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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%

#341

Post by pron »

randallsquared wrote: post #338
pron wrote: post #310

> Over the past year, I’ve watched engineers use AI to ship in days what used to take a team weeks. No, you didn't. You watched engineers use AI to ship in days something that looks like what used to take a team weeks. After enough rounds of feature evolution, you'll realise that what they actually shipped isn't at all the same. Anthropic's C compiler, which also seemed like a good start that would have taken people…

> In a year or so Look at the best models from Spring 2025, and compare with now (and similarly for Springs 2024 and 2025). Armstrong and lots of others are betting that this trend will continue, and if it does, the LLMs will ship code the LLMs understand, and whether any human specifically understands any particular part will mostly not matter.

And if the trend doesn't continue? I understand that a company with Coinbase's performance has little to lose and not many options, but many companies are in a better position.

The problem is that executives could take the 15-20% productivity boost and be content, but they read stuff like this, get greedy, and they don't understand the risk they're taking.

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

#342

Post by spamizbad »

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…

Yeah my experience in engineering management: Very easy to be a "player coach" when the team was small, like when I had 4 direct reports. As soon as I had 9 (in an org with no TPM/product) my full time job was wearing 3 hats, and maybe 3 hours a week were spent on actual pure technical tasks (mostly scut work to unblock team members after-hours)

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

#344

Post by pron »

reverend_gonzo wrote: post #268
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…

I would disagree. I am among the oldest on our team and also the most in tune with AI. I see AI-native as those who have embraced it, and are learning to leverage it appropriately.

Except people who are learning to leverage it appropriately already know better than to generate important production code by "managing fleets of agents".

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

#345

Post by randallsquared »

pron wrote: post #341
randallsquared wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In a year or so Look at the best models from Spring 2025, and compare with now (and similarly for Springs 2024 and 2025). Armstrong and lots of others are betting that this trend will continue, and if it does, the LLMs will ship code the LLMs understand, and whether any human specifically understands any particular part will mostly not matter.

And if the trend doesn't continue? I understand that a company with Coinbase's performance has little to lose and not many options, but many companies are in a better position. The problem is that executives could take the 15-20% productivity boost and be content, but they read stuff like this, get greedy, and they don't understand the risk they're taking.

Agreed! That will be an... "interesting" outcome, if so, for a lot of these companies.

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

#346

Post by Auracle »

hocuspocus wrote: post #177
JeremyNT wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be honest, this is a crypto exchange. "Line go up" is the only philosophy these people adhere to. > 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. People don't work som…

Even better, as an exchange, they don't even necessarily care whether the line goes up, down, sideways, or in fucking circles to quote the Wolf of Wall Street. As long as it goes somewhere, and customers are charged fees.

Eh. Presumably there’s a ton more trading when the market is hot (and a somewhat lesser extent, when in a bi bear market).

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

#347

Post by Atotalnoob »

brandall10 wrote: post #289
simonbw wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Internal tools and help/marketing pages aren't generally considered production code.

What world do you live in internal tooling isn’t production code?

Internal tools keep the lights on and allow customer facing code to function!

Operational tooling also isn’t a sexy thing, but it’s vital for any company to function.

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

#348

Post by bix6 »

randallsquared wrote: post #338
pron wrote: post #310

> Over the past year, I’ve watched engineers use AI to ship in days what used to take a team weeks. No, you didn't. You watched engineers use AI to ship in days something that looks like what used to take a team weeks. After enough rounds of feature evolution, you'll realise that what they actually shipped isn't at all the same. Anthropic's C compiler, which also seemed like a good start that would have taken people…

> In a year or so Look at the best models from Spring 2025, and compare with now (and similarly for Springs 2024 and 2025). Armstrong and lots of others are betting that this trend will continue, and if it does, the LLMs will ship code the LLMs understand, and whether any human specifically understands any particular part will mostly not matter.

> and whether any human specifically understands any particular part will mostly not matter.

This is how I feel. It’s building things for me that work. I don’t care how it works under the hood in many cases.

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

#349

Post by [deleted] »

mothballed wrote: post #192
phist_mcgee wrote: post #184

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…

[deleted]

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

#350

Post by pron »

bix6 wrote: post #348
randallsquared wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In a year or so Look at the best models from Spring 2025, and compare with now (and similarly for Springs 2024 and 2025). Armstrong and lots of others are betting that this trend will continue, and if it does, the LLMs will ship code the LLMs understand, and whether any human specifically understands any particular part will mostly not matter.

> and whether any human specifically understands any particular part will mostly not matter. This is how I feel. It’s building things for me that work. I don’t care how it works under the hood in many cases.

It's not about caring how it works. It's about caring that it keeps working at all even after you add stuff to it for a year or three (and nearly all software written by companies is software they evolve).
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