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Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

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Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#691

Post by anthonypasq »

keiferski wrote: post #690

It has always annoyed me that companies can basically fire people for whatever reason they want, but more specifically that they can lie about that reason. It almost makes we wish there were legal requirements for giving proof backing up the reason. It doesn’t need to be an actually good or noble one, but just in the sense of actually being accurate information being put into the world. I imagine this could be sold a…

??? the reason for every single layoff in the history of the world is to lower expenses, and that is obvious to everyone. not actually sure what other kind of explanation would satisfy you.

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#692

Post by keiferski »

anthonypasq wrote: post #691
keiferski wrote: post #690

It has always annoyed me that companies can basically fire people for whatever reason they want, but more specifically that they can lie about that reason. It almost makes we wish there were legal requirements for giving proof backing up the reason. It doesn’t need to be an actually good or noble one, but just in the sense of actually being accurate information being put into the world. I imagine this could be sold a…

??? the reason for every single layoff in the history of the world is to lower expenses, and that is obvious to everyone. not actually sure what other kind of explanation would satisfy you.

But why is lowering expenses now necessary? If we believed the press releases, it’s because AI blah blah. I’m suggesting that some legal requirement for being truthful about the reason would be beneficial.

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#693

Post by mancerayder »

siren2026 wrote: post #561
kelnos wrote: post #515

> Leaders will own much more, with as many as 15+ direct reports. [...] Every leader at Coinbase must also be a strong and active individual contributor. Managers should be like player-coaches, getting their hands dirty alongside their teams. Oof. So not only are they giving their remaining managers more reports, but those managers will be expected to do lots of other, non-management work. Sure, nothing can go wrong…

Or maybe we should go back to what it was before Google and big $$$ tech decided that if you were a "manager" you shouldn't contribute technically. Being a manager now means a bunch of busy work talking to other managers and weekly 1:1s. There is a ton that has been written about the managerial class. Producing nothing, but for sure making themselves look self-important. Before that the manager was essentially the be…

You people (as in this HN community) have your conception of middle management taken from memes, comics and to some extent a lack of experience. Managing even 5-10 people means juggling projects, personnel management, being held accountable for all actions of your people, having to be sandwiched between the pie-in-the-sky class and the myopic individual, translator in between. It means jumping on outage calls, doing architecture reviews, and getting slammed with meetings.

Please tell me where these 'managers make a lot of money and do nothing but approve timesheets' companies are, I'd kill to work for one!

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#694

Post by ghaff »

twosdai wrote: post #686
dahart wrote: post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We don't need weekly 1:1s to check on feelings. As a manager that does weekly 1:1s, I agree with that statement. But I do need 1:1s to check on progress, uncover blockers that people haven’t surfaced on their own, make continuous small decisions, offer support, assess performance, collect status information for my manager, and last but not least give employees the opportunity to share feelings frequently. They do,…

It is possible to move most of that discussion to required but intentional async communication.

Personally, I think it's good to have at least occasional 1:1s because a lot comes out informally. That said my "weekly" 1:1s with a fairly long-term manager mostly turned into more or less monthlies because we both traveled so much.

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#696

Post by seattle_spring »

cjrp wrote: post #615
aboodman wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol I read "as many as 15+ direct reports" and thought it was hilariously low. My manager at google had like 50+ directs in 2010. And he was the best boss I've ever had. Popular conception of what a manager is is wildly unambitious. Weekly 1:1 is performative and useless. It's not what makes a good manager. What makes a good manager is: * Having excellent domain knowledge and judgement * Having the respect of the tea…

Interesting. I'd define all of those tasks as the job of a team/tech lead, rather than a manager. I've worked at places where the same person did both roles, and it was not always a great mix.

If you think hiring, prioritizing, planning, and cross-team negotiation are all tasks of a tech lead and not a manager, then what is the job of an engineering manager in your opinion?

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#697

Post by snapcaster »

pron wrote: post #675
snapcaster wrote: post #668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're just wrong on this though, and I don't know why you aren't realizing it's a skill issue on your part

Nah, it's a skill issue on the part of those who believe in "agent swarms" (in fact, that's how I recognise AI noobs; they think swarms work). Studies (like this [1]) and Anthropic's experiements have told us they don't. We do experiments with software correctness and formal methods experts who actually dive deep into "swarm outputs" and try to put evolutionary pressure on them. Swarms simply cannot (yet) produce via…

You're successfully beating the shit out of the strawman you've created. People are using LLMs to see massive productivity benefits and ship production code right now.

If you aren't, it's a skill issue on your part

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#699

Post by abi »

keiferski wrote: post #692
anthonypasq wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

??? the reason for every single layoff in the history of the world is to lower expenses, and that is obvious to everyone. not actually sure what other kind of explanation would satisfy you.

But why is lowering expenses now necessary? If we believed the press releases, it’s because AI blah blah. I’m suggesting that some legal requirement for being truthful about the reason would be beneficial.

What benefit would it truly provide? Companies would simply say they need to cut costs to maximize shareholder value, which is no different than what happened here.
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