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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

#951

Post by epicide »

tomcam wrote: post #940
epicide wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps part of the problem is that we incentivize high-risk ideas too much.

Well most high risk ideas fail, which is why it’s handy that we have billionaires willing to risk. Why should taxpayers be on the hook?

Because taxpayers are on the hook anyway when billionaires risk too much and their companies end up getting bailed out. Except now we've collectively spent even more than we likely would have so that they could, in the meantime, buy several yachts and lawyers to make sure they can hang onto their "risked" money and assets.

And sure, you could just say "well, let's just not do bailouts then", but then that leads to things like bank closures, airline collapses, imploding automobile industries [0], etc. Basically, we can argue about specific cases, but there are some things that become too important to fail.

Ultimately, there are things that benefit society that taxes should be used to pay for. Some of those things should be done regardless of what any potential payout might be. Note that billionaires don't help solve these problems. If anything, they make them worse because they often pay a far lower percentage tax than anybody else.

[0]: Of which the US at least is highly dependent on. I want this to change, but it won't be an overnight thing by any means.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#952

Post by aliswe »

aerosmile wrote: post #629
Johnny555 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Will a CEO work less hard if he (and his peers) can only ever gain $100M in net worth before a wealth tax on assets kicks in? I empathize with the quick back-of-the-napkin math ("if we could just take Bezos' money and give it to the poor..."). But I think there's an important nuance here. You're making it sound like the only group of people that would be affected by this are the folks with $0 in net worth, so that…

Not "force into retirement" - you would force them to move.

Well written!

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#953

Post by dghlsakjg »

cupofpython wrote: post #474
nxm wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s Medicaid for these situations

my healthcare was actually better when i was unemployed than it is with my current company

Right? I was on Medicaid for about half a year because of weird bureaucratic reasons.

It was the best health care plan I've ever had in the US. No deductible, copays were literally $1 or $2. I had access to the entire Kaiser system for routine stuff. You literally can't buy an insurance plan as good as the medicaid that I got.

Of course, now I live in Canada. That's even better.

Mind you, this was in Colorado, which took a vey progressive stance on Obamacare. I'm sure that there are places where medicaid is close to useless.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#954

Post by dghlsakjg »

antihero wrote: post #598
Bluecobra wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How hard is it to fund your own US insurance on a tech salary to tide you over? Healthcare is NOT cheap if you want to maintain the same plan. I had to pay $2K a month for a family plan under COBRA several years ago. This is the same as a mortgage payment for me. Typically your employer bears the majority of your insurance cost, but you pay all of it under COBRA.

Oh wow that is absolute madness. That covers your costs for pretty much everything, right?

Not at all.

You will still have to pay your yearly deductible which is normally in the thousands of dollars. Then you also get to pay co-pays for every service regardless of where your deductible stands.

Don't forget that the insurance company gets to decide what is necessary, not your doctor.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#955

Post by aliswe »

bmitc wrote: post #824
hstan4 wrote: post #820

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As always, why is the magic number a billion dollars? And how do you draw the line in regards to stock ownership, prevent a founder from owning a certain amount of stock once its value exceeds a billion dollars?

As always, pick one and deal with it. This whole "billionaires are geniuses and figure out the world's hardest problems but simultaneously can't figure out how to be taxed" shtick has run its course. Of course, no solution will be perfect. That's life and how everyone else deals with things. There are several ways to accomplish taxing the mega-rich that don't require rewriting the laws of the universe. It's just that…

Serious question, where has this ever worked / is currently working?

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#956

Post by ffggvv »

ineedasername wrote: post #946
ffggvv wrote: post #945

Earlier quoted context omitted.

happy to be proven wrong but i think most investors say “i have 10k, i want to buy as much bitcoin as that buys me.” rather than “i wanna buy 1 bitcoin, regardless of price”. atleast that’s how i think of things. in terms of dollars invested. not coins desired. same with stocks. i say i wanna 5k in Coke stock, not 121 shares.

