Coinbase employees petition to remove execs • Hacker News Board

Re: Coinbase employees petition to remove execs

#191

Post by lupire » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 2:01 PM UTC

moron4hire wrote: post #146

fathyb wrote: post #10

Initiatives like the Dot Collector and the Performance review system that has led to a toxic workplace culture I was curious about that "Dot Collector": Dot collector was an application invented by Ray Dalio’s hedge fund and Bridgewater Associates. The application has set its foot in Coinbase since the start of the year and has been in use by the HR and IT teams of the company. The user interface of the app is quite…

Had a similar thing at Deloitte that they called "Scatterplot". There were questions like, "if the money were yours, would you give it to this person to work on projects?" They take your rankings from multiple people over time, plot them, then generate a trend line. The thinking is that, in an org like Deloitte, you'll end up working with so many people that any interpersonal friction will winnow out as noise. This i…

That makes sense, though, for the business. Consulting companies sell a brand image. If Justin Bieber's backup singer got more famous than Bieber, it would mess up the brand dynamics.

Re: Coinbase employees petition to remove execs

#192

Post by kstenerud » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 2:02 PM UTC

lupire wrote: post #182

kstenerud wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It comes from life experience. I once made the mistake of contradicting a powerful person at my company at a party, and it embarrassed him. Shortly thereafter, people who had been friendly with me became noticeably cooler. My peer reviews took a nosedive and I was let go in the next round of layoffs. That's how things work in the real world, but this kind of review system makes it MUCH easier to sabotage others when…

How would the dot system make it easier to hurt you? The dot system would probably *help" here, because a sudden drop in ratings right after the incident would merit an investigation.

In theory they could, yes, but in practice people would rather just get rid of trouble rather than investigate it because it's far less work.

Re: Coinbase employees petition to remove execs

#193

Post by bpicolo » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 2:02 PM UTC

asien wrote: post #151

jiggawatts wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a post here recently where a Netflix employee was proudly showing off their log processing system. Which was collecting the equivalent of nearly 2 MB of logs per minute of user streaming time. In my mind, that's just bonkers, and no amount of handwaving could justify it.

> 2 MB of logs per minute of user streaming time. 2MB/minute is 33KB/second. How is that impressive?

That's per user. So a million (or ten, 50...) active users means a lot more per minute.

Re: Coinbase employees petition to remove execs

#194

Post by tinyhouse » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 2:03 PM UTC

This is refreshing. When I first saw the title my immediate reaction was this is probably another US workforce political drama. But actually they list very valid points. Although the stock price has a lot to do with the crypto market in general. It's not the execs' fault it was so hyped when they IPO'd.

Re: Coinbase employees petition to remove execs

#195

Post by bena » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 2:04 PM UTC

fathyb wrote: post #10

Initiatives like the Dot Collector and the Performance review system that has led to a toxic workplace culture I was curious about that "Dot Collector": Dot collector was an application invented by Ray Dalio’s hedge fund and Bridgewater Associates. The application has set its foot in Coinbase since the start of the year and has been in use by the HR and IT teams of the company. The user interface of the app is quite…

The 9 core principles at the place where I work are:

Vision, Verve, Wit, Cheer, Humility, Benevolence, Nimbleness, Probity and Wiles.

Normally, I try not to value any principle over the others, but today, I'd have to say Cheer is my favorite.

Re: Coinbase employees petition to remove execs

#196

Post by bpicolo » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 2:05 PM UTC

thematrixturtle wrote: post #28

boeingUH60 wrote: post #24

Interesting that they mention the Chief Product Officer, Surojit Chatterjee. I remember reading about him as the guy who got over $600 million [1] in compensation for 15 months of work (factoring Coinbase’s high share price at the time of its direct listing)…mind-blowing 1 - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-14/google-ex...

If it's any consolation, that compensation was in Coinbase shares and options at the IPO valuation of ~$320/share, meaning it's been slashed to under a fifth of that at the current $64, possibly less if the options are under water now.

