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Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

coindesk.com

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Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#391

Post by [deleted] »

smsm42 wrote: post #335
Johnny555 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that do something to the power relationships in the world? The fact that you're even asking that is a reason we shouldn't have billionaires -- world power relationships shouldn't be based on the wealth of individual citizens. For example, what did Musk really talk about when he met with the president of Brazil? Did he represent American interests, Amazon Inc's interests, or Elon Musk's interests?

Why not btw? I mean, why is it worse for somebody to have power because he worked and invested for decades and made optimal decisions (and probably some luck) than for somebody to have power because he was born into the right family, knows all the right people in The Machine, has nice hair and is able to conceal his rampaging cocaine habit long enough to make himself too big to fail? I get that "wealth gets power" is…

[deleted]

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#392

Post by passivate »

Johnny555 wrote: post #45
sillysaurusx wrote: post #15

I think if employees feel slighted by being fired, they're fooling themselves. The best mindset is that you could be gone tomorrow. It gives you clarity and purpose. It also happens to be the truth. Coinbase was also extremely generous with severance. 12 weeks plus two for every one year at the company, I think. I've had the experience of being let go without notice and without severance. Devs seem a little more griz…

People keep pointing to Armstrong's $110M house like it's some sort of injustice. If you think billionaires should exist at all, then that's one of the least-bad injustices imaginable Ok, I'll admit it, billionaires should not exist at all, there should be a heavy wealth tax that makes it hard to become a billionaire. Will a CEO work less hard if he (and his peers) can only ever gain $100M in net worth before a wealt…

By that same logic, why should USA salaries be higher than the rest of the developed world? Will you work less hard if you can only get $70,000 versus $200,000? The CEO is an employee. The owners of the company hire him/her to do a job.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#393

Post by toomanyrichies »

cavisne wrote: post #374
Johnny555 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep pointing to Armstrong's $110M house like it's some sort of injustice. If you think billionaires should exist at all, then that's one of the least-bad injustices imaginable Ok, I'll admit it, billionaires should not exist at all, there should be a heavy wealth tax that makes it hard to become a billionaire. Will a CEO work less hard if he (and his peers) can only ever gain $100M in net worth before a wealt…

To pay the wealth tax you would need to reduce your ownership in the company to pay the tax until eventually you are just another minor shareholder with a leadership position (for now at least). And eventually is not long (under Warren's proposal it would be ~5 years before jeff bezos was no longer a controlling shareholder). So the question really becomes, will the outcomes for the company be as good when no one lea…

Is wealth tax paid on unrealized gains? If not, these billionaires would only pay the wealth tax when they liquidate their position in the company they founded. Until then, it's just paper wealth and not taxed.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#394

Post by ryandrake »

Aarostotle wrote: post #321
FabHK wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am fairly sure inequality is more extreme than that (top 10% hold 70%) at the moment, and it was less bad in the second half of the 20th century. The top US marginal income tax rate was 90% in the 1960s, and 70% in the 1970s, and it did not seem to discourage GDP growth or innovation. https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-highes...

We live in the most equal time in human history. The actual standard of living of the average person in most developed countries rivals that of royal families from just a couple of centuries ago. Don't confuse monetary inequality with wealth inequality. Measure by the standard of living, not monetary units. What are the actual differences between the life of the average American worker and Jeff Bezos? It's not that b…

> What are the actual differences between the life of the average American worker and Jeff Bezos?

Here are just a few massive differences between the life of the average American worker and Jeff Bezos that have nothing to do with buying luxury goods:

1. Jeff Bezos can get an audience with any Congressperson, any State governor, most countries's heads of state and probably the President of the US, with a telephone call and likely with less than 24 hours notice. That person will listen to and likely be influenced by what he says.

2. Jeff Bezos's public statements can move global financial markets.

3. Jeff Bezos can (and does) own and control mass media companies which can amplify and downplay political issues and shape the outcomes of elections.

