[HN Gopher] Update on Hiring Plans
___________________________________________________________________
Update on Hiring Plans
Author : tempsy
Score : 180 points
Date : 2022-06-02 21:06 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.coinbase.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.coinbase.com)
| KoftaBob wrote:
| "hiring freeze/pause" can tend to be something very subjective.
|
| This is especially the case for many of these companies who may
| have essentially "overhired" and are correcting for that, rather
| than pausing hiring because the general economic conditions have
| affected their revenue outlook.
| jedberg wrote:
| > We will rescind a number of accepted offers.
|
| > We will apply our generous severance philosophy to offset the
| financial impact of this decision.
|
| It's funny, just last week I was talking about my friend who got
| a job offer and then lost it and got severance back in 2000. Some
| asked me, "how do I get that to happen to me!"
|
| I said "try to get a job offer and then pray for failure".
| Apparently the answer was, "try to get a job at Coinbase".
| paxys wrote:
| > We will rescind a number of accepted offers.
|
| This continues to happen over and over again in the industry, and
| is the reason why I always advise people who get exploding offers
| from companies to just accept them and then back out later if
| they need to. Loyalty and respect cannot be a one way street.
| There's so much propaganda around "burning bridges" that keeps
| prospective employees in line (and it also extends to stuff like
| negotiating wages, discussing salaries at work, job hopping and
| more). Look out for yourself out there, no one else is going to
| do it. _Certainly_ not the HR department.
| benatkin wrote:
| I wrote this out:
|
| The honesty is refreshing.
|
| Still, why does it always have to be when they're doing
| something they shouldn't do?
|
| ...
|
| Then I realized that they really have to do something, and I
| don't know exactly what the alternative is. If they gave them
| any compensation they would be admitting harming people and
| that could be a legal issue.
|
| Edit: Oh, they are doing that, but are vague about it:
|
| > We will apply our generous severance philosophy to offset the
| financial impact of this decision.
|
| That's a pretty nice minimal way of saying it, and they
| probably will have a minimal approach of doing it as well, both
| to reduce the cost and risks.
| mberning wrote:
| Completely and totally unethical slimeballs.
| dheera wrote:
| I mean, if the shareholders hadn't downvoted Coinbase stock
| to oblivion, this wouldn't have happened.
| wdb wrote:
| Yeah, I had job offers rescinded on me. Funny enough these
| companies still have the audacity to have recruiters message me
| about new roles. Personally, I also stopped using these
| companies as a customer.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > Yeah, I had job offers rescinded on me. Funny enough these
| companies still have the audacity to have recruiters message
| me about new roles. Personally, I also stopped using these
| companies as a customer.
|
| Rescinded offers are an extremely rare occurrence. If I had
| not one, but two offers rescinded I'd start wondering if
| maybe employers were discovering something they didn't like
| during routine background checks: Unflattering social media
| posts, something on your record, and so on.
|
| Maybe it's purely coincidence, but if this becomes a pattern
| I'd start looking more closely for potential issues in your
| public profile or public records.
| polote wrote:
| Is expoding offers worse than being fired on the first day at
| your job? If not then why does it bring so much hate? At least
| more hate than just firing people. Honest question
| Zenbit_UX wrote:
| Well, the problem as I see it is, I just gave my 2 weeks
| notice when I accepted your offer. I might have even given it
| earlier and pushed the start date a week forward so I could
| get a nice gap week to decompress between jobs.
|
| Now, at this new company I've been excited to work for, I
| receive an email telling me that I in fact do not have a job
| next week and I am actually unemployed.
|
| My options range from extremely bad (begging for old job
| back) to mildly embarrassing (attempting to re-accept a
| previously declined counter offer).
| choppaface wrote:
| While I have seen several people accept two offers and then no-
| show to one in the first day, it's not the safest thing to do.
| At the end of the day, the employee controls the capital and
| most of employment law. That lets any negative sentiment carry
| a lot of weight. Make sure there's a clear and understood
| story; don't ghost.
| paxys wrote:
| Employers have in fact lobbied hard for laws that make this
| possible in the first place. They want all the benefits of at
| will employment, so there's no reason why they shouldn't also
| be on the receiving end of it.
| 0des wrote:
| Is California at-will?
| paxys wrote:
| 49/50 states in the US (all except Montana) are at-will.
| 0des wrote:
| Wow, nice. I thought it was mostly just the south.
| dheera wrote:
| What is Montana if not at-will? at-king-doth-give-you-
| thou-shalt-command?
| tshaddox wrote:
| It just means that there's an initial probationary period
| where the employment is at-will, and beyond that point
| the employer must have a reasonable cause to terminate
| the employee. I'm not at all familiar with Montana labor
| laws in practice, but I find it very difficult to believe
| that it makes much of a difference.
| omoikane wrote:
| Note that there are companies that forbid employees from being
| on the payroll for another company at the same time. So if a
| person accepted two offers simultaneously, and both companies
| found out, this person could end up with zero jobs.
|
| Also, I wonder if this mainly a problem when there is a long
| gap between accepting the offer and the job start date. I would
| think a better strategy is to try to start getting paid as soon
| an offer is extended, by starting sooner.
| kbuchanan wrote:
| What is their next best alternative? Rescinding offers is a way
| to show loyalty to those who already work for you.
| ensignavenger wrote:
| It does appear Coinbase is paying severance to folks who hadn't
| started yet- so that is a plus. I have no idea if it is really
| "generous" as they claim in their blog post, though.
