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

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

#741

Post by [deleted] » Wed, May 06, 2026, 3:49 PM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #701

abi wrote: post #699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, generally speaking I think it’s a better world if corporations are forced to not lie to people. Presumably investors and those shorting the company would benefit from more accurate information about a company. So the market as a whole would be healthier and less prone to inflationary claims. I also don’t think that excuse would really hold up under scrutiny: “we fired 14% of our workforce to maximize shareholde…

[deleted]

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

#742

Post by staticman2 » Wed, May 06, 2026, 3:49 PM UTC

coldpie wrote: post #42

itg wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That statement does not inspire confidence considering how ripe crypto is for hackers/scammers, if anything it makes me want to close my Coinbase account.

Very early in the first Bitcoin boom cycle I had a friend who was into it, so I opened a Coinbase account because I thought it'd be funny to pay him the $15 I owed him for lunch or whatever in Bitcoin. I bought the $15 on a credit card, sent it to his wallet, we had our laughs about it, and I moved on. Years later, after it became clear that the only purpose of cryptocurrencies is scams & crime, I went to close my Co…

For what it's worth my Coinbase account, which I've never used for anything but sign up bonuses, seems to be linked to Google Pay but not a bank account. I just checked and I can still log in.

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

#743

Post by gamblor956 » Wed, May 06, 2026, 4:00 PM UTC

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…

Earlier in my career I was a manager of a team of 12 direct reports (non-tech white-collar industry) and it wasn't that difficult to do on top of my normal workload.

Of course, as a manager my normal workload was reduced to account for the managerial tasks, because that's what most industries outside of tech do.

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

#744

Post by kwanbix » Wed, May 06, 2026, 4:02 PM UTC

"AI-native pods: We’ll be concentrating around AI-native talent who can manage fleets of agents to drive outsized impact. We’ll also be experimenting with reduced pod sizes, including “one person teams” with engineers, designers, and product managers all in one role."

Terrifying.

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

#745

Post by BadBadJellyBean » Wed, May 06, 2026, 4:06 PM UTC

smugglerFlynn wrote: post #625

BadBadJellyBean wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expectations will be raised until they can't be met anymore. There is always a ceiling. It is on every single worker to make sure that they don't please the system beyond what is reasonable. Often the problem is people who overwork themselves to please and set the bar over the reasonable amount of work. Still when the majority does not raise their output to an unhealthy amount that must be accepted as a ceiling.

I think you are mixing cause and effect in real life dynamics. In real organizations people tend to raise their performance to the [often unreasonable] level of expectations, even when situation stops being sustainable long-term for the whole group. Suggesting that people should simply avoid overperforming assumes a level of control they don’t really have. What do you think will actually happen at Coinbase now? Is it…

I can tell you how I would react. They can't fire everyone and I am not going to be the one who is going to fill the gaps that other people's decisions created. If everyone acted the same there would be no problem. Things would just go slower. Expecting the same output from fewer people is stupid. My employment is not by their grace but for their benefit.

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

#746

Post by redwall_hp » Wed, May 06, 2026, 4:15 PM UTC

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 justification doesn't matter for the diminishing pool of jobs. Companies should be forbidden from hiring for five years after a layoff, and from laying off within a decade after a merger or acquisition.

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

#747

Post by lovich » Wed, May 06, 2026, 4:16 PM UTC

parliament32 wrote: post #662

siren2026 wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> We don't need weekly 1:1s to check on feelings Hard agree. One-on-ones are one of the silliest fads in our industry lately. Why would you wait until a weekly scheduled meeting to bring something up? Your manager's job is to be available to you when you need something, not just once a week. And if they want to know how you're feeling.. they should ask, putting it on an agenda feels very disingenuous. Me and my direc…

> Why would you wait until a weekly scheduled meeting to bring something up?

The dirty secret is that most employees in the software field are not capable of that level of maturity and forwardness.

I’ve had employees like that and our 1:1s switched to monthly cadence and were frequently skipped if they felt like there was nothing to talk about.

For the majority of the others they had some level of anxiety about discussing problems and needed the structure of a scheduled meeting to feel safe enough to bring up issues.

I see comments in this thread being dismissive about discussing feelings and I assume they would be terrible managers who couldn’t handle the first time they had a direct report break down in tears in front of them while struggling with some task and feeling worthless.

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

#748

Post by abnercoimbre » Wed, May 06, 2026, 4:18 PM UTC

kakacik wrote: post #645

kelnos wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would sincerely hope that anyone making tech money has some savings put away and isn't living paycheck-to-paycheck.

It would be a reasonable, even logical expectation, but everybody does sometimes less-than-logical things, takes some risks etc. Most of the time it works out somehow, sometimes it doesn't. I've done my share - after buying one smaller apartment some 12 years ago, paying all legal fees, taxes and full reconstruction I was, overall, -1500 euro worth and now with 2 parallel mortgages on my shoulders. Had to take short…

Financial literacy isn't taught as much as it should, and I know devs who grew up in generational poverty who tragically mismanaged their paychecks. Nobody pointed them in the right direction before it was too late. The younger they are, the more I feel they have reasonable excuse.

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

#749

Post by irishcoffee » Wed, May 06, 2026, 4:26 PM UTC

shipman05 wrote: post #733

irishcoffee wrote: post #689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I make it a point to have 5-10 minute ad-hoc conversations with my directs 1-2 times a week, feels a lot more natural than a scheduled 1-on-1. Twice a year we have a company-sanctioned formal sit-down about perf. As a result, people pop in my office regularly to start these conversations, which I prefer because it leads me to believe I am approachable, which is by far one of the most important things a manager should…

> I make it a point to have 5-10 minute ad-hoc conversations with my directs 1-2 times a week, feels a lot more natural than a scheduled 1-on-1. I prefer the exact opposite, especially when working remote. When I was a manager, I saved non-urgent topics for a weekly 1-1 instead of pestering busy people with "Quick chat?" or "Do you have a minute?" messages. I wish others would do the same.

I don't pester people. I also hate that. In fact, nobody likes that. I regularly see people during the course of my day just doing my job, going to meetings, hacking on hardware, etc., and just say "hey how's it going? Anything I can help with?"

I'm also quite aware of what my people are working on, so its never a "what are you doing?" conversation. Some of my folks are remote, sometimes I am remote. If you do it right it really is just natural.

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

#750

Post by pron » Wed, May 06, 2026, 4:28 PM UTC

snapcaster wrote: post #697

pron wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Oh, I think you just haven't read my comments. What I wrote, and I quote was: "AI can help software developers in many ways, but not like that."

I was saying how much more productive LLMs make developers unless you use them in the way Armstrong advocates. Coding agents are amazingly helpful but not when you use them through "fleets" or "swarms". People who know how to be most productive with coding agents know that, but Armstrong doesn't.