4. Through philanthropy, Jeff Bezos can, if he wants, simply decide what counts as a "public good" to be funded and supported, as opposed to the public deciding through the democratic process. Bezos is capable of offering an amount of support for his causes that dwarfs government-funding. We are merely lucky that billionaire philanthropists have so far focused on good things like curing malaria and not on evil.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#395

Post by alphabetam »

boringg wrote: post #351
ausbah wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think if employees feel slighted by being fired, they're fooling themselves. The best mindset is that you could be gone tomorrow. It gives you clarity and purpose. It also happens to be the truth. sorry but this reads like you drank the whole bowl of US corporate kool-aid. the insecurity and stress the comes from not knowing if you'll have a job tomorrow in literal insanity. 14 weeks severance shouldn't be seen an…

What glorious risk-free world do you live in? The low volatile relatively risk free last decade and a half just vanished the next 5 - 10 years is going to be a much rougher ride. 14 week severance bare minimum at a private company? That sounds very rich. [edited for better manners]

c) European.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#396

Post by Apocryphon »

boringg wrote: post #354
tschellenbach wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does seem insane to me that healthcare is tied to employment.. that's just crazy

This part never makes sense to me. I've had friends stay in jobs to keep getting healthcare treatment - it's not great.

It's a complete relic from the WWII era.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#397

Post by wollsmoth »

phaistra wrote: post #344
kingboss wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Top competitors in a scam. Just like NFTs. And boys like pg are into this (both Coinbase and some NFT company that I forgot its name). And you are defending them. And you don't see any problem. And that is the problem. No values was created here. Just moving value around. Usually into the pockets of some already very rich people.

You literally just described most of Wall Street and most of the finance industry too.

Sort of, it's all very abstracted but at the end of the day the investments generally represent value being produced. Goods being created, services being rendered. Crypto, for the most part, is proof that someone, somewhere had a computer that did a thing.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#398

Post by guelo »

smsm42 wrote: post #335
Johnny555 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that do something to the power relationships in the world? The fact that you're even asking that is a reason we shouldn't have billionaires -- world power relationships shouldn't be based on the wealth of individual citizens. For example, what did Musk really talk about when he met with the president of Brazil? Did he represent American interests, Amazon Inc's interests, or Elon Musk's interests?

Why not btw? I mean, why is it worse for somebody to have power because he worked and invested for decades and made optimal decisions (and probably some luck) than for somebody to have power because he was born into the right family, knows all the right people in The Machine, has nice hair and is able to conceal his rampaging cocaine habit long enough to make himself too big to fail? I get that "wealth gets power" is…

> has nice hair and is able to conceal his rampaging cocaine habit long enough to make himself too big to fail?

You are indoctrinated into believing that democracy cannot work and good government is impossible.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#399

Post by Kon5ole »

evanlivingston wrote: post #108
oh_sigh wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just a run of the mill average joe, who has a rock that has been in my family for generations. Turns out some weird little cult likes my rock and wants to buy it for $1B. Should I be forced to sell my rock, because I'm getting a $500M tax bill from the government because some weird little cult said they would pay $1B for it - regardless of whether I want to sell my rock?

Yes? Whether you're receiving the value of the asset or not, you're locking up the value of the asset and preventing a larger group of people from benefiting from the value of the asset, which is sort of the point of a wealth tax.

The actual value being locked up is surely held by the cult, not the owner of the rock? They're the ones who claim to have a bn to spend on a rock after all, the other guy just has a rock. Why can't the cult spend their money on something better than the rock in the first place?

In actuality it's not a rock of course. For a founder of a company the situation is more like you've spent most of your life building something you believe in and suddenly you have to sell it because a group of strangers believe that your thing is worth more money than you've ever seen in your life, and the government wants taxes based on that belief. That seems fundamentally unfair and wrong at least to me.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#400

Post by Broken_Hippo »

alphabetam wrote: post #395
boringg wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What glorious risk-free world do you live in? The low volatile relatively risk free last decade and a half just vanished the next 5 - 10 years is going to be a much rougher ride. 14 week severance bare minimum at a private company? That sounds very rich. [edited for better manners]

c) European.

I was going to reply the same. Heck, you don't even have to actually be European if you just read what protections you have in other places.
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