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Kraken lays off 30% of staff

blog.kraken.com

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Re: Kraken lays off 30% of staff

#141

Post by danielvf »

UncleMeat wrote: post #130
woodruffw wrote: post #18

> Since the start of this year, macroeconomic and geopolitical factors have weighed on financial markets. This is an incredible couching of the last 9 months of cryptocurrency market behavior. Does anybody actually operate on their belief that "geopolitical factors," rather than astonishing amounts of fraud , are responsible for the current downturn?

For the life of me I cannot understand how every single layoff notice talks about "macroeconomic factors." Inflation and interest rates are up - okay. But real GDP growth (in the US at least) has been positive. Why is everybody acting like unemployment is at 8%, GDP growth is sharply negative, and consumer spending is way down? At least with crypto stuff it makes sense that these companies are losing shitloads of mon…

*Growth* is down in certain sectors. Many companies were staffing to support and capture possible future growth. When next year is expected to look like this year, a lot fewer people are actually needed.

Re: Kraken lays off 30% of staff

#142

Post by autotune »

brezelgoring wrote: post #31
psychlops wrote: post #13

Don't they realize they are supposed to create a KRY currency and pump it up to supply value to their company and pay their employees? Perhaps if the CEO had gone to Stanford, he would have been better educated in effective altruism and have placed their needs higher.

>Perhaps if the CEO had gone to Stanford, he would have been better educated in effective altruism and have placed their needs higher Careful, some might infer a snide on their church and bite back to you. Not me, I share your view.

Is anyone actually defending effective altruism right now? SBF has effectively flushed it down the drain along with the investors he scammed.

Re: Kraken lays off 30% of staff

#143

Post by nightski »

woodruffw wrote: post #138
nightski wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an options account with TD Ameritrade. It took a few clicks to get. But it's pretty convenient traditional finance can be redefined when needed.

This doesn't change what the GP said. I have an options account with my bank too, but I had to sign all kinds of disclosures and wait to be approved. I also had to demonstrate a minimum net worth. What made Robinhood (originally) unique was stripping away those protections, or otherwise automating them away in a mobile app. We have lots of concrete examples of people losing their life's savings on Robinhood, in no sm…

You are right. If you are referring to the GP of my post I agree with them - there are many growth stocks down more than crypto at the moment. That was what I was trying to say but did so poorly. I was just clarifying what I meant by thousands of % since I was thinking of options when I wrote it.

Your knowledge around opening an options account is slightly outdated. They used to have net worth requirements and more legal forms. Some time around 2020 though at the beginning of the pandemic all of this was removed. It's a few clicks now at pretty much any major investment bank such as TD Ameritrade.

Re: Kraken lays off 30% of staff

#144

Post by ceejayoz »

suh_dude wrote: post #132
newmac wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kraken regularly used shell/cover companies to hire employees. They have a pretty complex web of fronts not-called-Kraken. Entire offices are 'employed' by one of these companies.

Interesting, why would they do this?

As one example: in the US, employers with more than 100 employees have to give 60 days notice of layoffs of a certain size. Outsource customer service to small, closely held subcontractors and you can avoid the requirement.

Re: Kraken lays off 30% of staff

#145

Post by cwkoss »

gigatexal wrote: post #137

For a company built on a Ponzi-scheme (crypto) they sure are being good to their employees and that’s laudable. “Separation pay: We will pay 16 weeks of base pay for all departing Krakenites inclusive of the paid leave period. Performance bonus: For those eligible, we will pay each departing Krakenite their bonus as determined by their manager. Benefits: We will offer eligible Krakenites 4 months of healthcare contin…

People who don't understand what ponzi schemes are love calling crypto a ponzi scheme.

Re: Kraken lays off 30% of staff

#146

Post by HDThoreaun »

woodruffw wrote: post #18

> Since the start of this year, macroeconomic and geopolitical factors have weighed on financial markets. This is an incredible couching of the last 9 months of cryptocurrency market behavior. Does anybody actually operate on their belief that "geopolitical factors," rather than astonishing amounts of fraud , are responsible for the current downturn?

Well the ponzi would've kept on rolling if the cheap money hadn't dried up, so in that sense they're right. Macro conditions exposed their fraud.

Re: Kraken lays off 30% of staff

#147

Post by adam_arthur »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #29
CommitSyn wrote: post #4

> We’re reducing our global workforce by approximately 1,100 people, or 30 percent, in order to adapt to current market conditions. Why does a crypto exchange need 4,000 employees?

I feel like HN should just auto add a comment that says "Why does need employees?" with a follow up comment that explains how large corporations work. It literally comes up in every single layoff announcement or other discussion of company size in some way, and the follow on comments are essentially the same every single time. I'm not saying that a lot of these companies aren't overstaffed (indeed, that's why they ar…

Yes, large corporations tend to get bloated. It doesn't have to be that way though. Many companies will come to find they didn't need nearly as many as they have after all.

I would agree that the more employees a company has, the more the architecture/design shapes around the size of their labor force. But it also doesn't have to be that way

Let's watch Twitter and see

Re: Kraken lays off 30% of staff

#149

Post by g42gregory »

woodruffw wrote: post #18

> Since the start of this year, macroeconomic and geopolitical factors have weighed on financial markets. This is an incredible couching of the last 9 months of cryptocurrency market behavior. Does anybody actually operate on their belief that "geopolitical factors," rather than astonishing amounts of fraud , are responsible for the current downturn?

My understanding is the crypto prices are driven primarily by the amount of liquidity injected in the market. Or, at least, that’s the case in the current cycle. Fraud is bad, but it has less impact.

Re: Kraken lays off 30% of staff

#150

Post by simonebrunozzi »

naillo wrote: post #67

Is it naive of me to think that CEOs aren't really much better macro predictors than most of us and are kind of doing this in a wave like fad "because that's what everyone else is doing"?

The board is telling them to, irrespective of whether they think about it themselves.
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