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| Considering how the usual "severance" package in this type of
| scenario is a "fuck you" and a kick in the ass, I'd say any
| amount is pretty generous.
| phkahler wrote:
| > We will rescind a number of accepted offers.
|
| Came here to quote the same line, but follow it with "yeah,
| fuck these guys". Its not fair to paint the whole industry with
| bad sentiment, but anyone who recinds accepted offers either
| has no decency or no ability to forecast their most basic
| needs.
| ary wrote:
| > I always advise people who get exploding offers from
| companies to just accept them and then back out later if they
| need to
|
| This is not a sustainable long-term strategy for most people.
| You know what is? Walking away from the offer immediately when
| it has an overly-aggressive expiration date and letting them
| know the reason.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| Don't quit your old job until you start your new job!
| diehunde wrote:
| It gets complicated if you want to leave your old job on good
| terms and give your 2-week notice.
| jchw wrote:
| In many cases, it's OK to negotiate your start date a
| couple of weeks out from the offer agreement. I've gotten
| almost a month in both of my last offers.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| Yes, and the point of this article is that Coinbase is
| rescinding employment for people who have accepted offers
| but haven't started yet. These people have already given
| notice at their current jobs and now won't have a new one
| to start. They are Screwed.
| 0des wrote:
| Monkey never lets go of one vine until theyve firmly grasped
| another
| i_like_waiting wrote:
| With big companies and if you are not household name, I believe
| it should be easier than people think. Change your email and
| phone number in CV next time you are applying and nobody will
| remember your past with the company.
|
| I am hiring manager in mid-size company and if you used
| different email to login into workday, to work for somebody who
| is not sitting next to me, no chance your previous behaviour
| could disqualify you in any way.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| Geez, are you supposed to not give your current employer even
| two weeks notice, but not tell them you're leaving until your
| first day at a new job, to avoid getting screwed?
|
| What a mess!
| lovich wrote:
| Unironically, yes.
|
| On top of all this, you also lose unemployment benefits if
| you quit your job and the new one has rescinded their offer.
| As far as the states are concerned, you voluntarily quit your
| previous job, and never started a new one
| nickff wrote:
| That is a problem with how the governments treat layoffs vs
| quitting. In attempting to make companies and individuals
| responsible for more unemployment benefits, they made a
| number of large cracks for people to fall through.
| lovich wrote:
| It a problem with corporations too. They're not bound by
| the laws of physics to leave you high and dry. Anyway,
| the point of the GP question was if it was necessary to
| give notice after you started your new job.
|
| Given that companies are almost always choosing to leave
| people high and dry, the rational response is to not let
| yourself get into that situation by not giving your
| employer advanced notice
| actionablefiber wrote:
| Employers have PIPs as a way to give themselves optionality
| in deciding to fire someone or not. Seems a bit unfair that
| employees don't have much way today of saying, "hey, I might
| peace out any day now, and don't take it personally if I do,
| but I expect that things should still be cool between us if I
| end up sticking around."
| Macha wrote:
| Much like many employees take PIP as a "well fuck that" and
| plan their departure (indeed, when it's discussed here
| that's the common advice), I can't see companies not taking
| an employee's "maybe I'll leave" notice in the same way.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > Geez, are you supposed to not give your current employer
| even two weeks notice, but not tell them you're leaving until
| your first day at a new job, to avoid getting screwed?
|
| No, don't do this in a professional developer job.
|
| These rescinded offer stories are rare. That's why they make
| headlines. It's a newsworthy event, not a common occurrence.
|
| Don't compromise your reputation and burn bridges on the way
| out the door just to compensate for the remote possibility of
| being subject to an outlier event like this.
|
| Leaving on a good note and maintaining positive references is
| far more valuable than hedging against perceived downside
| risk of having an offer rescinded.
| lovich wrote:
| Might be true in FAANG/consulting but in the tier below
| FAANG reputation with a company is so useless it's not
| worth considering. That even assumes it's possible to be
| rehired or considered for employment by the same bosses,
| and that they didn't just write you off forever for having
| the audacity to every be disloyal to them.
|
| If you're in an area with few employers, don't want to
| move, _and_ don't want to work, then maybe don't give
| notice, otherwise you're just leaving value on the table
| for people who only like you when you leave value on the
| table
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| Yes, can confirm from personal experience. Better someone
| else than yourself gets screwed.
