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Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

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Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#701

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know a few people that like working at Amazon and the pay and benefits are good. Do you know people who died there? Are your friends cursed?

A quick search turns up tons of stories like https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2019/oct/17/amazon-wa... We’re not talking about improving the break rooms for corporate SWEs.

How is one anecdotal story with conflicting accounts told in a sensational way so meaningful to you? How did Jeff Bezos and his fugly girlfriend and his billions cause a heart attack? Am I confused or are you?

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Also just something interesting to do. And it’s fun to lead, and get press, and make hard decisions.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#703
post #643

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.

If you could push a button once an hour that gave $1,000 to you and $99,000 to the government you are saying you'd feel like you're being punished for pushing it?

Let's not pretend that billionares are working 1.44 million hours a week to earn 18000 times what the janitor earns working two jobs in an 80 hour week. The quality of a billionaires 'work' is different than 'real work' so what you feel intuitevely about work may not be a great touchstone for how billionaires should be taxed.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#705

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?

Are you advocating against billionaires & capitalism, or against power relationships? In theoretically egalitarian systems like communism, a committee makes decisions about how to allocate resources. Then whoever holds most sway over the committee holds sway over resource allocation. If you do it by direct democracy, then whoever owns the news media & ad platforms (or has money to do massive PR campaigns and ad buys)…

> unless you just run the world by computers and have humans slot in for menial tasks.

BOFH: I've upped my priority, so up yours.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#706
post #664

NPR has just aired a short interview with a former Coinbase PM. She is a founder of a crypto fund now and has never been that optimistic like now with crypto expanding, NFT, many more developers coming into crypto, etc.

Do you recall which show that was? Curious to listen

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#707

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…

>The best mindset is that you could be gone tomorrow.

Can't disagree more. At my last job, I was in a senior position for 7 years, one of the earliest engineering hires. I loved my team, my CEO, the direction of our company, and advertised us to friends.

Then, one Friday, a close coworker was let go without me having any warning or say over the matter. Not during a layoff, just fired one day. After that week, I was practically paranoid 24/7. My boss loved me and I was getting raises, but the anxiety of whether I'd be let go disabled my work progress.

I didn't want to risk "fucking it up" so I became ultra-conservative with my code pushes, review cycles exploded, and I just kept putting off cutting out/replacing features.

It was so stressful that I recognized my personal psychology was deteriorating weekly. My anxiety-driven depression further disabled my progress to a practical halt. I quit the job.

The best work I did was when I was thinking about the actual work, not survival instincts.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#708

I see they cut off access for staff before telling them. not an atypical move, but I wonder if they were actually able to revoke all access, given there's systems like Kubernetes where some auth. types can't be revoked once granted.

Most people will have worked on laptops that have the software installed that allows them to completely brick the device. It just makes me wonder what they'll be doing with 1000+ laptops and other devices. Do they expect people to send it back? Probably yes. I'd personally just declare: "I have low money and I had to fire your laptop service, thanks for the work of getting it to me, I'll be keeping it now." I mean, t…

Airbnb allowed folks to keep their laptops after their recent round of layoffs. Presumably these laptops are managed by IT with the ability to remote wipe.

If not, I feel sorry for the folks in charge of rounding up all this hardware to likely sit around and rot.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So then you are also OK with gutting capitalism and limiting company's abilities to make mad profits? Because, you can't have one without the other.

Why do you think a wealth tax would limit a companies abilities to make "mad profits"?

Because why would anyone, corporate or not, invest substantial time & resources into chasing mad profits if they won't get to keep almost any of it?

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#710

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know a few people that like working at Amazon and the pay and benefits are good. Do you know people who died there? Are your friends cursed?

it is poor argument. you cant see wifi but it exists. if your friends are fine does not mean that there are no issues there. plenty of news articles were published about inhumane working conditions where people cannot go to toilet even.

What does Bezos being a billionaire have to do with the working conditions in Bangladesh? What are you even talking about?
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