Can't access x.com, getting "Invalid request rewrite". Has anyone else seen it?
Same here
Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%
511–520 of 842 posts
Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%
#512> 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…
I am an engineer. I hire other engineers. I run a company that ships usable software for small businesses. We do this every day. I'm sorry to say, we are indeed shipping in days what used to take weeks.
Does what you ship involve hundreds of lines of HTML/CSS by any chance? Do you care about accessibility?
Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%
#513This problem has been talked about and answered as back as 500BCE.
It's like the parable of the blind men and an elephant.
Each blind man feels a different part of the animal's body, but only one part, such as the side or the tusk. They then describe the animal based on their limited experience and their descriptions of the elephant are different from each other.
In some versions, they come to suspect that the other person is dishonest and they come to blows. The moral of the parable is that humans have a tendency to claim absolute truth based on their limited, subjective experience as they ignore other people's limited, subjective experiences which may be equally true.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant
Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%
#514Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you're getting laid off, the only thing that really matters is the severance package. I don't think this is true. Humans typically prefer "thanks for the hard work, here's your severance" to "you suck, here's your severance, loser." Humans like being treated with respect, and words are a big part of that. Money is nice, but it's not the only thing we care about.
Words are fake, money is real.
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Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%
#515> 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. Managers should be like player-coaches, getting their hands dirty alongside their teams.
Oof. So not only are they giving their remaining managers more reports, but those managers will be expected to do lots of other, non-management work.
Sure, nothing can go wrong there... Even if they didn't have non-managerial work to do, 15+ direct reports is just too many. They're not going to get to spend enough time meeting each report's needs, not a chance.
I think as layoffs emails go, it's a pretty good one (as the current top comment points out[0]), but boy, I would not want to be working at a company like what Coinbase is turning into. Non-technical teams shipping code to prod? No thanks. "AI-native pods"? No thanks. I do like the idea of one-person teams; I was at my most productive when I was in that kind of role (though I'm not sure my experience generalizes). I get that companies are still struggling to figure out how to adapt to LLMs, but... damn.
Pretty solid severance package for the folks being laid off, though.
Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%
#516> 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 As someone who lived through multiple rounds of layoffs at big tech companies this seemed quite generous.
This is surprising about COBRA - I thought it’s always 18 months. Moreover it doesn’t make much sense to limit cobra - you are paying full price out of pocket anyway.
I read that as they're going to pay the COBRA premiums for 6 months for the laid off employees.
Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%
#517Can't access x.com, getting "Invalid request rewrite". Has anyone else seen it?
Same. Replace x.com with xcancel.com and it'll load there.
Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%
#518Earlier quoted context omitted.
Insanely generous. I got laid off 3 years ago and got a mere 2 weeks + 1 month of COBRA. It was a tech company, but not a big one.
Companies with less than 20 employees aren't federally required to offer COBRA. Companies larger than that are required to offer at least 18 months of coverage. I don't know how large your old company was, but Coinbase is large enough that this offer, rather than being generous, sounds illegal? https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ebsa/about-ebsa/our-a...
I think you misunderstood: Coinbase is offering to pay for the first 6 months of COBRA for the laid-off employees. They can still continue with it for the following 12 months if they want, paid out of pocket.
Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%
#519> 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 the worst. Dario pilled in all the wrong levels. but that is a crypto company no wonder they ride the worst ideas to get rich asap. ICOs and NFTs are the closest thing to what we re living right now when they say they solved coding
Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%
#520The 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.
It sounds way better to investors than, we are in a dying business guys!