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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

#731

Post by wly_cdgr »

Why would you ever run a company at this stage so close to the edge that a 10% reduction in payroll makes a meaningful difference to your bottom line even after adjusting for the immense morale and PR hit? Seems so wildly irresponsible. Did they really fail to plan for such an obviously plausible scenario as what we are experiencing now? Or was the explicit plan always "eh, we'll just throw some people overboard"?

Not to mention, what the fuck are you doing if you're not in an obsolete industry but each extra employee is not making you money?

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#732

Post by daenz »

karpierz wrote: post #718
ajhurliman wrote: post #667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's really that unfair, why don't you just become an entrepreneur?

If winning the lottery is so great, why don't you just become a lotto winner?

Great analogy actually. The founders own the lottery ticket, but they pay employees cold hard cash despite the fact that the lottery ticket will likely be worthless. When the founder lose the lottery, and lose all of the unpaid hours and resources they personally put into buying the ticket, they don't demand employees reimburse them and share in the losses. But on the rare chance that they win the lottery, we have to have conversations like this about how "unfair" it is that they owned the ticket, despite paying everyone what they agreed to be paid.

So the point that the parent was making was "go buy your own ticket," not "go win the lottery."

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#733

Post by tbrownaw »

munificent wrote: post #557
jerry1979 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not settled on this yet. I'm from the USA, and one thing that concerns me is the geopolitics of billionaires. What happens when USA taxes billionaires out of existence? Russia and China still have billionaires. Does that do something to the power relationships in the world? Is there such a thing as "our" billionaires? The other question I have has to do with feudalism. If we let "our" billionaires exist, does tha…

> What happens when USA taxes billionaires out of existence? This is a really good question. I believe the answer is that the USA will be better able to outcompete those countries that do have them. History has shown time and again that massive inequality is a huge barrier to maximizing the productivity of all of a society's members. It leads to cynism and corruption and breaks down cooperation. It forces a society t…

> History has shown time and again that massive inequality is a huge barrier to maximizing the productivity of all of a society's members.

Has it? Restricting what opportunities individual people are permitted to follow would I assume both reduce productivity and increase inequality, but that doesn't have the inequality being the cause of the lower than theoretically possible productivity.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#735

Post by anon2020dot00 »

ajhurliman wrote: post #667
uncomputation wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s be conservative and say Armstrong has just a net worth of the house he bought: 150,000,000. If the average employee’s salary is 150,000, Armstrong makes 1,000 times more than them. Does this seem fair? Does he deserve higher compensation for his entrepreneurial skills? Absolutely. But 1,000? It’s hard for us to imagine the scale of 1,000 times greater than something but it seems excessive (and remember, this is…

If it's really that unfair, why don't you just become an entrepreneur?

This logic is nonsense; no one is allowed to criticize capitalism's flaws?

It's like a movie critic cannot criticize a movie, since the film-maker can just state "why don't you just make a better movie?"; A diner cannot criticize the chef because chef can say "why don't just prepare a better meal?", etc..

Bringing the personal into it is unrealistic since not everyone is equipped to be a movie maker, chef or entrepreneur but that doesn't mean those jobs are immune from criticism.

Even Warren Buffet has spoken about the excesses of capitalism and pointed-out that the rich are taxed too little as just one example of capitalism's flaws.

Capitalism is still the best system but that doesn't mean it's perfect or can no longer be improved.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#736

Post by kayamon »

sytelus wrote: post #503

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?

Your question assumes money custodians behave in an honest fashion.

An honest bank or exchange would simply keep your coins stored safely for you. But many places aren't honest, and make their money not from the transaction fees but by lending out the coins you've got stored there to someone else. As long as people don't all ask for their coins back at the same time, this works great for them. Your coins will be entered into some investment scheme, to make them return a percentage rather than just sitting there doing 'nothing'.

One does have to be careful however not to lend out those coins to someone who just runs clean off with them, or invest them in some scam that accidentally tanked to zero. Otherwise that money they claim to hold may not exist any more, which causes a problem if the customers ever ask for their money back all at once.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#737

Post by throwawaylinux »

Johnny555 wrote: post #281
jerry1979 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not settled on this yet. I'm from the USA, and one thing that concerns me is the geopolitics of billionaires. What happens when USA taxes billionaires out of existence? Russia and China still have billionaires. Does that do something to the power relationships in the world? Is there such a thing as "our" billionaires? The other question I have has to do with feudalism. If we let "our" billionaires exist, does tha…

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?

What do governments really talk about behind closed doors? Not the interests of the people whose sons they conspire to send to die in their wars.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#738

Post by wly_cdgr »

roflulz wrote: post #639
uncomputation wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Armstrong was the sole CTO, COO, CPO, CLO, designer, marketer, advertiser, programmer, and researcher, then yes, all money should go to him. But Coinbase was made what it is by many people, the majority of which have nothing close to wealth Armstrong enjoys. Why shouldn’t those people be given money? I agree there should be some incentive for entrepreneurs and the people who make “the business side” work, but does…

as someone who has actually tried to start a company - he deserves it and more

No post body was provided.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#739

Post by rglullis »

pkulak wrote: post #729
rglullis wrote: post #693

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Get rid of all the money, and you get rid of the undue power as well. That's philosophically, historically and biologically incorrect. Not to mention that it is incredibly naive. Fights for power happen everywhere in nature. Occasional imbalances are not the problem. The problem is when a certain group or individual manages to concentrate so much power that they get control over groups. > That means they have their…

Truman

He was only poor relative to other presidents. But even before it he was a judge, and after it he managed to turn his memoirs into very lucrative book deals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman#Financial_situ...

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#740

Post by wly_cdgr »

sytelus wrote: post #530
uncomputation wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Armstrong was the sole CTO, COO, CPO, CLO, designer, marketer, advertiser, programmer, and researcher, then yes, all money should go to him. But Coinbase was made what it is by many people, the majority of which have nothing close to wealth Armstrong enjoys. Why shouldn’t those people be given money? I agree there should be some incentive for entrepreneurs and the people who make “the business side” work, but does…

This is the most fundamental tenant of capitalism. The output is perpetually distributed according to initial risk taken, not according to amount of day-to-day work performed. The property of capital is that it keeps growing (more or less) effortlessly. So you just need to capture initial capital and pay employees only returns from capital , not the capital itself. Fun fact: Bill Gates has made vastly more money just…

What risk did he take, gimme a fucking break. Worst possible outcome for him was he has to settle for a $400k job at a FAANG after his startup fails. Boo fuckin hoo

Of course he did enough to deserve some fuck you money, but hundreds of millions? Slap yourself, fool, cos you dreaming

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