Live data from Hacker News

Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

coindesk.com

741–750 of 1001 posts

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#741
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.

Yes, indeed this is how things work in this particular system, so you are kind of making a circular argument.

For instance, I disagree with the whole concept of joint-stock companies.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#743

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…

Just as a mechanical question, say you create a website, things go well, and now your website is worth $X billion. What should happen next? Is it still yours, or do you have to sell it?

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#744

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

The blind stupidity of some developers continues to amaze me. They’ll really go work at a company that per its fundamentals truly wouldn’t exist in any other industry and at any other time because “that’s how tech is”, and then act surprised when reality hits.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#745
post #732

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If winning the lottery is so great, why don't you just become a lotto winner?

Great analogy actually. The founders own the lottery ticket, but they pay employees cold hard cash despite the fact that the lottery ticket will likely be worthless. When the founder lose the lottery, and lose all of the unpaid hours and resources they personally put into buying the ticket, they don't demand employees reimburse them and share in the losses. But on the rare chance that they win the lottery, we have to…

The parent was making no point but was making an unreasonable argument in line of "No one can criticize, but if you believe that then why don't you make a profit?".

Similar to people who say "if crypto is a scam, why don't you short it?"

There are various reasons why people choose to or not choose to become an entrepreneur or why people choose to or not to short something. It doesn't mean just because a person doesn't want to be an entrepreneur, then capitalism is perfect.

The argument is a strawman where-in the original discussion was about billionaire entrepreneurs and how much is a fair reward to them.

We understand the entrepreneur deserve to be rewarded but the original question is up to what extent. Like how in some EU countries, CEO pay is capped.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#746

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds a lot like the AMT situation for stock options where people pay taxes on the paper value of the stock when exercised, even if they don't (or even can) sell it -- the IRS can provide a way to recover taxes paid on unrealized gain if you sell the asset at a loss from where it was taxed. But I'd recommend selling enough of your BTC to pay taxes so you're not underwater if it goes down in value.

howabout no silly wealth taxes? I don't get it. why do we need to keep growing gov't and adding more and more rules/programs/etc.? Certainly we don't need to keep spending more and more, cut it off and some point and stop growing it for some period..

why do we need to keep growing gov't and adding more and more rules/programs/etc.?

Here's one good reason -- decades of underinvestment in infrastructure. The top tax bracket in the 1950's when the Interstate highway system was funded was 90% - now it's 37% and even that is mostly avoided by the most wealthy.

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/state-us-infrastructure

Another reason is the impending climate disaster -- former arable land will become unfarmable, many coastal areas will become uninhabitable or need expensive flood control, etc. This is going to cause huge costs and will almost certainly require government assistance.

And carbon reduction will also be expensive.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#747
post #444
post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much money should people be allowed to have?

No more than it would make others envy you, no less than it would make them pity you.

How do you measure the envy level of citizens such that you can control their income?

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#748

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's really that unfair, why don't you just become an entrepreneur?

This logic is nonsense; no one is allowed to criticize capitalism's flaws? It's like a movie critic cannot criticize a movie, since the film-maker can just state "why don't you just make a better movie?"; A diner cannot criticize the chef because chef can say "why don't just prepare a better meal?", etc.. Bringing the personal into it is unrealistic since not everyone is equipped to be a movie maker, chef or entrepre…

Why stop at criticizing? Go prove people wrong and make a company that does things drastically differently. That's why people are tired with the "I'm just criticizing!" attitude. Instead of talking and telling everyone else they need to change, go show everyone that you know better.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#749

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…

> I think if employees feel slighted by being fired, they're fooling themselves.

I'm going to be honest, it's pretty fucked up to tell someone who just got fired that they're fooling themselves if they feel slighted.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#750
post #748

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This logic is nonsense; no one is allowed to criticize capitalism's flaws? It's like a movie critic cannot criticize a movie, since the film-maker can just state "why don't you just make a better movie?"; A diner cannot criticize the chef because chef can say "why don't just prepare a better meal?", etc.. Bringing the personal into it is unrealistic since not everyone is equipped to be a movie maker, chef or entrepre…

Why stop at criticizing? Go prove people wrong and make a company that does things drastically differently. That's why people are tired with the "I'm just criticizing!" attitude. Instead of talking and telling everyone else they need to change, go show everyone that you know better.

So I guess no one can criticize anymore? If my car is broken, then I have to make my own car?

It's a strawman and a diversion to just be talking about the general concept of fair compensation to CEOs and founders and then to just reply with "why don't you make your own company if you think the pay is too high"?

Post reply on HN