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Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

blog.coinbase.com

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Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#11

Post by iso1631 »

anshublog wrote: post #2

This is sad. This was avoidable. There’s no recession as far as the eye can see. There’s a crypto recession. Let’s go back to building real tech.

> Real gross domestic product (GDP) decreased at an annual rate of 1.5 percent in the first quarter of 2022

Any bets it's going to be positive in Q2 with the ballooning oil prices?

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#12

Post by nojito »

>If you are affected, you will receive this notification in your personal email, because we made the decision to cut access to Coinbase systems for affected employees. I realize that removal of access will feel sudden and unexpected, and this is not the experience I wanted for you. Given the number of employees who have access to sensitive customer information, it was unfortunately the only practical choice, to ensure not even a single person made a rash decision that harmed the business or themselves.

Very interesting!! Cutting nearly 20% of your staff but not giving any opportunity for workload transitions take place.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#13

Post by moepstar »

londons_explore wrote: post #4

Did coinbase pay employees in dollars or crypto? Paying employees in coinbase-coins sounds very attractive, and if there is any group of people who would want that it's employees of a crypto company...

I think they do/did - iirc, i read something in a thread on Reddit from one of their employees...

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#14

Post by atlasunshrugged »

It is fascinating just how quickly sentiments can change (both in the broader market but in crypto it seems to be exacerbated). That said, it's obvious that companies like these dramatically overhired and overspent on talent and were growing far beyond what the market could bear except in an extremely bull run subsidized by government largesse. Now that investors are losing their shirts on crypto and retail people who were playing with fun money have sports to bet on again and can go outside, I imagine the trading volume is going to keep declining dramatically, and they basically missed the NFT craze since their marketplace was late to the party. Hope their employees who have been with them for a while were able to sell at a reasonable time after IPO and aren't still in the lockup period.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#15

Post by mschuster91 »

jstx1 wrote: post #3

If we follow the weekly updates: 1. First a hiring "slowdown". 2. Hiring freeze and rescinded offers. 3. 18% layoffs. What's the reason behind announcing it in stages? Don't they receive much more negative publicity this way? Or are they really making decisions from one week for the next?

> Or are they really making decisions from one week for the next?

I'd say this is the most likely explanation. The weekend was brutal for everyone in crypto.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#16

Post by atlasunshrugged »

choeger wrote: post #6
anshublog wrote: post #2

This is sad. This was avoidable. There’s no recession as far as the eye can see. There’s a crypto recession. Let’s go back to building real tech.

>There’s no recession as far as the eye can see. Back your pardon? The Fed is expected to raise the interest rate by 0.75% in September, IIRC. If that's not a recession on the horizon, then what is?

They might actually do so this week if the news is to be believed

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/13/markets-are-now-bracing-for-...

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/13/fed-reportedly-may-hike-rate...

edit to add second non-paywalled link

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#17

Post by seibelj »

Crypto is clearly crashing but I’m more curious if a reckoning will hit FAANG, particularly Google. I know one person there who is the spouse of a good friend, and they make nearly 7 figures as a middle manager (although I’m unsure what happens with the stock declines and RSUs).

Can these companies support legions of absurdly highly paid people? GOOG is down 25% this year, what will happen when it drops 50%?

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#19

Post by melling »

choeger wrote: post #6
anshublog wrote: post #2

This is sad. This was avoidable. There’s no recession as far as the eye can see. There’s a crypto recession. Let’s go back to building real tech.

>There’s no recession as far as the eye can see. Back your pardon? The Fed is expected to raise the interest rate by 0.75% in September, IIRC. If that's not a recession on the horizon, then what is?

Raising rates has a lagging effect. That results in the economy won’t be felt until next year.

One of the benefits of crypto was supposed to be that it was uncorrelated to the market, etc.

“Money” shouldn’t change in value so quickly.

Re: Coinbase Announces 18% Layoffs

#20

Post by bombcar »

jstx1 wrote: post #3

If we follow the weekly updates: 1. First a hiring "slowdown". 2. Hiring freeze and rescinded offers. 3. 18% layoffs. What's the reason behind announcing it in stages? Don't they receive much more negative publicity this way? Or are they really making decisions from one week for the next?

Because everyone does it in stages as listed above (some more loudly than others), if you jump to step 3 without going through 1 and 2 people will assume it is your step one and things must be really, really bad.
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