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BlockFi files for bankruptcy as FTX fallout spreads

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Re: BlockFi files for bankruptcy as FTX fallout spreads

#261

Post by zubairq »

woah wrote: post #250

Another "crypto" company that was not actually crypto. These guys just held people's money custodially and promised some dumb overblown interest rate. Sure their theme was "crypto" and they have the bitcoin logo on their website, but the underlying mechanism of trusting someone who has a slick app with your money is the opposite of crypto. It seems like silicon valley VCs completely missed the boat on crypto by dumpi…

I agree, none of these companies are crypto companies, just centralised scams. In fact, this is not the end of crypto, but is exactly the opposite. This is the "real beginning" of crypto, as now the benefit of decentralisation and transparency are being understood by a larger number of people. So all in all, this is great news for the crypto industry!

Re: BlockFi files for bankruptcy as FTX fallout spreads

#262

Post by xur17 »

MrMan wrote: post #166
jb12 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think self-custody is simple enough for mass adoption by non-technical users?

forget simplicity - why is "self-custody" not a thing already with other currencies? let's start there.

I'll agree that crypto self-custody isn't really something the vast majority of folks can safely do. That said, self custody of crypto is different than self custody of fiat currencies.

With fiat currency, you have to physically store the cash in 1 location. With crypto I can store multiple keys to my crypto on physical devices that require a pin to unlock (and reset after a few failed attempts). I can store my key across multiple locations in such a way that n of m copies of the key are required to move funds. I can require a waiting period before moving funds. I can require another person to approve the transactions in certain scenarios (ex: moving large amounts of funds).

Re: BlockFi files for bankruptcy as FTX fallout spreads

#263

Post by sjsdaiuasgdia »

SilasX wrote: post #228
sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The accumulated events and decisions over the lifespan of the company. What's done in house, what's done elsewhere? What "bus factor" do you want your engineering teams to have? What events have left scars on the organization? What prejudices and preferences does the executive leadership have? How does the company handle the fiefdom builders who hire just to make their org size increase? How does the company handle a…

The point is, it’s easy to vomit a laundry list of reason why a company needs more staff. But it doesn’t shed light onto why a 7000 figure is reasonable until it justifies why other figures are too high or too low. Nor does your comment.

Your comment continues to presume that there is a specific correct value or range of values. That's simply not the case. The list of potential reasons is long because there are a lot of contributing reasons.

What are Twitter's goals pre-buyout? Are those the same as Twitter's goals post-buyout? What are the decisions the company makes in pursuing those goals, in each of those contexts?

Analyzing all the decisions that brought Twitter or any other company to a specific count of employees is an extensive undertaking, and would require extraordinary memory and honesty of a huge number of people. And you'll still have a giant pile of decisions that could have gone either way depending on slight changes in conditions.

Re: BlockFi files for bankruptcy as FTX fallout spreads

#264

Post by hef19898 »

herval wrote: post #105
fdgsdfogijq wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all of the capital they have, you would think they would hire competent people from big tech. Instead they just find some stanford grad with a few years of experience to manage 50 people. It doesnt even make sense

I've seen a couple startups with ~10 people and no market fit paying $500k/y to hire a FAANG VP. That's even more damaging than a fresh grad kid managing 50 people!

Thinking about it, market fit would be the latest point to hire an experienced adult. Preferably from one to two levels below the role a start-up is hiring for, e.g. director level for a VP position.

Maybe hire earlier, as soon as an adult is needed to set up proper structure, processes and operations. If a company screws this up, e.g. when inexperienced founders hire former COOs and senior VPs from big names for those big names only, things can turn south pretty well.

Re: BlockFi files for bankruptcy as FTX fallout spreads

#265

Post by woah »

anonymousab wrote: post #46
nscalf wrote: post #9

For what it's worth, all reasonable people in the crypto space want regulation to make sure these types of poor lending practices don't continue. Regulators have been slow and ineffective when it comes to crypto, which has lent itself to the crypto v SEC narrative, but all the adults in the room known there is a need for some regulation.

