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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%

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what's the point of having 5 people doing 1 person's job though? sounds stupid to me

delusions of having AI do those roles and the one person in charge over prompting will know the difference between quality and slop... guess which one I'm betting on?

historically speaking, efficiency has always won out

for example, the last obvious inefficiency i remember was sys admins. the most worthless, self aggrandizing group of people at any company. got wiped out mostly (the best work for the cloud engineering companies), and i think it was for the better!

engineers today handle deployments, and it is far better.

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

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I respected the "No Pure Managers" part. That's similar to what happened at our org. The question remains, if there are no pure managers, then is this CSM / Sales shipping production code? If yes, then it's indeed scary... > 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.

Can anyone think of a single successful player-coach in the entire history of sports? Why would this be a good model?

Kenny Dalglish, Liverpool FC, 1985-1990.

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

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I respected the "No Pure Managers" part. That's similar to what happened at our org. The question remains, if there are no pure managers, then is this CSM / Sales shipping production code? If yes, then it's indeed scary... > 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.

Can anyone think of a single successful player-coach in the entire history of sports? Why would this be a good model?

[deleted]

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

#234
I have an announcement to make, using Claude I have now in development an AI model that can replace the CEO, the Board Chair, the CFO and CTO of any company on Earth.

I was shocked at how easy it was to train and develop a model that can replace senior leadership in a company.

The CEO was the easiest. I simply loaded the model with as much corporate jargon, double talk and the ability to talk down to people. The model nearly wrote itself.

Then simply ingesting the Wall Street Journal, Barrons, Financial Times and SEC 10-K reports and annual reports, I was able to compile the perfect CFO. It was able to spit out regulatory reports, answer questions on investor calls.

Strangely, the component of the model I had write in house was the ability to give up part of their bonus to keep key people employed. Seems in all of those financial reports, there were no examples of anyome that the model could leverage.

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

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realise you're joking, but crypto is now a heavily regulated industry, the KYC/AML requirements are no-joke and non-compliance will get the company's licences in a given country/state terminated. For the end user it looks like an evil cash-grab, but really it's the company protecting itself from regulatory vengeance.

No I'm not joking. That is the bullshit answer they (note: crypto/fintech space in general, not necessarily Coinbase) give. But when pushed on the occasions I've had my funds frozen they are never able to provide any evidence or what specific reason they have for triggering KYC/AML, just vague bullshit handwaving and AI customer service agents that lie about them "being on it" or some such and then your money gets re…

> what specific reason they have for triggering KYC/AML

As far as I understand, they're often not allowed to disclose that. E.g.,

https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/seeing-like-a-bank/

> In the specific case of “Why did the bank close my account, seemingly for no reason? Why will no one tell me anything about this? Why will no one take responsibility?”, the answer is frequently that the bank is following the law. As we’ve discussed previously, banks will frequently make the “independent” “commercial decision” to “exit the relationship” with a particular customer after that customer has had multiple Suspicious Activity Reports filed. SARs can (and sometimes must!) be filed for innocuous reasons and do not necessarily imply any sort of wrongdoing.

> SARs are secret, by regulation. See 12 CFR § 21.11(k)(1) from the Office of Comptroller of the Currency...

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

#236
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

> To get there, we are not just reducing headcount and cutting costs, we’re fundamentally changing how we operate: rebuilding Coinbase as an intelligence, with humans around the edge aligning it. For sure this part screams LLM

Reminds me grok

"We’re not building Skynet, we’re cutting costs and putting the survivors on prompt duty"

Anything in that format gives that AI feel

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

#237
post #151

Coinbase famously rescinded offers days before people joined when they did a previously huge layoff. That's absolutely diabolical and I sometimes fantasize about accepting a job there and just ghosting them.

Isnt that the most fair thing for them to do?

you don't even get a severance that way. People moved for a job, then got stranded without even getting a first paycheck.

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

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I respected the "No Pure Managers" part. That's similar to what happened at our org. The question remains, if there are no pure managers, then is this CSM / Sales shipping production code? If yes, then it's indeed scary... > 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.

Can anyone think of a single successful player-coach in the entire history of sports? Why would this be a good model?

Reggie Dunlop, Charlestown Cheifs, they won the Federal League and it's hard to argue it wasn't all down to his coaching.

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

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I respected the "No Pure Managers" part. That's similar to what happened at our org. The question remains, if there are no pure managers, then is this CSM / Sales shipping production code? If yes, then it's indeed scary... > 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.

Can anyone think of a single successful player-coach in the entire history of sports? Why would this be a good model?

George Halas - Chicago Bears

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

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realise you're joking, but crypto is now a heavily regulated industry, the KYC/AML requirements are no-joke and non-compliance will get the company's licences in a given country/state terminated. For the end user it looks like an evil cash-grab, but really it's the company protecting itself from regulatory vengeance.

No I'm not joking. That is the bullshit answer they (note: crypto/fintech space in general, not necessarily Coinbase) give. But when pushed on the occasions I've had my funds frozen they are never able to provide any evidence or what specific reason they have for triggering KYC/AML, just vague bullshit handwaving and AI customer service agents that lie about them "being on it" or some such and then your money gets re…

> But when pushed on the occasions I've had my funds frozen they are never able to provide any evidence or what specific reason they have for triggering KYC/AML

They are legally prevented from telling you by the regulators, at least in the US.

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