Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 842 posts

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

#111

Post by rideontime »

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…

"Neo feudal lords" might read like hyperbole to those unaware of Brian Armstrong's "Network State" fanaticism. He may not be one yet, but he's certainly striving toward that goal.

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

#112

Post by boshalfoshal »

tmaly wrote: post #68

Publicly traded companies get their stock price punished if they just announce layoffs, whereas if they say it is because of AI, they do not see the same treatment. If you look at Coinbase in 2020 they had roughly 1,200 employees. By 2022 they had roughly 4,500 employees. They over hired and now they are pairing back, this is all it is.

Its been 6 years, how are you still blaming covid overhiring?

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

#113

Post by big_youth »

saos wrote: 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

I worked for Coinbase. Brian won't even speak more to this to the company. He led by twitter post. I was there for 4 years (thanks to a great manager) but Brian was one of the worst leaders I've ever experienced.

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

#114

Post by HoldOnAMinute »

mamonster wrote: post #47
saos wrote: 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.

Are any of these fields hiring?

- big institutional allocators

- activists

- the sellside

- guys managing their private market allocations

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

#118

Post by turtlebits »

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

Who cares? If you're getting laid off, the only thing that really matters is the severance package.

Its all lip service - either AI generated or hand written.

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

#119

Post by moomoo11 »

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…

what's the point of having 5 people doing 1 person's job though?

sounds stupid to me

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

#120

Post by codeduck »

FerretFred wrote: post #105

>I’ve watched engineers use AI to ship in days what used to take a team weeks. Non-technical teams are now shipping production code Good luck to those (human) teams when the briefness stuff hits the fan thanks to an AI hallucination... oh wait, the Active Individually-contributing leaders will be there to lend a hand, right?

That reminds me, I'll need to stock up on rum so I can cheer the more spectacular detonations.
Post reply on HN