Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

coindesk.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

801–810 of 1001 posts

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#801

Post by _uy6i »

Johnny555 wrote: post #606
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…

Oh, you mean like the property tax I pay on my unrealized house value? I don't get that tax back if I end up selling my house for half what it was taxed for last year. But I can appeal the evaluation for this year.

Property taxes are a bad idea too.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#802

Post by MikeTheRocker »

joering2 wrote: post #86

In my opinion this is what greed does to people. Doesn't matter your background. Armstrong was here on HN pointing out his vision of free exchange of currency at close to zero rates. He wanted to fight "the big guys", including credit cards mafia and PayPal mafia. What A WONDERFUL goal. What he ended up with, is obnoxious exchange rates @ Coinbase (triple what credit cards charge), hundreds of thousands of ruined liv…

I think it's pretty disingenuous to put the blame for user's financial outcomes (and suicides) on Brian

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#803

Post by eric_cc »

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…

Even if

> billionaires should not exist at all

Hell no to

> a heavy wealth tax

The federal government is the last organization on earth that deserves more money.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#804

Post by Kina »

yellowbanana wrote: post #608
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.

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…

> There seems to be an illogical hate to people who have build companies that ended up being successfull [sic].

Companies are comprised of people and people do not like giving up control they have fought for, whether it is reasonable or not. It is difficult for many to avoid the temptation to use a position of power unethically to retain it. Nobody wants to be RIM/Blackberry, but it's neither okay for a company like Qualcomm to make immensely inequitable deals that are tantamount to extortion because they own patents on essential technology.

If you're the only game in town, you have a responsibility to act reasonably, but many do not and often the founders/execs seem to think they are entitled to keep their success.

Yes, you earned your success, but keeping it is another fight.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#805

Post by tomcam »

flashgordon wrote: post #460
tomcam wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you describe the new governmental Department of Hobby Restrictions? I study music history, transcribe old popular songs, and play many different instruments. Does this count as one hobby called music or does it count as three different hobbies? What would be the penalty for an asshole like me having three hobbies instead of the two allowed under your plan? Am I allowed to have one flute, or if I play professional…

So the #hobbies is really up to you. At some point personal responsibility would need to kick in to support things beyond some level of basic necessities no?

Is it irresponsible that I know how to play a dozen different instruments?

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#806

Post by californical »

Johnny555 wrote: post #785
imdsm wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. Let's say I earn over the threshold, and I can now either choose to continue to try and innovate and add value to society, or retire to a private island and just become a carbon contributor, I mean, why work myself into the ground if I can no longer benefit? Most people have assets not liquidity too, so it's like saying, if you own too much, you have to stop. Well, what if Elon stopped and we reverted bac…

I mean, why work myself into the ground if I can no longer benefit? That's a good question for the current situation -- why does Bezos still go to work? Once you have $100B, what tangible benefit do you get from more? Surely he's not doing it for the money, another $1B, or even $100B isn't going to change his lifestyle.

It may not change his lifestyle, but it’s still a motivating achievement.

If a world-class marathon runner is 4 minutes ahead in a race, and can see the finish line, do they start walking? Or do they try to push themselves even harder to see how much more they can win by?

People are competitive, and are always motivated by achieving “more”, even if it doesn’t change the outcome for them. Does society benefit by billionaires pushing for more? I’m not sure, but I don’t think that the answer is clearly “no”.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#807

Post by yowzadave »

imdsm wrote: post #665
Aeolun wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Absolutely. Let's say I earn over the threshold, and I can now either choose to continue to try and innovate and add value to society, or retire to a private island and just become a carbon contributor, I mean, why work myself into the ground if I can no longer benefit? Most people have assets not liquidity too, so it's like saying, if you own too much, you have to stop. Well, what if Elon stopped and we reverted bac…

> What if Bill Gates stopped and never did any of the philanthropy that he does?

Not sure what your point is here--Bill Gates is not getting paid to do his philanthropy...he is in fact trying to give his money away. Are you arguing that it's a greater benefit to society for him to acquire his billions and then give some portion of it away after the fact?

It's an interesting thought experiment--how might the world be different had Gates's assets been capped at $1B back in 1987 or whenever, and whatever earnings he made been allocated to a social wealth fund?

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#808

Post by vba616 »

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…

Places I've worked, I'm not aware they ever had severance, stock options or RSUs, or free snacks. One job had free keurig cups, and one job had free coffee in the form of a couple of pots in the morning that got pretty burnt tasting later in the day. Government and government contractors have had zero free stuff - there's a keurig machine where I work if you want to buy your own k-cups.

Then again, I've never been laid off. The most "office space" like jobs that pay the worst sometimes are aware that they can't easily hire people and so shrink by attrition over time. "Good times" mean a non-zero 401k match. Not so good times mean they remove the option of buying company stock in the 401k, because you might sue if it ruins your retirement hopes.

I'm not saying this is all that terrible, because I don't think it is. It just puts the tech layoffs that get publicity in perspective. If you get laid off at a normal company, you might - gasp - have to file for unemployment!

People who need stability do trade it for salary. The union where I work can't even strike, but our pay is up over 10% from a year ago.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#810

Post by formerkrogemp »

memish wrote: post #202
formerkrogemp wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX was funded by government contracts awarded to SpaceX. 'Ol Musky doesn't wave a magic wand for discerning capital deployment. He just gets lucky.

Luck doesn't itself explain being able to repeat that level of complex achievement. You need >99 percentile in energy, intelligence and curiosity to pull that off.

Right, because this single person takes all of the credit for SpaceX. Musk didn't found SpaceX. He just invested money. Big difference. He's also, despite what you're implying here, not a rocket scientist. Nor should he take sole the credit for thousands of scientists' and engineers' work. Do you attribute all of your company's achievements to your CEO or principal shareholders? Are you not concerned with being drawn up into a cult of personality?
Post reply on HN