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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

#591
post #588

I don't understand why Coinbase is feeling such a crunch. They are just middleman in buying and selling. Their advantage is supposed to be that they make money whether crypto goes up or down. How can they screw this up?

USDC. They see something really bad on their books that's separate from their core business. Just like how Lehman Brothers was a profitable bank that got shredded by one risky trading strategy. These stablecoins have been devoured one by one, and each time they fall more people start trying to get their money out. USDC will experience a run and it might not be survivable without liquidating user account holdings, whi…

If Coinbase is operating USDC as full reserve, as they have claimed, is there any risk from it? Seems like there would only be risk if they lied about how they are running it.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like all levels of wealth to be treated the same. Why do we penalize people for being successful? If I knew you and, by some stroke of luck, you happened to become monocle and top hat wealthy I would congratulate you on your success. I would even buy you dinner to celebrate. I would not demand a share of your wealth just because you have a lot of money. There are some systemic issues that cause wealth inequal…

> Why do we penalize people for being successful? I assume you mean "relative to people that are less successful". The answer is because the marginal value of wealth decreases the more you have. If you're poor, $1,000 is the difference between your kid seeing the doctor or not. If you're rich, it's a nice meal out. > There are some systemic issues that cause wealth inequality. We should focus on fixing those issue to…

So? Are we not all to be treated equally under the law? It doesn't matter that higher income earners are able to pay more in taxes. The government is required to treat all individuals equally.

Fix the problems that exacerbate wealth inequality.

Remove regulations that inhibit competition.

No business is too big to fail. (Most big banks would have been destroyed in 2008)

Stop manipulating the currency to the benefit of the investor class.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#593

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?

I somehow doubt he represented Amazon inc's interests.

He obviously meant Tesla’s

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#594
post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2019/02/06/people-l...

As I suspected, it counts dollars. Moreover, it attributes any subsequent income for somebody that received an inheritance as "inherited" (up to certain exponential boundary). I.e. if you received an inheritance of $1000, spent it, and in 30 years since you became a millionaire, then the amount of wealth you have up to what you could have if you invested $1000 at certain rate would be still counted as "inherited". I…

> As I suspected, it counts dollars.

What do you mean? It counts ownership stakes & stocks as well.

> I imagine we could arrive at 60%. But it doesn't mean what you think it means.

It means exactly what I think it means - if you get bequeathed $1 million dollars and get 8% returns from investing this, it doesn't mean you "self-made" $3.66 million more 20 years later.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 cal…

> 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 Can he?

Didn't you see how US state politicians danced to get the new Amazon offices located in their state?

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#596
post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's an easy pick, to be honest.

The US.

In Europe you have guaranteed minimum wage, can't be fired without good reason, healthcare, all sorts of other help if you lose your job, public transport/cheap means of getting around. It's not even close for the typical worker.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some companies/managers actually do care about you, and it seems like Coinbase is roughly in that court. Do they really tho? They rescinded offers to many foreign students on OPT visas who had turned down Ph.D programs and such, putting them in a pickle. And they did it over email.

At-will employment is "at will" of both parties.

In case it wasn't obvious, there are social contracts between folks that are established outside of the written contract. Things like, "you should try to give 2 weeks notice when possible" and "you should not hire and change your mind in a matter of months, before the person has worked for you, but after they had already turned down other hard-won options."

Folks who violate social contract are called assholes. You don't go to jail for being an asshole but some folks won't want to work with you and that's okay.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get paid for two months to party/holiday/rest, the have another whole month (paid) to lazily job hunt in a crazy hot market and walk into the next place with a 10-30k raise. Happened to me a few times, was fucking awesome. Lack of healthcare would have been a worry but I’m in the U.K. where we get it free. How hard is it to fund your own US insurance on a tech salary to tide you over?

> How hard is it to fund your own US insurance on a tech salary to tide you over? Healthcare is NOT cheap if you want to maintain the same plan. I had to pay $2K a month for a family plan under COBRA several years ago. This is the same as a mortgage payment for me. Typically your employer bears the majority of your insurance cost, but you pay all of it under COBRA.

Oh wow that is absolute madness. That covers your costs for pretty much everything, right?

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I somehow doubt he represented Amazon inc's interests.

He obviously meant Tesla’s

yeah,true, typo on my part, I was just reading about Bezos in another post and about the Amazon rainforest in an article about the meeting. Too late to edit it now.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of wealth is parked in shares of companies. I'm not sure to what extent that is actually productive...?

For many of us on this site, I suspect that actually contributes to our salaries. Either directly as VC capital or indirectly via public ownership. If billionaires suddenly couldn't own public companies, stock prices would drop and we'd likely see layoffs.

And maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing. How many of us are doing things that in a broad sense serve to benefit humanity, and how many are basically pushing ads and social-media addiction?
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