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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%

#91

Post by draftsman »

cloche wrote: post #87
wiseowise wrote: post #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 bio…

> 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. Player-coach used to be a thing in professional sports a long, long time ago. There's a reason you don't have it anymore. A coach can't be expected to take the long-term view while also…

Your comment reminded me that this still happens in the NBA. At 43 years old, Udonis Haslem seldom played minutes towards the end of his 20 year career with the Heat. But they kept him on as a “player-coach,” in that he was a mentor to the younger players and assisted in their coaching. Kyle Lowry is another current example of this “player-coach” role, currently on the Sixers.

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

#92

Post by alexandre_m »

StilesCrisis wrote: post #50
martypitt wrote: post #33

> 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??

They'll have to reduce these 1:1s and any formal meetings to a minimum (e.g. once a quarter), and deal less with career growth and people conflicts.

They'll switch to async communications for everything, and ideally have a bot that answers Mm-humm like a psychologist on his chair.

More seriously, the solution is to move to a flatter org, but that's a drastic change with unknown consequences for most companies.

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

#93

Post by alexandre_m »

vdnkh wrote: post #74
mooreds wrote: post #51

I'll probably get some flack for this, but this is about as good of a layoff email as he could have sent. * explains the reasons (financials, AI enablement) * talks about what folks who are leaving get in detail (first) and thanks them * talks to the folks who are staying Layoffs are hard, no doubt, and I am not sure he's making the right choice. I see plenty of doubt about some of the actions in other comments that…

This email was 100% AI generated. I just edited a similar sentence from a claude code doc I'm writing - "we're not just X, we're fundamentally Y" is an obvious tell. I guess he's putting his money where his mouth is

I think a lot of LLMs are trained on corporate communications, and since companies have been copying each other for years, it’s hard to tell them apart.

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

#94

Post by alexandre_m »

blizdiddy wrote: post #86

I usually feel bad for laid off engineers, but these guys profited off of pump and dump wealth-funneling to the rich. Sucks to suck. They all played a part in normalizing scams.

Your sentiment should be redirected to the leadership team and execs, not the engineers themselves.

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

#95

Post by Markoff »

mhitza wrote: post #71
Markoff wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"US employees will receive a minimum of 16 weeks base pay (plus 2 weeks per year worked), their next equity vest, and 6 months of COBRA." 4 months basic severance pay + 1 month for 2 years emploument is nice? so total 5 months severance after 2 years of working for them or only 6 months after 4 years let me guess you are from US if you think this is nice, as European I would say this is fairly standard, nothing to br…

I'm not from the US, but from eastern europe. I have not been in collectives where what you're saying was true. At most I've seen 2-3 months of pay for someone to sign their own resignation.

you should always add salary during notice period if you are not expected to work anymore, it's essentially severance pay as well, though technically it's salary for no work

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

#96

Post by blizdiddy »

alexandre_m wrote: post #94
blizdiddy wrote: post #86

I usually feel bad for laid off engineers, but these guys profited off of pump and dump wealth-funneling to the rich. Sucks to suck. They all played a part in normalizing scams.

Your sentiment should be redirected to the leadership team and execs, not the engineers themselves.

Nah, they are adults. Labor should make way more decisions, but they knew what they were doing and for who.

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

#98

Post by esseph »

alexandre_m wrote: post #93
vdnkh wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This email was 100% AI generated. I just edited a similar sentence from a claude code doc I'm writing - "we're not just X, we're fundamentally Y" is an obvious tell. I guess he's putting his money where his mouth is

I think a lot of LLMs are trained on corporate communications, and since companies have been copying each other for years, it’s hard to tell them apart.

Yep, it's 25+ years of corporate communications.

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

#99

Post by apple4ever »

martypitt wrote: post #33

> 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.

Yikes. That's bad leadership at that top all around. But we already knew that when they announced layoffs. No good leader lays people off.

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

#100

Post by apple4ever »

Saline9515 wrote: post #35

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.

Oh yeah, AI is just an excuse to sell it to the public. But it's not about that at all. It's about bad leadership.
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