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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

#481

Post by snarkypixel »

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…

There needs to be an asymmetrical rewards from taking a huge risk starting a startup. Otherwise people wouldn't do it and just work at big_company.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#482

Post by yellowapple »

IMTDb wrote: post #464
yellowapple wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why does that hurt anyone? Because those yachts were bought with money skimmed off our labor.

Ah yes the famed 0 sum game. If that was the case, it should work both ways: when Bezos "lost" $20 billions of May 1st, how many skimmed labourers suddenly were able to afford $1 million houses ?

> If that was the case, it should work both ways

Why would it? The notion that "it should work both ways" assumes that "both ways" are equally viable.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#483

Post by lkrubner »

usefulcat wrote: post #448
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…

Sincere question: would you give up your right to quit "on a whim" if your employer gave up their right to fire you "on a whim"?

This is not a hypothetical in Britain. Many categories of workers cannot be fired on a whim, nor can they quit on a whim. Many people prefer that trade-off.

For example, in 2012, at Timeout, Aksel Van der Wal was promoted to CEO. He had previously been the CTO, and now we needed a new CTO. We made an offer to a person who had a great reputation as an engineering manager at another company. But he was on a contract he could not get out of, nor would his employer let go of him. So we had to wait 9 months, while he finished that contract, before he could join us.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#484

Post by rglullis »

Arrath wrote: post #411
rglullis wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 .

At first brush, it seems that any gains in automation will immediately be offset by duplication of administrative minutiae in all these new, smaller business entities. Administration, payroll, regulatory compliance, safety programs, training programs etc etc this is the absolute opposite of improved productive ability, is it not? As to the third option, 'human scale' is just cresting 8 billion individuals. We will ne…

> Administration, payroll, regulatory compliance, safety programs, training programs...

These can be outsourced, automated and/or reduced in scope. Each company would be a lot more specialized in their function, so it wouldn't make sense to keep the same set of regulations and policies that we use for larger corporations.

> We will never escape the need for massive infrastructure projects.

Au contraire, I think that we only push for "massive infrastructure projects" because we are addicted to growth. Governments push for growth as a way to keep financing their debts, corporations push for growth as a way to justify their existence.

If we were limited in our ability to grow and established that things needed to be settled organically, cities would be more dispersed but still dense and suburbia would not exist. Global trade would be impacted, but we would be forced to re-learn how to manufacture things locally. Governments would have to figure out ways to sustain the populations with tighter constraints, but we would not get things like the European dependency on Russian gas, etc.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#485

Post by chickenpotpie »

snarkypixel wrote: post #481
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 needs to be an asymmetrical rewards from taking a huge risk starting a startup. Otherwise people wouldn't do it and just work at big_company.

There's a middle ground that works better here. It's not like he wouldn't have started the company if his house was only $109million.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#486

Post by fallingknife »

dlp211 wrote: post #253
toephu2 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

> If you think so, then please tell me the name of one efficiently-run government organization? Please let this trope die. The US government is generally, and especially when it comes to welfare programs, efficient.

All of my experience dealing with the government says the exact opposite.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#487

Post by smsm42 »

guelo wrote: post #398
smsm42 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> has nice hair and is able to conceal his rampaging cocaine habit long enough to make himself too big to fail? You are indoctrinated into believing that democracy cannot work and good government is impossible.

I am indoctrinated by the reality I am observing daily. And before you are tempted to tell me "oh, it's because $not_my_favorite_political_party prevents $my_favorite_political party from achieving its true potential as the paragon of democracy" - this happens regardless of your tribal squabbles.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#488

Post by baq »

antihero wrote: post #426
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…

Get paid for two months to party/holiday/rest, the have another whole month (paid) to lazily job hunt in a crazy hot market and walk into the next place with a 10-30k raise. Happened to me a few times, was fucking awesome. Lack of healthcare would have been a worry but I’m in the U.K. where we get it free. How hard is it to fund your own US insurance on a tech salary to tide you over?

The problem is the market is losing heat by the hour. There’s absolutely no guarantee there’s anyone hiring in a couple months. This year is very unlike the past ones. Closest analogue would be 2007 into 2008… until it’s 2001. Stay alert, eyes on the ball at all times.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#489

Post by vaidhy »

toephu2 wrote: post #359
weakfish wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The postal service is a marvel of efficiency

Right.. which is why it is running at a net loss? "USPS's operating revenue was $77 billion for the 2021 budget year, an increase of $3.9 billion, or 5.3%. It reported a 2020 net loss of $9.2 billion." https://www.reuters.com/business/us-postal-service-reports-4... .

There are 2 different metrics and I think you effectively shift from one to other as it suits you..

Metric 1: They provide an efficient service. Posts reach on time (rain or shine), they have systems and process that make the organization not waste effort.

Metric 2: They earn more money that what is spent by them.

By metric 1, postal service, railways and public transport in most places, a large part of governmental services (DMV), medicare in US are efficient. Depending on your neighborhood, even police, fire and ambulance are efficient.

by metric 2, most government services will not be efficient.. however, the government is not a business and I would argue that because people confuse 2 with 1 is why US does not have a better quality of life. The job of government is service using tax dollars.

Take public transport for example. In my mind, it should be mostly subsidized and effectively free. Trying to make it a profit center makes it a "non-public" transport and you end up with limited services which has secondary effect of reducing mobility and restraining the economy.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#490

Post by its_ethan »

ryandrake wrote: post #394
Aarostotle wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

> What are the actual differences between the life of the average American worker and Jeff Bezos? Here are just a few massive differences between the life of the average American worker and Jeff Bezos that have nothing to do with buying luxury goods: 1. Jeff Bezos can get an audience with any Congressperson, any State governor, most countries's heads of state and probably the President of the US, with a telephone cal…

None of what you've said about Bezos is dependent on him having wealth though. If you could somehow construct a functioning society without money, there would still be someone who has the exact same power/influence that you've described here.

Basically, when you remove money, something else becomes the currency you're describing. Taking away billionaires wealth might actually make it harder to identify the people who have this influence. Rather than news outlets writing articles every other day about Jeff, you'd have some shady person high up in some unelected bureaucracy getting to wield this power. How is that better?

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