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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%

#271

Post by reactordev »

Refreeze5224 wrote: post #258
moomoo11 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> historically speaking, efficiency has always won out Too bad AI is not about efficiency. It's about headcount reduction, which is exactly what Coinbase is doing here. AI just gives them plausible cover.

If it was about efficiency, they would be moving faster, not cutting headcount…

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

#272

Post by fsckboy »

just_once wrote: post #229
butterlesstoast wrote: post #158

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?

Bill Russell, Boston Celtics, NBA national champions 2 years in a row, 67-68, 68-69 (first black head coach in NBA)

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

#273

Post by jr3592 »

butterlesstoast wrote: post #158
azinman2 wrote: post #136

"Non-technical teams are now shipping production code" Boy that's scary for a company that's effectively fintech...

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.

> 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.

This has always been the case where I work, long before AI.

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

#274

Post by missedthecue »

chrsw wrote: post #45
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.

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-en…

At this point, I truly do not believe there is anything that could happen that would convince HN that LLMs reduce demand for engineering labor hours.

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

#275

Post by simonbw »

azinman2 wrote: post #136

"Non-technical teams are now shipping production code" Boy that's scary for a company that's effectively fintech...

There's plenty of non-critical code that I would trust non-technical people with good AI tooling to touch. As long as their access is segregated from the actual critical stuff. But let them write marketing pages or help and documentation pages. Let them write internal reporting code or build tools to use themselves.

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

#276

Post by jppope »

just_once wrote: post #229
butterlesstoast wrote: post #158

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?

Most of the high profile basketball players you can think of do this - obvious ones are Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and Lebron James - as I remember it Lebron has even written up plays from time to time during critical games (evidence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUkQbGQTdQ8, and famously erasing his coach's play: https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/lebron-james-changed-fina...)

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

#277

Post by _boffin_ »

mobattah wrote: post #223
_boffin_ wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How’s this actually going? I’m sure there are issues, but is it actually fruitful?

Contrary to sentiment in this thread, I am seeing positive effects of designers and PMs using AI. Skilled designers can now own how their components look and feel with guardrails.

The way i look at it is: those users are going to ask differing questions than engineering that may lead to possibilities not considered, thought of, believed possible, etc.. which can be a good thing, when harnessed correctly*.

I'd love to hear more about the positive effects of designers and PMs using AI, especially more on the PM side, if you care to go into more detail

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

#278

Post by dyauspitr »

butterlesstoast wrote: post #158
azinman2 wrote: post #136

"Non-technical teams are now shipping production code" Boy that's scary for a company that's effectively fintech...

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.

No pure managers is a shitty situation where anything people related is an after thought. That’s how you end up with a shoddy crew with a revolving door.

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

#279

Post by ryandrake »

CityOfThrowaway wrote: post #251
scottlamb wrote: post #213

> We’ll be concentrating around AI-native talent Is this code for "we're firing all the old people"? As I understand it, I can say I'll only hire proficient English speakers (a "bona fide occupational requirement"), but I can't say I'll only hire native speakers, as that would discriminate against various protected groups. This seems like the same thing—proficiency may be a bona fide requirement, but expecting they l…

No, it's obviously not. There is nothing about being old that prevents you from being AI-native.

I don't even know what "AI-native" even means. The term is sufficiently vague to shield any number of discrimination schemes.

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

#280

Post by drdaeman »

phist_mcgee wrote: post #184
mothballed wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Must be the KYC/AML people. I've notice fintech is on a hair trigger to freeze your money for hallucinated reasons. Once they have your money frozen, they can use it as float to pad their numbers for investor decks and draw more interest. Spin up some AI CS agent that just deflects and wastes your time and they can stall out paying for weeks to months.

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.

The missing bit is that compliance is for governments and business partners, not for any end-users. For the purposes of KYC/AML process, end-users are objects, not subjects.

Your coins frozen with no reason given even internally except for "machine said no" - no one gets any slap on the wrist unless you sue real hard, happen to win, and most likely that'll be just a scratch that won't be noticed enough to change any attitudes.

The Man sees that someone they don't like transferring their coins through the fintech company - that's what those companies are really concerned about, because it would be a punch in the gut the company will feel.

Thus, the incentives. Current social design doesn't punish for false positives (until they hit really high levels), only false negatives.

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