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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

#331

Post by devoutsalsa »

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…

Wealth taxes are an administrative nightmare. It’s very difficult to reasonably price private assets in an illiquid market. Figuring out how much to charge and collecting it can cost more than you bring in. Patrick Boyle touches on this in…

“Tax The Rich?” — https://youtu.be/pgW4LWeUyVY

My personal opinion is taxing the rich is good. Wealth tax specifically is problematic.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#332

Post by eweise »

qbasic_forever wrote: post #308
eweise wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case there is no income so nothing to tax. Yet I would be worth $50 million and some would cry that's its unfair, which I think is silly.

Then lobby to change the tax laws, just like folks are lobbying to add billionaire taxes. The billionaire tax has nothing to do with the rich having ways of hiding wealth or income, deferring losses, etc. to reduce their tax burden. You're making an argument that obfuscates and obscures the real argument here that billionaires should not exist as they serve no utility in a society besides absorbing resources.

Not sure I understand. The laws work just like I described. Nothing to tax, which is the way it should be.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#333

Post by Johnny555 »

tomcam wrote: post #329
panda-giddiness wrote: post #149

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 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?

How do high risk ideas get executed when there are no billionaires

The same way most of them do now -- through venture capital firms. Or maybe if they had more tax revenue, the US government could sponsor more speculative research and companies.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#335

Post by smsm42 »

Johnny555 wrote: post #281
jerry1979 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not settled on this yet. I'm from the USA, and one thing that concerns me is the geopolitics of billionaires. What happens when USA taxes billionaires out of existence? Russia and China still have billionaires. Does that do something to the power relationships in the world? Is there such a thing as "our" billionaires? The other question I have has to do with feudalism. If we let "our" billionaires exist, does tha…

Does that do something to the power relationships in the world? The fact that you're even asking that is a reason we shouldn't have billionaires -- world power relationships shouldn't be based on the wealth of individual citizens. For example, what did Musk really talk about when he met with the president of Brazil? Did he represent American interests, Amazon Inc's interests, or Elon Musk's interests?

Why not btw? I mean, why is it worse for somebody to have power because he worked and invested for decades and made optimal decisions (and probably some luck) than for somebody to have power because he was born into the right family, knows all the right people in The Machine, has nice hair and is able to conceal his rampaging cocaine habit long enough to make himself too big to fail?

I get that "wealth gets power" is not ideal, but the alternatives we can see around don't seem to be much better. Somebody will have the power, and we as a society would need some proxy to use so that it won't lead to a disaster. Being able to create and run successful businesses (yes, I know not all rich people are self-made, etc. - it's an imperfect proxy, but to a large measure a working one) doesn't look that bad, compared to "being born with right last name" or "being born with the correct facial features"...

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#336

Post by throwaway894345 »

jerry1979 wrote: post #278
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…

I'm not settled on this yet. I'm from the USA, and one thing that concerns me is the geopolitics of billionaires. What happens when USA taxes billionaires out of existence? Russia and China still have billionaires. Does that do something to the power relationships in the world? Is there such a thing as "our" billionaires? The other question I have has to do with feudalism. If we let "our" billionaires exist, does tha…

Also, billionaires' wealth isn't parked in a vault, right? It's invested in companies, so it's working in the economy whereas it would otherwise go to the government. It's not obvious to me that the government is going to provide more value for the public in general than industry, but I would like for that to be the case (an easy solution for inequality that doesn't shrink our economy overall).

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#339

Post by kareemsabri »

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…

> The best mindset is that you could be gone tomorrow.

Best for what?

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#340

Post by epicide »

tomcam wrote: post #329
panda-giddiness wrote: post #149

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 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?

Perhaps part of the problem is that we incentivize high-risk ideas too much.
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