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Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

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Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#611

Post by marcosdumay »

idoh wrote: post #267
marcosdumay wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

To what extent do you think that billionaires earn the wealth that they have?

That seems to vary a lot, so it's not viable to make policy based on it.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#612

Post by consumer451 »

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…

The best argument I can think of for why humans should not have wealth disparities at levels of 500,000,000,000:1 is that Tax Induced Psychosis appears to be a thing.

Having to write 10 digit checks to the government makes people behave irrationally. We are just not evolved for it and likely never will be.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#613

Post by stevenjgarner »

Johnny555 wrote: post #606
stevenjgarner wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A wealth tax implies a tax on unrealized appreciated assets, which is beyond bizarre IMHO. So you buy a house for $500k somewhere. It surges in value to $1.2 million. You therefore have an unrealized capital gain of $700k. You are NEVER going to get that money until you sell it, and when you do you are going to pay a whopping amount of capital gain tax. But a wealth tax implies you pay that capital gain tax now. Okay…

Oh, you mean like the property tax I pay on my unrealized house value? I don't get that tax back if I end up selling my house for half what it was taxed for last year. But I can appeal the evaluation for this year.

Depending on the jurisdiction, property taxes are usually a function of the property valuation. So at least if the property value goes down, theoretically so do your annual property taxes. The problem with a theoretical wealth tax, is that when the asset value goes down, too late you've already paid your wealth tax.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#614

Post by runarberg »

rnxrx wrote: post #408
ipnon wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do countries with more billionaires inherently rank higher in terms of quality of life, or do billionaires tend to live in places that already have higher quality of life (...particularly for the wealthy)?

Or do the rich exploit workers in poorer countries, backing their wealth of the decreased quality of life in poorer countries?

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#615

Post by mkr-hn »

jcampbell1 wrote: post #590
alx__ wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Christ on a skateboard!? All the temporarily displaced billionaires in this thread are something else. If you require more than 100M in net worth to be "motivated" to work. There's a larger problem with you. Being a CEO/leader doesn't require some skill set that's given to you from some mythical watery being just because you're special.

It isn’t about the money, rather it is a public scoreboard to remind us that we must serve others and be innovative.

It's not working. Jeff Bezos said he can't think of anything to do with his money other than build rockets while people die in his warehouses. Too much money makes people out of touch. I don't think billionaires are evil, I just think they don't know what life is like for people who still have a concept of "cost of living."

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#616

Post by lovecg »

Johnny555 wrote: post #606
stevenjgarner wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A wealth tax implies a tax on unrealized appreciated assets, which is beyond bizarre IMHO. So you buy a house for $500k somewhere. It surges in value to $1.2 million. You therefore have an unrealized capital gain of $700k. You are NEVER going to get that money until you sell it, and when you do you are going to pay a whopping amount of capital gain tax. But a wealth tax implies you pay that capital gain tax now. Okay…

Oh, you mean like the property tax I pay on my unrealized house value? I don't get that tax back if I end up selling my house for half what it was taxed for last year. But I can appeal the evaluation for this year.

We don’t have to be absolutist about it. Houses are not nearly as volatile as stock, so evaluating and taxing them as wealth is pretty feasible.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#617

Post by Apocryphon »

Stupulous wrote: post #607
alx__ wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Christ on a skateboard!? All the temporarily displaced billionaires in this thread are something else. If you require more than 100M in net worth to be "motivated" to work. There's a larger problem with you. Being a CEO/leader doesn't require some skill set that's given to you from some mythical watery being just because you're special.

100M in net worth would motivate me, but one of the differences between me and a talented CEO is that I don't already have 100M in net worth. Gates had well over 100M when Microsoft went public in 1986, Bezos had more than a billion when Amazon went public in 1998, Musk made 150M on Ebay's Paypal acquisition in 2002. We may disagree on whether we're better off that they continued working, but I don't think they would…

So you're saying all of those figures were more motivated by money rather than building something of value. Do you truly think they were more motivated by money than by glory, a competitive spirit, a desire for legacy?

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#618

Post by sharkweek »

alx__ wrote: post #584
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…

Christ on a skateboard!? All the temporarily displaced billionaires in this thread are something else. If you require more than 100M in net worth to be "motivated" to work. There's a larger problem with you. Being a CEO/leader doesn't require some skill set that's given to you from some mythical watery being just because you're special.

I'm a big fan of 100% taxation on anything above 999M, but my continuation here is that anyone that earns more than that gets a trophy for every additional 1B they earn put on display in a big museum in a city of their choice (Museums selectively scattered around the US).

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#619

Post by stevenjgarner »

lovecg wrote: post #616
Johnny555 wrote: post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, you mean like the property tax I pay on my unrealized house value? I don't get that tax back if I end up selling my house for half what it was taxed for last year. But I can appeal the evaluation for this year.

We don’t have to be absolutist about it. Houses are not nearly as volatile as stock, so evaluating and taxing them as wealth is pretty feasible.

> Houses are not nearly as volatile as stock

I know six million American households who lost their homes to foreclosure in 2008 that might disagree with that one.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#620

Post by Johnny555 »

yellowbanana wrote: post #608
alx__ wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Christ on a skateboard!? All the temporarily displaced billionaires in this thread are something else. If you require more than 100M in net worth to be "motivated" to work. There's a larger problem with you. Being a CEO/leader doesn't require some skill set that's given to you from some mythical watery being just because you're special.

This has nothing to do with motivation, If you start a company and that company becomes succesfull you will end up rich. > Being a CEO/leader doesn't require some skill set that's given to you from some mythical watery being just because you're special. Controlling a company requires shares, and shares are networth, it is good that companies are controlled by people who most understand them, and those are the people…

Controlling a company requires shares, and shares are networth, it is good that companies are controlled by people who most understand them, and those are the people who started/built them.

Voting shares don't have to have monetary value. Rememeber Google's IPO where the founders had stock with 10 votes per share, or Berkshire Hathaway's Class B stock with 1/10000th the voting rights as class A?

So a founder could retain control of a company without becoming personally rich.

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