Yes, you're not completely wrong, but there will be fewer people saying "I have $10k." In the current market conditions. That's only part of the trading though. Volatility isn't measured in that way either, so as volatility goes down-- or stays the same as coin prices go down-- Coinbase still loses money. It's usually measure in the % of the coin traded. So volatility could remain stable at, say, 2% but when the doll…

that’s true, volume driven by money already in the system will fall due to prices going down.

volume driven by new money coming in will be reduced by the phenomenon i mentioned (price down, less hype, less money coming in).

So if we break volume down in 2 groups the first would experience what you’re saying and the second would experience what i’m saying. It’s the same with stocks but to a much lesser extent, especially because 401ks and institutions are required to buy no matter what

Not sure what percent of volume is each case.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#957

Post by TheCoelacanth »

idiotsecant wrote: post #640
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…

Yes, I see your point. 'Wealth' is what rich people have, in which case taxes on it's value don't make sense! That's ludicrous! 'Property', on the other hand, is what normal people have. The value of property must be taxed, for the good of us all! Anything else would be silly.

Property taxes are even more onerous than a wealth tax.

If you own a $1 million house with an $800k mortgage, you pay tax on $1 million of property, but you only have $200k of wealth.

Billionaires are the world's biggest whiners. Even a tax burden that's proportional to what normal middle-class people pay is the end of the world.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#958

Post by dcow »

Apocryphon wrote: post #570
dcow wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's really not. It's an illustrative example of how a wealth tax would (fail to) work. The issue at the core is that items only have value while they are exchanged. Fiat is the only thing with the characteristic of persistent value. So trying to tax standing wealth is fraught because wealth doesn't actually exist in that form.

Then simply don't tax fixed assets. Sure, sure, then people will simply avoid taxes by converting cash and other assets into properties that are not directly taxable, but that's just how these cat-and-mouse games go.

That's what you should be doing because the government should be extracting taxes on the exchange of fiat for for assets and then back to fiat. That's how things already work in fact. People are just angry that other people find value in e.g. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos when they otherwise don't and want to tax away their entire existence because justice. The alleged problem is those people still have billions even after paying taxes on the acquisition of assets. I'm all for fixing tax loopholes so people can't hide money and avoid existing taxes. How about starting there and actually taxing the tangible before trying to tax the intangible? Companies can and in fact are supposed to grow in value. If the company you own becomes super valuable, you win. If we are unhappy how valuable some companies can become, then you need to cap that and actually break the companies up or progressively more heavily tax profits (which are tangible) such that the company can only become so valuable to investors/owners after which it ceases to provide any additional value because it makes too much money. But since everyone hates Bezos while happily paying for their yearly prime membership, that won't happen. And indeed, Amazon doesn't make incredible amounts of money, it's just ubiquitous and provides a lot of utility which is what makes it valuable. Bezos fought investors for years and years pushing his narrative and strategy of minimizing short term profits to build a company that people literally can't live without and it worked. Crazy. Maybe the government should just buy Amazon...

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#959

Post by TheCoelacanth »

spullara wrote: post #151
ipnon wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Billionaires are highly correlated with millionaires, which don't seem to be beyond the pale for critics of wealth inequality. Countries with billionaires rank much higher on quality of life than those without. It hurts to see Bezos and Musk in yachts but the side effect of their wealth is companies like Amazon and Tesla that have a net positive effect on society in terms of products and employment.

I'm not as wealthy as them but I have never, ever had this feeling: "It hurts to see Bezos and Musk in yachts" Why does that hurt anyone? Doesn't it just help the people that make yachts and work on them?

It's not the yachts that hurts. It's the vast amounts of political power that their wealth gives them and that they invariably use to further enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#960

Post by Shindi »

subsubzero wrote: post #46
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…

Wow that severance is incredible! They reached out to me awhile ago but thought their whole platform being tied to crypto was extremely risky. Engineers need to save for bad times and have months and months of cash for downtimes as in 3-4 months there will be alot of people looking for jobs. Fun fact in 2009 I interviewed at google and the HM said that 500 people applied to the job I was interviewed at(onsite) and th…

> the HM said that 500 people applied to the job I was interviewed at As someone who interviewed candidates in big tech, this sounds like a lot but you have to understand most people who apply are truly not qualified in any way. About a third of people who get to the onsite fail really hard (I get people have off days).

Especially when you have a brand like Google, people apply just to apply all the time w/o considering if the big G is a good fit at all.

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