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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

#671

Post by websap »

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…

If I have to be ready for a lay-off tomorrow. I'm basically going to be spending time leetcoding instead of actually working on the hardest problems or thinking about them. Being an engineer doesn't mean you work a 9 - 5 job, your work creeps up on you during off-hours all the time.

Also, if I'm leetcoding consistently, I'm going to be switching jobs as soon as I get a large enough bump.

This industry doesn't reward loyalty and you're recommending that engineers be ready to leave on any given day.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#672

Post by kleer001 »

sytelus wrote: post #511
joshmarinacci wrote: post #40

Coinbase had over 5k employees?!!! WTF. What were they all doing?

And they still didn't have ability to provide statements!

What's insufficient to your needs with their current transaction reports?

It's bare bones, but I think it's useful.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#673

Post by passivate »

runarberg wrote: post #631
passivate wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 emi…

>States provide the infrastructure and educate the workforce which enables the job creations.

Yes, there is a nice division of responsibilities. But ultimately, governments are doing the jobs they get paid for. And they're not only wasteful with our money (spending on wars, defense, etc), ironically (in a sad way) they pay government workers poorly - See teachers' salaries.

>Jobs would be created without the rich.

Jobs were created at all stages in history in all kinds of social and economic conditions. Also, plenty of rich people got rich after starting companies and creating jobs. We're incentivizing people who like money to create jobs, among other things.

>See responses sibling post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31743755) about the issue with 401(k) (or pension funds in non-USA countries).

Those are not responses to my comment, so specifically what part of my comment was inaccurate? I can correct any misunderstandings, or improve my comment to fix any errors on my part.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#674

Post by stevenjgarner »

Aeolun wrote: post #643
sharkweek wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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’m a firm believer in a maximum of like 50% tax on income. Anything more just feels like a punishment for working.

“There is only one way to kill capitalism – by taxes, taxes, and more taxes.” — Karl Marx

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#675

Post by kleer001 »

wonnage wrote: post #22
m00x wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bold claims like this is what make people look like idiots when things turn around. With experience though, you can tell that people who make bold claims like this were always idiots gambling away their credibility, hoping the 50/50 lands in their favour.

There’s no turnaround coming

Eh? Look again in 2 years at the next bitcoin reward halving.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#676

Post by [deleted] »

bezier-curve wrote: post #360
systemvoltage wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need more billionaires to exist. They create wealth through enterprise. It is astounding how many people naively just think "Too much money = bad". Billionaires don't really have cash sitting in their houses. They created companies, often from scratch, that wouldn't otherwise exist. https://ourworldindata.org/economic-growth GDP per capita grew because the wealth was created, not stolen. The entire pie got larger.…

You don't need an economics education to understand the implication of wealth being concentrated in the hands of a few people. This idea that billionaires generate wealth is myth.

[deleted]

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#677

Post by smsm42 »

Domenic_S wrote: post #625
nemothekid wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taleb has a more succint way of putting it[1], but no it can still be luck just like hitting black in roulette several times in a row can also be luck. [1] https://mobile.twitter.com/nntaleb/status/153417277358051328...

Hitting black multiple times in roulette is always luck (barring cheating). What the tweet is saying, and it seems right, is that looking at a probability graph the only way to get the billionaire-like outcome/outlier is to dramatically increase volatility, i.e. bet on long odds. If everyone went to work, maxed out their 401k, bought blue-chip stocks, and called it a day, basically nobody would have outlier net worth…

> buying crypto, starting a company, options trading, whatever

I think these activities are quite different however. Saying starting a company is the same nature of activity as betting on an extremely volatile asset ignores all the work that goes into successfully creating a working company. Surely, there's no guarantee this work will bring result - but it's still not the same as just betting on random high-volatility assets. Even options trading is not (always) just betting, and for more successful traders probably involves certain amount of knowledge in addition to luck. But I don't think describing creating a company as completely probabilistic activity makes any sense.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#678

Post by akoncius »

imdsm wrote: post #647
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…

A lot of people seem to be in the mindset that it'll never be them so it should never be anyone else. It's not just in the US, here in the Uk we have the same mindset too. A lot of people dislike/hate Elon Musk for example, and usually they focus on two things: his tweets, and his wealth. Conveniently forgetting that prior to his work at SpaceX and Tesla (which he's driven) reusable rockets weren't a thing and EVs we…

I think most of this sentiment comes not because of wealth in itself but how it was achieved.

majority of billion dollar companies are associated with bad behaviour : anticompetitive practices, shady deals, government subsidies etc. amazon got billions in subsidies just for opening second headquarters. amazon is selling ripoffs of big brands. worker rights abuses. microsoft did many things to eliminate competition. list goes on and on. and I’m not even talking about uber’s shady projects to avoid government agencies.

so when success gets achieved by scams and shady behaviour, probably it’s not much to celebrate and reward.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#679

Post by Kiro »

uncomputation wrote: post #271
daenz wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why shouldn’t those people be given money? They were given money: their compensation that they agreed and accepted as being fair payment for their labor.

Let’s be conservative and say Armstrong has just a net worth of the house he bought: 150,000,000. If the average employee’s salary is 150,000, Armstrong makes 1,000 times more than them. Does this seem fair? Does he deserve higher compensation for his entrepreneurial skills? Absolutely. But 1,000? It’s hard for us to imagine the scale of 1,000 times greater than something but it seems excessive (and remember, this is…

No, I don't expect to get profit share from the company I work at unless it's written in the contract. Are you serious? I don't care if the owners work 0 hours a week. It's their company and if I wasn't happy with my compensation I would look for another job.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#680

Post by tbrownaw »

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…

> Voting shares don't have to have monetary value.

I would think the power to control a large company would be worth at least something even if it is decoupled from the right to get part of any money they decide to give to stockholders.

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