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Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

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Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#381

Post by ycta2022061413 »

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…

Unfortunate that workers have internalized the idea that they are disposable tools and not long-term assets. It wasn't that long ago that large corporations like IBM and GE prided themselves on how many people they employed, how much salary they paid and even how much in tax $ they gave to the gov't[1].

1: https://www.npr.org/2022/06/01/1101505691/short-term-profits...

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#382

Post by thethimble »

babyshake wrote: post #325
ausbah wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Well it’s not clear that anyone could have predicted the timing of this downturn. Just a few months ago people were painting a very rosy picture for the future. In that context, metering investment can have a huge opportunity cost as well.

I’m not advocating for CB - just suggesting that it’s harder to predict the future than you are implying.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#383

Post by whimsicalism »

smsm42 wrote: post #335
Johnny555 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There's no such thing as too big to fail in democratic politics and it is not a deterministic process of knowing people in "The Machine."

FWIW, most wealthy people are wealthy because of inherited holdings and 60% of all wealth in the US is inherited.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#384

Post by AlexandrB »

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…

I think the parent's statement was descriptive, not normative. The writing was on the wall when unions became scarce and "at-will employment" became the norm.

The fact that things shouldn't be like this doesn't change the fact that they are like this.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#385

Post by Apocryphon »

googlryas wrote: post #282
Apocryphon wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is an incredibly contrived, fantastical scenario that is too grating to even consider.

Of course it is a contrived, fantastical scenario. But the point is: Does it meaningfully deviate from the key points for any wealth tax scenario?

A wealth tax scenario, like all taxes in real life, will have its share of exceptions, carve-outs, and loopholes. Meaning the wealth assessment process will inevitably be far more involved than "a weird little cult offered a billion dollars for it."

Now, from a parable perspective, does the post mirror the principle of how wealth taxes work? Maybe, if you're willing to equate the entire market (or whatever communal entity we're using for the basis of assessment) to a weird little cult.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#386

Post by rglullis »

Arrath wrote: post #380
rglullis wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a much easier way to do it [0], we just need to be willing to get rid of Corporativism. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31317641

"- no business entity can have more than 150 people." How is that supposed to work with any labor intensive process? E.g. I work on a construction project where there are over 220 field craft workers on day shift alone. Office staff and inspectors are another 100 or so. Night shift adds yet more. Should each of those be its own business entity?

Yes, or your company will have to invest in automation. Both alternatives are good.

Third option, we stop working on such large projects, and focus our collective efforts on making our societies and our environments more human-scaled. Again, it is an option that I see as good.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#387

Post by dgudkov »

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…

History teaches us that people who don't want billionaires to exist eventually start not wanting millionaires to exist.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#388

Post by passivate »

marcosdumay wrote: post #193
toephu2 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Why does everyone want to tax the billionaires? Because they take a lot of value out of a shared society and concentrate too much power on their hands. > What are you going to get out of it? Reduce the power discrepancies, mostly, and money too. > Do you think taxing the billionaires is actually going to help the poor people? Yep. You are asking about government efficiency, but one of the reasons for the lack of ef…

That which is asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#389

Post by runarberg »

ipnon wrote: post #84
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…

Billionaires are highly correlated with millionaires, which don't seem to be beyond the pale for critics of wealth inequality. Countries with billionaires rank much higher on quality of life than those without. It hurts to see Bezos and Musk in yachts but the side effect of their wealth is companies like Amazon and Tesla that have a net positive effect on society in terms of products and employment.

It is worth noting that measures of quality of life are often conflated with wealth, even to a degree that they quite often use straight up economic metrics (like GDP) in their models.

On top of that our global capitalist situation heavily favor exploitation in cheaper labor markets. So if you are a millionaire CEO in a rich country you are very likely to exploit your workers in poorer countries (or more likely, the workers of your providers and contractors) which overall increases the QOL in your country while decreasing it in your worker’s country. Your correlation might be a cross causation.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#390

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

dgudkov wrote: post #387
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…

History teaches us that people who don't want billionaires to exist eventually start not wanting millionaires to exist.

Does it? Is there an example of said gradual progression?
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