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Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

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Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#41
> - No pure managers: Every leader at Coinbase must also be a strong and active individual contributor. Managers should be like player-coaches, getting their hands dirty alongside their teams.

Geeks who didn't even stand near professional sports should really shut up about anything sport related, lol.

I would really like to see professional, established coach running around with young prodigies on a peak of their biology.

> - AI-native pods: We’ll be concentrating around AI-native talent who can manage fleets of agents to drive outsized impact. We’ll also be experimenting with reduced pod sizes, including “one person teams” with engineers, designers, and product managers all in one role.

And AI clowns will cheer and applaud this, not seeing that they're now doing the job of 5(!) people with the same salary. Why is nobody talking about this?

Also, I find it really bizarre that those neo feudal lords see their companies as just a life stock to count. They don't even count people, just see them as numbers to reduce/scale up. Modern tsardom, but instead of being tied via official decree you're now tied by your lifestyle and family.

"Some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make"

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#42
post #16

Lol “Non-technical teams are now shipping production code” definitely what I want my financial institution doing.

That statement does not inspire confidence considering how ripe crypto is for hackers/scammers, if anything it makes me want to close my Coinbase account.

Very early in the first Bitcoin boom cycle I had a friend who was into it, so I opened a Coinbase account because I thought it'd be funny to pay him the $15 I owed him for lunch or whatever in Bitcoin. I bought the $15 on a credit card, sent it to his wallet, we had our laughs about it, and I moved on. Years later, after it became clear that the only purpose of cryptocurrencies is scams & crime, I went to close my Coinbase account just for some basic digital hygiene. Except I found out that now, they only let you log in if you have an external bank account associated with your Coinbase account. And you can't delete your account without logging in. And there's no way in hell I'm associating my real bank account with a scam & crime agency. So I'm stuck with a Coinbase account I can't close or even log in to. Lol.

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#43
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is weird to read this considering they should have enough money to employ enough software engineers. Why would non-programmers need to ship production code in a financial context?

Because it’s faster and cheaper, which are two very important metrics?

I’ve never wondered if BoA is moving fast

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#44

Lol “Non-technical teams are now shipping production code” definitely what I want my financial institution doing.

Given how crypto is the priority target for NK hackers it doesn't fare well for Coinbase to engage in such reckless behavior.

Not like it ever stopped the crypto industry before, if we're being honest

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#45

The reality is that Coinbase earns on trading volume, and since we are in a crypto bear market, revenue is down. So they have to cut to keep the company profitable (or in line with what the investors expect). While AI is likely a productivity boost, the underlying reason is not AI.

Yes, I'm not buying this story about layoffs due to AI. It's a convenient excuse, which these companies seem to be getting away with too.

And something else I don't get about these AI related layoff announcements: if AI was a productivity boost wouldn't you hire more engineers and technical staff to capture the value? Or else you're basically saying "we're a tech company that has no idea what to do with more super-engineers".

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#46
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are a npm import away from having big problems.

You're definitely doing something wrong if that's the case at your company.

Like letting non-technical teams ship production code

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#47
post #15

> Non-technical teams are now shipping production code and many of our workflows are being automated. T Is Brian here? Can he speak more to this? What exactly are non technicals shipping to production code? I've got no position in Coinbase but is that a wise thing to say as a public company? I'd be alarmed if I were a share holder

This is (unironically) what big institutional allocators love to hear. They've been sold the idea that almost every medium-very big tech corp is vastly overstaffed and can become a monster cash cow and stop SBC dilution by cutting headcount + becoming A.I first.

They hear this from the sellside, from activists, from the guys managing their private market allocations etc.

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#49
post #42
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That statement does not inspire confidence considering how ripe crypto is for hackers/scammers, if anything it makes me want to close my Coinbase account.

Very early in the first Bitcoin boom cycle I had a friend who was into it, so I opened a Coinbase account because I thought it'd be funny to pay him the $15 I owed him for lunch or whatever in Bitcoin. I bought the $15 on a credit card, sent it to his wallet, we had our laughs about it, and I moved on. Years later, after it became clear that the only purpose of cryptocurrencies is scams & crime, I went to close my Co…

There's a law for that. If Coinbase did not require an external bank account to create the coinbase account, by law, they cannot require one to close the account. At least, that is what I have been led to believe. You could sue.

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#50

> Rebuilding Coinbase as an intelligence, with humans around the edge aligning it. Oof. That smacks of hubris and valley-buzzwordism. > Leaders will own much more, with as many as 15+ direct reports. > Every leader at Coinbase must also be a strong and active individual contributor. So, a manager who's managing 15 people AND expected to ship -- that sounds awful for both sides.

> So, a manager who's managing 15 people AND expected to ship

Right?? I saw that too. My first thought is that any good managers left will be racing for the exit. You can't fake "managing 15 people" with AI. You have to actually have the 1:1s and do the performance calibrations. How are they going to have time left for IC work??

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