The biggest "adult in the room" by far, whom was pushing for regulation, turned out to be another scammer that was simply trying to regulate away his competitors and enshrine his own fraudulent crypto scheme as the only sanctioned one. The crypto community's truest Scotsman proved to be just as terrible as everyone outside perceives the crypto space to be. Benefit of the doubt simply can't be given for what "reasonab…

No post body was provided.

Re: BlockFi files for bankruptcy as FTX fallout spreads

#266

Post by bpiche »

zubairq wrote: post #261
woah wrote: post #250

Another "crypto" company that was not actually crypto. These guys just held people's money custodially and promised some dumb overblown interest rate. Sure their theme was "crypto" and they have the bitcoin logo on their website, but the underlying mechanism of trusting someone who has a slick app with your money is the opposite of crypto. It seems like silicon valley VCs completely missed the boat on crypto by dumpi…

I agree, none of these companies are crypto companies, just centralised scams. In fact, this is not the end of crypto, but is exactly the opposite. This is the "real beginning" of crypto, as now the benefit of decentralisation and transparency are being understood by a larger number of people. So all in all, this is great news for the crypto industry!

A real "this is good for bitcoin" in the wild!

Re: BlockFi files for bankruptcy as FTX fallout spreads

#267

Post by SilasX »

jasonlotito wrote: post #185
SilasX wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why does it add up to 7000 headcount rather than 3500 headcount or 14000 headcount?

Moderation, customer support, sales, and then everyone to support all those people. You don't think that matters, but it has a real impact on your bottom line. Companies are stopping advertising now, not because Musk took over, but because they can't support for advertising (probably because they were sacked). It was one of the worlds largest social media platforms! Couple that with the reality that Twitter needs at…

> You don't think that matters,

I didn’t express an opinion on that, and actually believe the opposite of what you just hastily attributed to me. My point is that, when gauging whether 7000 is a reasonable figure, it’s not enough to vomit a laundry list of work that the company needs to do — because that kind of argument would apply equally well to justifying 3500, 7000, 14000, or a million. To justify a specific figure, you need more rigor than hand waving about general work categories. The parent didn’t.

Re: BlockFi files for bankruptcy as FTX fallout spreads

#268

Post by into_infinity »

woah wrote: post #250

Another "crypto" company that was not actually crypto. These guys just held people's money custodially and promised some dumb overblown interest rate. Sure their theme was "crypto" and they have the bitcoin logo on their website, but the underlying mechanism of trusting someone who has a slick app with your money is the opposite of crypto. It seems like silicon valley VCs completely missed the boat on crypto by dumpi…

That's pretty unfair, SBF has an MIT degree.

Re: BlockFi files for bankruptcy as FTX fallout spreads

#269

Post by thepasswordis »

fdgsdfogijq wrote: post #50
propter_hoc wrote: post #16

Somehow these guys peaked at about 900 employees, according to linkedin ( https://www.linkedin.com/company/blockfi ) They've raised about a billion dollars of VC - https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/blockfi-inc/investor... (note, CB lists $1.4b, of which 400M is debt from FTX, which I imagine they never got) Unbelievable the amount of destruction of value here... it's just total carnage.

I talked to an employee that left last spring. She said they had literally no idea what they were doing. The founders are just ivy educated 30 year olds. So they decided to just start hiring everyone they could from paypal, to move into "blockchain payments". They paid huge sums. The directors there had no experience ever managing huge teams of people. It was a giant mess of unqualified people funded by cheap capital…

The old “nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM”, seems to have become “nobody ever got fired for hiring a Stanford PhD”.

Re: BlockFi files for bankruptcy as FTX fallout spreads

#270

Post by shagie »

graeme wrote: post #218
graeme wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both. If you take 900 reasonably skilled people and direct them towards nonsense for a few years, that is definite value lost to society. It sounds like $1 billion in actual cash was lost this way. And the buildings they were in could have housed useful activity, the computers they bought could have done useful things, etc. Those people could have been doing useful things. And it sounds like their activities were wor…

^Haga, if you can see this, your comment below mine is dead. Went through your history, doesn't look like you've said anything astonishingly objectionable recently. Your comments are all dead

If you think they're good comments, click directly onto them and [vouch] for them.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11589410

(edit) going back... a there appears to be a period of fairly consistent one liner hot takes that may have been received poorly.

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