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Kraken lays off 30% of staff

blog.kraken.com

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Re: Kraken lays off 30% of staff

#81

Post by stuckinhell »

woodruffw wrote: post #18

> Since the start of this year, macroeconomic and geopolitical factors have weighed on financial markets. This is an incredible couching of the last 9 months of cryptocurrency market behavior. Does anybody actually operate on their belief that "geopolitical factors," rather than astonishing amounts of fraud , are responsible for the current downturn?

The fraud seems to get political very quickly with FTX. Sam Bankman donated enormous amounts of money to democrats. He was the second biggest donor behind George Soros. He said he also donated an equivalent amount to establishment republicans via dark money channels.

Sam Bankman was clearly a smooth political operator.You don't have meeting with Gary Gensler the head of the SEC otherwise.

Re: Kraken lays off 30% of staff

#82

Post by tiahura »

woodruffw wrote: post #18

> Since the start of this year, macroeconomic and geopolitical factors have weighed on financial markets. This is an incredible couching of the last 9 months of cryptocurrency market behavior. Does anybody actually operate on their belief that "geopolitical factors," rather than astonishing amounts of fraud , are responsible for the current downturn?

Hanlon's razor.

The vast majority of crypto advocates are true believers.

Re: Kraken lays off 30% of staff

#83

Post by stickfigure »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #29
CommitSyn wrote: post #4

> We’re reducing our global workforce by approximately 1,100 people, or 30 percent, in order to adapt to current market conditions. Why does a crypto exchange need 4,000 employees?

I feel like HN should just auto add a comment that says "Why does need employees?" with a follow up comment that explains how large corporations work. It literally comes up in every single layoff announcement or other discussion of company size in some way, and the follow on comments are essentially the same every single time. I'm not saying that a lot of these companies aren't overstaffed (indeed, that's why they ar…

I've come to look at it the other way. "Because that's how large companies work" is a lazy non-answer. An honest answer to this question would break it down: # of engineers, # of ops, # of sales, # of hr, etc. And ideally break it down by business division. Of course that requires some real domain knowledge.

I've personally watched morons come in, hire lots of useless employees, and destroy millions of dollars of cash while producing negative effect on the product in a company I cofounded. It happens.

Despite the common refrain, the question is genuinely interesting and it deserves an interesting answer. What's old is the retort "that's just how big companies work". It might entirely be true that 4000 employees is reasonable (or even low!) for an exchange, but I'd really like to hear the arguments.

Re: Kraken lays off 30% of staff

#84

Post by [deleted] »

rel2thr wrote: post #74
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Crypto simply followed the overall market effects Crypto is performing far worse than even the riskiest decile of the stock market. Which should surprise nobody.

Not really, crypto is down about as much as ARKK which is a good tracker of risky high growth tech assets

[deleted]

Re: Kraken lays off 30% of staff

#85

Post by SkyPuncher »

woodruffw wrote: post #18

> Since the start of this year, macroeconomic and geopolitical factors have weighed on financial markets. This is an incredible couching of the last 9 months of cryptocurrency market behavior. Does anybody actually operate on their belief that "geopolitical factors," rather than astonishing amounts of fraud , are responsible for the current downturn?

Russia's invasion of Ukraine had a very strong impact on investor willingness. It indicated a new period of uncertainty where people preferred having their cash in stable vehicles.

I've seen startups struggle to raise in March when less attractive competitors raised with ease in February.

Re: Kraken lays off 30% of staff

#86

Post by animitronix »

Hendrikto wrote: post #75
eloff wrote: post #52

I'm so glad I turned down the job offer at Kraken. The reason I turned it down was because I felt that crypto was a bubble waiting to pop (back in March, but that's been my "wrong" opinion for the last 5 years or more.) The tech stack was nice, the pay was excellent, the product I would have been working on is comparable to Bloomberg Terminal, so it was pretty cool too. But I just thought the job might go away in the…

Kraken likely laid off marketing and support staff, not mainly engineering.

Give it a few more months

Re: Kraken lays off 30% of staff

#87

Post by cwkoss »

woodruffw wrote: post #18

> Since the start of this year, macroeconomic and geopolitical factors have weighed on financial markets. This is an incredible couching of the last 9 months of cryptocurrency market behavior. Does anybody actually operate on their belief that "geopolitical factors," rather than astonishing amounts of fraud , are responsible for the current downturn?

Tesla is down 52% vs 9 months ago

Bitcoin is down 63% vs 9 months ago

Just sayin

Re: Kraken lays off 30% of staff

#88

Post by rvz »

resuresu wrote: post #16

The contagion continues to spread.

Exactly. The tech layoff contagion is still spreading when all that cheap money has left. Crypto included.

And yes before HN denies 'engineers not affected in layoffs narrative', they certainly are affected.

Re: Kraken lays off 30% of staff

#89

Post by killjoywashere »

woodruffw wrote: post #53
setgree wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We learned about the fraud because of macroeconomic factors! inflation -> rising interest rates -> crypto less attractive [0] -> people ask for their deposits back -> company can't meet obligations -> company folds -> scrutiny -> fraud revealed Is my basic model of things. [0] from https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/11/th... : "When interest rates are very low a dollar in the far future is worth a…

I completely agree! My point was that it's very funny to blame the macro (and even funnier to blame geopolitics), when it's clearly just serving a revelatory purpose.

I'm not an economist, but it does seem like the inflation is primarily attributable to geopolitical factors: the various spending programs countries embarked on during the pandemic, China's zero-Covid policy, the Russian invasion of Ukraine putting a premium on both oil and grain.

Are you suggesting that crypto is to blame for inflation? how would that work?

Re: Kraken lays off 30% of staff

#90

Post by JumpCrisscross »

stuckinhell wrote: post #81
woodruffw wrote: post #18

> Since the start of this year, macroeconomic and geopolitical factors have weighed on financial markets. This is an incredible couching of the last 9 months of cryptocurrency market behavior. Does anybody actually operate on their belief that "geopolitical factors," rather than astonishing amounts of fraud , are responsible for the current downturn?

The fraud seems to get political very quickly with FTX. Sam Bankman donated enormous amounts of money to democrats. He was the second biggest donor behind George Soros. He said he also donated an equivalent amount to establishment republicans via dark money channels. Sam Bankman was clearly a smooth political operator.You don't have meeting with Gary Gensler the head of the SEC otherwise.

> Sam Bankman was clearly a smooth political operator

No, he wasn’t. This is a myth he crafted for his retail audience. He threw money around. But D.C. is filled with schmucks buying photo ops for millions of dollars.

> don't have meeting with Gary Gensler the head of the SEC otherwise

You’re saying SBF’s donations, and not his role as CEO of FTX, got him a meeting with FTX’s regulator?

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