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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%

#631

Post by torben-friis »

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.

Native implies mother language. As in "this is how I learned from the start".

Either it's badly named or people are trying to be included (?).

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

#632

Post by sillyfluke »

CityOfThrowaway wrote: post #436
ryandrake wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's a term of art that straightforwardly means people who embrace AI-assisted programming. As opposed to the very large number of engineers who actively don't like it, or have enough change aversion to have avoided it.

AI-native should mean those who were born/came-of-age/started learning programming in the era of mature AI. It shouldn't be many people (relatively speaking) at this stage.

The term that best suits "people who embrace AI-assisted programming" is AI-first programmers, which is what they literally mean by the looks of it. Clearly, they just use what they think sounds cooler.

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

#633

Post by friendzis »

ultratalk wrote: post #563
friendzis wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it is still a perfect nothing? You do get how that's worse, right? The person rather spends their time arguing with the clanker than thinking about the person and putting those thought into words, however unstructured they are.

Yeah, but communication is a two-way street. It might not matter to me that my words are unstructured, but it will to the person I'm writing to if they can't make head nor tail of what I'm saying, or worse, misunderstand it as being insulting when it isn't.

There is a whole industry built around [mis-]conception that people will take less offense on the content if it was presented differently. The predictable result is that it is actually rewriting content, not the presentation or tone. No amount of linkedinese corporate fluffery will wash off the core message that people are getting laid off unless you outright hide the message under ambiguity of double-speak like "slimming down operations", which can mean multiple things.

So essentially you have three choices:

1. Spend time writing (or have written by a copywriter) in corporate fluff dialect, where the actual message is still understandable by all parties. At the cost of appearing tone deaf.

2. Spend time reiterating with a bot that speaks some undefined sub-dialect of LLMinese where the reception of the message is unknown. At the cost of appearing even more tone deaf and insulting than a corporate cog.

3. Spend time restructuring message in genuine voice. At the cost of maybe being heard more harshly than intended.

I fail to see how option 2 can be perceived as anything but the worst, unless you assume that the target audience does not distinguish LLMinese from actual speech.

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

#634

Post by _heimdall »

unethical_ban wrote: post #452
_heimdall wrote: post #399

> - 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 is going to end poorly for them. The only good managers I've had over around 20 years in the industry were 100% people managers and had no IC type of role expectations. I've personally walked away from multiple manager rol…

At the first tier manager layer, an ideal manager has skills in their workers' domain. That doesn't mean their job should require participation in that domain. Requiring that signals they are somewhat desperate to run lean, which wouldn't be a red flag in a small company but does in a large one.

I do agree I'd expect a manager of ICs to know the domain, my point was simply that I never expect or want them to be contributing directly to IC work.

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

#635

Post by just_once »

fsckboy wrote: post #272
just_once wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Yeah this is one of maybe 3 or 4 successful examples in the history of both players and coaches. Wonder why they haven't done it since the 70's....

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

#636

Post by just_once »

jppope wrote: post #276
just_once wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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... )

I don't think that's what player-coach means. It's not an archetype. It's a concrete role.

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

#637

Post by bhickey »

Fnoord wrote: post #476
Worf wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of how kings used to (I think, I'm bad at history) actually fight the battles themselves. Now the head of state, the head of government and the other top people don't fight themselves. Even the admirals only plan and command, AFAIK.

Big diff between RU and modern Western military (including UA) is officers on the field. RU has a very top-down hierarchy. In the end, everyone is replaceable. But a king is a bit more difficult to replace, as historically shown.

Celtic kings in Ireland were subject to ritualistic sacrifice if, for example, crops failed.

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

#638

Post by dormento »

CamouflagedKiwi wrote: post #545
muzani wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This jumped out at me right away too. What happened to the days when a dedicated manager would manage 8 reports? What now? AI is going to double the communication bandwidth with these reports and further double the free time they have? I do think the most efficient form of team is a "cell" of three people. One is a little unstable.

> What happened to the days when a dedicated manager would manage 8 reports? Cheap money went away which caused companies to start asking hard questions about productivity and how much those dedicated managers were contributing.

Then there's the convenient answer of "AI made me do it", to which investors are somehow really empathetic... feels like every company CEO is operating on the mindset of "its gonna hit the fan any moment now", except they're the ones holding the fan.

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

#639

Post by ahmadtbk »

qingcharles wrote: post #403
rbjorklin wrote: post #302

> We’ll also be experimenting with reduced pod sizes, including “one person teams” with engineers, designers, and product managers all in one role. What happens when this person inevitably leaves and they have no one who knows even a little bit about the process or tools used?

Isn't that why you have processes to create documentation? I would forget half the processes I use if I didn't document them all religiously. The benefit now is that I can save myself significant time by having an LLM help me write the docs.

Lol even if you spent all day documenting what you're doing it wouldn't be enough to transfer all the learning and context.

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

#640

Post by AdamN »

aboodman wrote: post #603
aboodman wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol I read "as many as 15+ direct reports" and thought it was hilariously low. My manager at google had like 50+ directs in 2010. And he was the best boss I've ever had. Popular conception of what a manager is is wildly unambitious. Weekly 1:1 is performative and useless. It's not what makes a good manager. What makes a good manager is: * Having excellent domain knowledge and judgement * Having the respect of the tea…

I mean I have 7 reports right now and we're a startup. And fully remote. And I'm still contributing as an IC too.

A manager who is also contributing code is almost an entirely different role than a manager who is not contributing code. Typically the former should not exist in a smaller org and in a larger org it makes sense to shift to the latter because there's enough non-code work to do that you might as well dedicate whole people to the task.

Different roles though.

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