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Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

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Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#631

Post by runarberg »

passivate wrote: post #404
john_yaya wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“companies like Amazon and Tesla that have a net positive effect on society” Citation needed.

For me, I am convinced that they create jobs, spend money in the economy, help provide valuable goods and services to society, etc. Amazon is famous for not hoarding money but re-investing their profits. Most 401ks invest in index funds that are buoyed by the tech stocks. I don't have ready citations but I believe these to be relatively uncontroversial statements. This whole talk about "net positive" and what is "net…

States provide the infrastructure and educate the workforce which enables the job creations. Jobs would be created without the rich. See responses sibling post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31743755) about the issue with 401(k) (or pension funds in non-USA countries).

This is indeed a very controversial statement because the rich are living a lifestyle which is at best unsustainable for the planet. They emit more greenhouse gas into the atmosphere for their own lavish lifestyles. They exploit poor labor conditions and lobby against every minor improvement. They don’t contribute to our shared funds like regular people, decreasing the state’s funds for more infrastructure which would have created more jobs. And they cause stress with their increased wealth disparity. Many research has shown perceived inequality is a significant stress producer. We may very well be bettor off without them.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#633

Post by theptip »

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…

> I don't think they would have done so as a public service after they capped out lifetime income.

That is definitely the big question. Given that Gates is busy donating most of his cash to charity, there are counterexamples.

But even biting the bullet and accepting the premise, it’s not immediately obvious that losing all of the work from current billionaires would be a bad trade in exchange for substantially reduced inequality.

My counterpoint is that most billionaires don’t seem to be continuing to work hard primarily to get another billion. It’s more for the fun/fulfillment and status. If they can still have fun and status even without controlling as much wealth they will probably still go for it.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#634

Post by xvedejas »

Johnny555 wrote: post #620
yellowbanana wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 re…

Aren't those classes of stock with voting power worth a lot more? I'm not sure how you'd possibly avoid being rich on paper if you have a majority voting power for Google.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#635

Post by theptip »

sharkweek wrote: post #618
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.

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).

I like the idea of getting public achievements based on your personal tax contributions.

Give them a public museum name for each $B for all I care!

Or more generally, just let them pick which program they want to have their face/logo on. “The Musk EV car subsidy” etc.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#636

Post by [deleted] »

Johnny555 wrote: post #630
lovecg wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I live in a "hot" real estate market, my house has appreciated nearly 50% in 2 years. It's entirely possible that it will depreciate 20% or more over the next year.

[deleted]

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#637

Post by theptip »

stevenjgarner wrote: post #604
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…

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…

> You are NEVER going to get that money until you sell it

If you need to unlock the equity you can get a HELOC. More generally, if you own an asset with a well-known pricing model you can use it as collateral for a loan.

To your second point I believe you do carry over tax losses for some time.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#638

Post by jxi »

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…

It’s not about whether humans think it’s moral or right or whatever that there are people with exponential wealth. It’s just how exponentials work and no amount of policy will fix things like this. There will always be holes because the demand and income are exponential and the money has to go somewhere. You can try to enforce communism and redistribution to employees but imo that just makes the problem worse with the top leaders of nations finding ways to get even more of the pie for themselves.

The other thing to keep in kind is that while having 100mm is a lot of money, it probably does not change your life in exponential ways compared to 10mm, so you can consider some of the wealth essentially “burnt”. Don’t worry too much about specific numbers, as long as normal people have enough purchasing power to survive and be happy.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#639

Post by roflulz »

uncomputation wrote: post #232
daenz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing wrong with people collectively giving someone money.

If Armstrong was the sole CTO, COO, CPO, CLO, designer, marketer, advertiser, programmer, and researcher, then yes, all money should go to him. But Coinbase was made what it is by many people, the majority of which have nothing close to wealth Armstrong enjoys. Why shouldn’t those people be given money? I agree there should be some incentive for entrepreneurs and the people who make “the business side” work, but does…

as someone who has actually tried to start a company - he deserves it and more

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#640

Post by idiotsecant »

stevenjgarner wrote: post #604
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…

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…

Yes, I see your point. 'Wealth' is what rich people have, in which case taxes on it's value don't make sense! That's ludicrous! 'Property', on the other hand, is what normal people have. The value of property must be taxed, for the good of us all! Anything else would be silly.
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