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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

#751

Post by koolba »

mjr00 wrote: post #100
ssharp wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm struggling to find a good analogy to these crypto boom/bust cycles, where the market continues to survive/thrive after the busts. The closest I can come up with is real estate, but there is a core underlying value in real estate in that people need space to live/work/shop/whatever -- so when speculative bubbles burst, there is pretty significant underlying demand. I have a hard time drawing that parallel the cryp…

Not an asset class, but I'd draw parallels to Texas Hold 'Em. In 2003, Chris Moneymaker wins $2.5 million at the WSOP as an amateur who qualified through the internet; within a year, everyone is talking about hold 'em, their bankroll strategy, having poker nights with their buddies, how they're playing 12 tables at once online, etc. Culminates in massive mainstream acceptance, ads for Pokerstars running on major netw…

The main factor in the drop of online poker was the USA crackdown on poker sites. It remains wildly popular in jurisdictions where it is still legal and is making a comeback in some US states that have since re-opened it.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#752

Post by dh2022 »

wwarner wrote: post #571
its_ethan wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious, if 10% of people holding 70% of wealth is unreasonable, how do you reconcile 1% of Spotify artists getting 90% of all "streams"? Basically, you're saying that the current distribution is crazy/unsustainable (and maybe it is) but the distribution is actually not totally out of whack with the 80/20 rule (or Pareto principle). Just wondering where your confidence comes from that a functioning society doesn…

Actually, it's not simply the proportion, but the fact that over time the proportion of wealth held by the richest has been growing really fast. So, to use your analogy, I agree that a small number artists commanding the lion's share of attention can be fair, but if over time, an ever smaller number commanded an ever greater share, very soon every one would be listening to one artist and one song, and fair or not I d…

90% of the customers voted with their "ears" to listen to 1% of music producers. Nothing wrong with that.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#753

Post by ffggvv »

sytelus wrote: post #503

I don't understand why Coinbase is feeling such a crunch. They are just middleman in buying and selling. Their advantage is supposed to be that they make money whether crypto goes up or down. How can they screw this up?

youre right they make money off volume, not price. but volume surges when price goes up and dries up when prices go down. (aka crypto winter)

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#754

Post by iratewizard »

jcampbell1 wrote: post #710
akoncius wrote: post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

There are two kinds of commenters in a flame war. First, the people lead by their emotion, who pretend their emotions can be rationalized as factual and logical. Then, the people who are easily baited into telling them they're idiots.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#755

Post by blackoil »

sdh wrote: post #683
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…

Maybe you're not aware how these "unrealized" capital gains (at scale) are indirectly realized in the form of loans taken against value of the asset. Massive wealth doesn't operate in income or even in typical capital gains advantages you're referring to. It operates at a scale where the value of the assets are so great, banks compete to give loans to them, which are not taxed like income. It's totally absurd to argu…

Are these loans ever repaid or are you suggesting Bezos/Bill Gates etc have slowly accumulated loans to be paid in some long future. If so there must be some public info. about its stats

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#756

Post by bombcar »

mjr00 wrote: post #651
wly_cdgr wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flaw with your analogy is that poker continues to be hugely popular worldwide. Check WSOP.com any time this month

Poker is not even remotely as popular as it was in the mid-00s. Google Trends shows "texas hold em" currently at 1% of its peak in mid-2004, and the more general "poker" at about 14%. It definitely still exists, there are still tournaments, and it's still played by people around the world, but it's not a part of the cultural zeitgeist like it was ~20 years ago.

This is correct - in the '00s everyone was playing online, or playing after work, or knew someone who was playing. It was big - bigger than crypto is even now. It really was a fad that caught people's attention, combined with lax regulations enabling online play - it was a firestorm.

Which relatively quickly died off.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#757

Post by trhway »

8cmj7A wrote: post #706
trhway wrote: 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

it was today's https://www.kqed.org/radio/program/marketplace, somewhere in the middle/end

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#758

Post by bombcar »

mrzimmerman wrote: post #589
bsuvc wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> shouldn’t they grow their headcount organically and slowly? You would think so, but a lot of companies who are/were venture backed don't think this way. There is a tremendous pressure to use funding to accelerate growth, which can work fine in a good economy, but can be a disaster in a recession when no amount of capital can speed up growth.

Blitz-scaling is still the primary mindset at a lot of startups (at least where I've worked or the companies I've come into contact with). They may use some other term but the "grab market share as fast as possible and worry about profitability later" is the general strategy. I think this leads to a lot of companies making bad calls like over hiring or building awkward products. I'm not saying blitz-scaling can't be…

In a rapidly growing company you also have the new layer of managers jostling for position - if you get three new engineers (which we badly needed to keep the servers running) then I will want three new engineers to match (to do God knows what, but hell if I'm gonna let your headcount get bigger than mine).

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#759

Post by refurb »

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…

No the CEO will just start their company outside the US.

I worked in Asia and had many conversations about where companies are founded and a lot (not all) came down to tax law.

If you have two equal choices and one has high taxes and one low, why would you start you company in a high tax jurisdiction?

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