Coinbase employees petition to remove execs • Hacker News Board

Re: Coinbase employees petition to remove execs

#31

Post by ChrisRR » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 7:22 AM 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…

That sounds like a 360 degree review, but with less granularity.

Re: Coinbase employees petition to remove execs

#32

Post by ignoramous » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 7:24 AM UTC

peppertree wrote: post #17

jl2718 wrote: post #7

“Signatures will be done in a way that is fair and transparent, as well as respecting the anonymity and privacy of each individual employee.” What are some ideas for how to do this? Maybe start with the assumption that each employee has an ECC key signed by a corporate certificate authority.

Some sort of block chain, where you can also sell your votes to other employees, pegged to USD.

Heh. You kid, but to dare is to do (albeit via NFTs): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CMVPUomG2SS4ITMQ8283VJlC...

Re: Coinbase employees petition to remove execs

#33

Post by ayewo » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 7:31 AM UTC

saurik wrote: post #20

I don't understand how there can be such a push for a vote of no-confidence in three C-level people with no mention of the CEO that ostensibly chose, managed, and retained them.

> I don't understand how there can be such a push for a vote of no-confidence in three C-level people with no mention of the CEO that ostensibly chose, managed, and retained them.

The CEO and his C-suite all have agency.

If one member of the C-suite misbehaves professionally, you are suggesting that the one who hired/managed him/her should be punished alongside the errant person by virtue of association, rather than by establishing concrete evidence that they both acted in concert?

Re: Coinbase employees petition to remove execs

#34

Post by sjtindell » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 7:33 AM UTC

I’ve become convinced that hiring more people is generally a warning sign. A team of between a few and about twenty people seems to produce all the good stuff. Anything beyond that, your value per employee drops drastically, and your cost per employee goes up as you need to offer higher and higher salaries to stay in competition. A company going on a hiring spree is now a negative indicator for me. I think FB, Goog, etc. could lay off thousands with no adverse effects and in fact an increase in velocity, quality, and quantity of new features/products. Sometimes one person can be much more productive than a whole team. This is obviously unscientific, just a feeling I’m getting lately.

Re: Coinbase employees petition to remove execs

#35

Post by misja111 » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 7:36 AM 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…

Like others already said, this is just another variant of the commonly used 360 degrees feedback system. I don't think that system is bad in itself, I've been in companies where it worked very well. I've also seen a company where it was being used by some to rat on colleagues, but in that company there were lots of things wrong already and the reviews just made it worse. So I guess there were many underlying problems in Coinbase already.

Re: Coinbase employees petition to remove execs

#36

Post by mimsee » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 7:38 AM 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…

Isn't this exactly what was made fun of in the show Pied Piper? Piper score or metrics if I recall correctly.

Re: Coinbase employees petition to remove execs

#37

Post by KingOfCoders » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 7:39 AM UTC

sjtindell wrote: post #34

I’ve become convinced that hiring more people is generally a warning sign. A team of between a few and about twenty people seems to produce all the good stuff. Anything beyond that, your value per employee drops drastically, and your cost per employee goes up as you need to offer higher and higher salaries to stay in competition. A company going on a hiring spree is now a negative indicator for me. I think FB, Goog,…

I also found working in smaller companies more effective (worked in 20 people, 500 people and 30.000 people companies).

DHH recently said at a conference on how people always tell him they were happy when the company was small, and asked "Why scale then?" (the panel agreed that some things, like building a commercial airliner might take large teams).

This has been to my heart for years https://www.radicalsimpli.city/

Looking at HN, enjoying the single founder SaaS threads, this is the future for a lot of business models.

Re: Coinbase employees petition to remove execs

#38

Post by blocked_again » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 7:40 AM UTC

Companies should only hire entrepreneurs and engineers who has proven track record as builders as execs. Hiring people from business schools and non engineers as execs is the stupidest thing you can do for long term sucess of the company.

Hire builders. Not resume builders.

Re: Coinbase employees petition to remove execs

#39

Post by username_my1 » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 7:42 AM UTC

thematrixturtle wrote: post #25

This is a pretty vague and poorly thought out petition. It leads with the collapse of NFTs, which has little if anything to do with Coinbase or its execs; it complains about infra/tech debt but says nothing about why that's bad, much less the execs' fault; fluff like "a generally apathetic and sometimes condescending attitude" is not actionable; and much of the phrasing like "the wisdom of the crypto industry" (lolwu…

Yeah lots of vc backed startups were overvalued so exceptional risk was needed to be taken to match such expectations. It’s easy to blame people at the top but they’re not the ones evaluating the company and they can’t control: the fed, the war on Ukraine, oil prices

While it looks like coinbase had a toxic work culture I have no sympathy for those “mercenaries” joining companies on exceptionally great times then complain when things get back to reality

Re: Coinbase employees petition to remove execs

#40

Post by saurik » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 7:44 AM UTC

ayewo wrote: post #33

saurik wrote: post #20

I don't understand how there can be such a push for a vote of no-confidence in three C-level people with no mention of the CEO that ostensibly chose, managed, and retained them.

> I don't understand how there can be such a push for a vote of no-confidence in three C-level people with no mention of the CEO that ostensibly chose, managed, and retained them. The CEO and his C-suite all have agency. If one member of the C-suite misbehaves professionally, you are suggesting that the one who hired/managed him/her should be punished alongside the errant person by virtue of association, rather than…

I am assuming/suggesting that if NOT one, not even two, but three core members of the C-suite fail to do their jobs correctly--jobs that are described as fundamental to the company: defining product direction and allocating corporate resources--then it would seem strange not to cast at least some blame on the person who leads them, whether for having chose them in the first place, for having managed or directed them incorrectly, or for having continued to retain them to this point... if this isn't the CEO's fault, then what even is the CEO doing? Is his job just to make controversial statements on Twitter?