Wouldn't an exec getting options be bizarre? Would expect RSUs or common stock

Re: Coinbase employees petition to remove execs

#197

Post by dimgl » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 2:07 PM UTC

DonHopkins wrote: post #127

fathyb wrote: post #10

Initiatives like the Dot Collector and the Performance review system that has led to a toxic workplace culture I was curious about that "Dot Collector": Dot collector was an application invented by Ray Dalio’s hedge fund and Bridgewater Associates. The application has set its foot in Coinbase since the start of the year and has been in use by the HR and IT teams of the company. The user interface of the app is quite…

Sounds like something that happened at Sun around 1990, which I described earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15660759 At Sun, during the dark days of Solaris, when everyone was depressed and wanted to quit, our manager sat down with each of us and asked: "I want to know your happiness index, a number from 1 to 10. You can use any algorithm you want to come up with it, just use the same algorithm each time…

I'd love to read about this. Do you have anything I can read on the history of Solaris and its development?

Re: Coinbase employees petition to remove execs

#198

Post by shanusmagnus » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 2:07 PM UTC

PheonixPharts wrote: post #175

shanusmagnus wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get why this is viewed as beyond the pale? Sounds like your manager cared about how you all were doing, and wanted a way to observe trends in how you were doing in order to help you, which is the same exact thing a manager does implicitly every time she talks to you. Obviously this isn't reproduceable psychological science, but is there more to the story to explain why you found this to be objectionable?

I see you've never worked in a toxic organization (or at least not noticed). My experience has been if you voice displeasure it will be reflected in your performance review. I had a role on a team once, I was doing great, getting work done and all my coworkers enjoyed working with me. Got along well with the team lead etc. However I was grossly mislead as to what the role was. I finally decided to talk to my manager…

My most recent gig was pretty toxic, which is why the framing of the OP (and some of the reactions) is so surprising -- most managers at our place wouldn't have noticed when the employers were spiraling into a funk, and certainly wouldn't have sat down with them individually and asked them how they were doing, as per OP. So to me, that sounds like someone giving a shit and trying to do something about it. If it's an evil manager situation, you can grind people into dust without the theatre of trying to help them. All that said, your example makes sense. I guess it depends on the particular pathology of the place and how it manifests.

I do find a lot of these HN threads pretty fatalist, though, where there is seemingly no room for a mgr to do what they're paid to do and also care and try to help in a realistic way without being seen as overbearing and evil. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Re: Coinbase employees petition to remove execs

#199

Post by epberry » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 2:11 PM UTC

Coinbase has been slipping in several ways.

- Yesterday was onboarding my friend to Coinbase wallet and the landing page for that product was 404'ing. This is the first result on Google! Proof - https://imgur.com/yMt1N49

- They activated the dapp browser in the app, with a new wallet that's different than my existing coinbase wallet. Why?? Why do I now have 2 wallets.

- Coinbase direct deposit does not work with Gusto, or at least it didn't 3 months ago. Tried and got silent error.

- Rescinding offers. Terrible, how could they not forsee a massive backlash? Does the foreign national new grad who was counting on that offer/visa really affect the bottom line so much? Maybe $20M for a superbowl ad where the app crashed wasn't worth it?

- Coinbase wallet: popular projects like Chain Runners do not even display.

I mean the list goes on. Meanwhile the CEO is going on Good Time Show talking about "how we built this" and I'm thinking hello? Your own house is on fire right now. All this said, Brian Armstrong is a legendary entrepreneur and I know that he can reset. Airbnb went through a similar phase before the CEO made changes and got them back to their core.

Re: Coinbase employees petition to remove execs

#200

Post by cybdestroyer » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 2:12 PM UTC

stuff4ben wrote: post #163

Oh for heaven's sake, just quit. Vote with your feet and walk them out the door to another job. The market is good (for now), best do it before that changes. When the people who do the actual work leave and they can't hire anyone due to their poor reputation because of the previously rescinded offers, they'll reap their own rewards.

So if they quit, what happens to their stock options if they aren’t fully vested? In my company they go to the execs…for heaven’s sake.