr wrote: post #297
ryandrake wrote: post #138

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? This is rhetoric that tries to confuse two totally different scenarios in order to convince the majority to oppose something that only hurts a tiny minority. Saying "one person should not have 5 generations worth of wealth" is not the same…

Those are just round zeros. You could obtain that much money in some African countries over the last 50 years for a few dollars. The latest cryto coin could give you that many coins. But these are numbers trying to represent wealth. Any cap you put on the top could have the effect of reducing the value of a currency meaning the buying power doesn't change. A billion cap would make your million dollar house worth $100…

Seems like sextillionaires were pretty awful for the economic stability of those African countries. You just reinforced GP’s point.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#328

Post by dlp211 »

oh_sigh wrote: post #216
evanlivingston wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes? Whether you're receiving the value of the asset or not, you're locking up the value of the asset and preventing a larger group of people from benefiting from the value of the asset, which is sort of the point of a wealth tax.

What is the locked up value of the rock? I like it because it reminds me of my grandfather, and the cult that will buy it will lock it in their storage room. My point is: With a wealth tax, anyone with money can take anything they want from anyone without money, even if the person without money doesn't value something in the same way that the person with money does.

This is a contrived example that you've twisted yourself in knots to try and justify. There isn't a person on this planet that wouldn't sell an heirloom for $1 Billion unless the heirloom was actually worth ballpark $1 Billion.

The people that wouldn't sell it for a $1 Billion are the people that would give it a way for free, ie: those that have little value for money.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#329

Post by tomcam »

panda-giddiness wrote: post #149
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? 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 wer…

Who determines excessive? How do high risk ideas get executed when there are no billionaires?

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#330

Post by colinmhayes »

tomcam wrote: post #326
colinmhayes wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever the people decide. That's why we have democracy.

I don’t know who your “we” is, but in the USA it is precisely why we do not have a democracy. We have a republic in the USA. The Senate and electoral college help temper the intoxicating effects that a pure democracy would produce .

> we do not have a democracy

Republics are a type of democracy.

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