721–730 of 842 posts
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??? 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.
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As a software engineer who also hires other software engineers, I’m curious about the disconnect in our experiences. I do systems programming. Before AI feature development roughly went like, design, implement, test, review with some back edges and a lot of time spent in test and review. AI has made the implementation part much faster, at the cost of even more time spent testing and reviewing, though still an improve…
> I do systems programming. I'll stop you right there. AI is not good at systems programming, it's good at CRUD web development, which is where most people are seeing the gains.
> Over the past year, I’ve watched engineers use AI to ship in days what used to take a team weeks. No, you didn't. You watched engineers use AI to ship in days something that looks like what used to take a team weeks. After enough rounds of feature evolution, you'll realise that what they actually shipped isn't at all the same. Anthropic's C compiler, which also seemed like a good start that would have taken people…
Ever notice how people making this claim never come with receipts?
Given Coinbase is a financial platform this doesn't make me feel great. Hopefully they're contributing in areas that don't affect security or money.
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.
"We took out some huge debt and need to pay it off asap so ...."
"I made a strategic mistake, so ...."
"I'm hoping to get a huge rise in the stock price and make money off it somehow so ...."
I'm just joking but I think the point is that the smug person doing the firing wants to make themselves look good rather than bad and HAS to try to make the company look good to shareholders even if it's not.
The reality is that Coinbase earns on trading volume, and since we are in a crypto bear market, revenue is down. So they have to cut to keep the company profitable (or in line with what the investors expect). While AI is likely a productivity boost, the underlying reason is not AI.
Lol “Non-technical teams are now shipping production code” definitely what I want my financial institution doing.
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> 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.
IMO face time is very important and serves more purposes than the explicit information transfer. It’s also a much faster, more efficient, and clearer way to have a conversation, when back-and-forth is needed (which may be more often than you assume.)
In my experience, devs (including younger me) often argue for what’s easiest or most comfortable for themselves, but sometimes they don’t see what’s actually best for themselves, nor what’s most effective for the organization, and they sometimes don’t care what’s best for the manager. (And I’m not suggesting they should have to care what’s best for their manager, just pointing it out.) Nobody likes a budget or oversight. Nobody wants to track time and be watched, and have to explain themselves, and have to compromise in order to finish tasks. Still, having budgets are sometimes good for us and sometimes produce better results, when money is limited and when focus is needed. Budgets also inhibit risk taking, which can be good or bad, sometimes we need risks and exploratory work… so, yeah, the right tool for the job…
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> If you're getting laid off, the only thing that really matters is the severance package. I don't think this is true. Humans typically prefer "thanks for the hard work, here's your severance" to "you suck, here's your severance, loser." Humans like being treated with respect, and words are a big part of that. Money is nice, but it's not the only thing we care about.
But what if was "Thanks for the hard work, here's your legal minimum severance" vs "You suck, here's a lavish severance so you don't ever come back"?
The only talk that has real value is "Hey, hire this guy - he's excellent and did an incredible job!"
AI is the next big hype. Crypto was a big hype of last decade. Every year that goes by there are fewer people interested in an old hype, and therefore a smaller and smaller market for coinbase. Coinbase is on a path to death. It might take 20 years, but the decline has already begun.