|
| Anyone who had had the rug pulled under them knows how
| immense the dollar cost can be, especially when you have
| already arranged a relocation.
| kirykl wrote:
| Spend the 2 weeks in silence but prepare good handover
| documentation to soften the blow at old company
| s17n wrote:
| +1 to this It's at will employment so a signed offer doesn't
| really mean anything anyway. Practically speaking, people
| renege on offers all the time and nobody holds it against them.
| samcheng wrote:
| Exploding offers are, by far, the easiest thing to negotiate in
| a job offer.
|
| Please don't be duplicitous - there are many teams out there
| with strong core values and an honest and open communication
| culture.
|
| Don't let the crypto-bros poison our collective dignity!
| anonymousab wrote:
| Teams, yes. But the greater companies? By default, you should
| assume that any modern corporation cannot be trusted to do
| anything but act in its own perceived short term best
| interest. Some may not, some may do better, but you should
| never assume that they will.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| Don't have your personal ethics be subject to someone else's
| ethics, because if you do that, then it means you don't really
| have ethics.
|
| You aren't accepting to an industry, you are accepting to a
| hiring manager. And it's just rude to act this way. Exploding
| offers aren't great, and if you have a problem with them, then
| simply don't accept them. You miss some opportunities this way
| but you feel better when you look in the mirror. Regardless, as
| others have noted, Coinbase has some specific issues that
| aren't indicative of a broader industry probem. They seem to be
| handling this as well as can be expected given those problems.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Of course the obvious followup question is: how long do you
| have to stay at the job before it becomes ethical to leave
| (for normal reasons like finding another more desirable job)?
|
| In jurisdictions with at-will employment (like California),
| most full-time jobs _explicitly_ have no guarantees or
| commitments from either side about how long an employment
| offer will last. If your ethics are instead based on supposed
| _implicit_ norms (like "it's rude to change your mind on a
| job offer" or "it's rude to leave your job before the
| recruiter/hiring manager gets their bonus" or whatever), then
| I think it's entirely reasonable to examine 1) whether those
| supposed norms actually even exist, 2) what the source of
| those norms are, and 3) whether those norms systematically
| favor one party over another.
| pcwalton wrote:
| > You miss some opportunities this way but you feel better
| when you look in the mirror. Regardless, as others have
| noted, Coinbase has some specific issues that aren't
| indicative of a broader industry probem. They seem to be
| handling this as well as can be expected given those
| problems.
|
| I have a hard time reading this as anything other than "it's
| OK for companies to rescind agreements but not OK for
| employees to". Consistency requires that it's either
| acceptable for both employer and employee to do that, or
| unacceptable for both. (Personally, I lean toward the
| latter.)
| whimsicalism wrote:
| There is basically no company that wouldn't rescind an offer
| if it made the difference between 1x profits and 1.5x
| profits.
|
| Why wouldn't I behave exactly the same way if another company
| offers me 1.5x the salary?
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| Because you are better than they are?
|
| edit: Since I can't delete my comment now, I just want to
| apologize that I read your message too quickly and missed
| the 50% salary difference part. Come on, there's ethical
| and then there is crazy, of course you leave and take the
| other offer if it's 50%, that's common sense and any hiring
| manager should understand it. But that's not really
| commonplace.
| w-j-w wrote:
| Why? I am not dealing with a person. The ethical reasons
| for being honest don't extend to groups of people acting
| like psychopaths.
|
| Don't let profit driven corporations brand themselves as
| "family", or any other concept which deserves moral
| consideration.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I don't see anything particularly wrong with either way,
| I guess. If they have to rescind offers to be a
| profitable business, so be it. Sometimes I will have to
| renege in exchange for working fewer years.
|
| I'm joining a business, not the Knights Templar.
| thghtihadanacct wrote:
| ... And how do I put 'better than they are' into my 401k?
| giaour wrote:
| If a relationship is bound by ethical principles on one
| side and a cold economic calculus on the other, it seems
| pretty clear which will be taken advantage of most often.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| It's just business. If walking away from a fresh offer and
| starting role is burning a bridge, let the burning bridge
| light your way. The business will not return the loyalty, and
| one is woefully naive if they believe the business will. Look
| no further than VCs telling founders to cut deep now. How's
| that for reputation? You get the labor market you cultivate.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| The world is not infinitely large, and this field
| definitely isn't. Bad reputations are hard to repair.
| tempsy wrote:
| This is like the definition of being scared into
| obedience.
| 0des wrote:
| > Bad reputations are hard to repair.
|
| I hear this a lot but the job market indicates the
| opposite. Given sufficient skill and availability
| everyone is hirable. In your world Jacob Applebaum is
| giving back rubs to Demore under a bridge somewhere
| pulling on two ends of a food stamp.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| > Jacob Applebaum is giving back rubs to Demore under a
| bridge somewhere
|
| It's Damore. And he's working, as far as I know.
|
| As for "bad reputations": at Google, and I assume at most
| modern companies, if an applicant came in who worked
| somewhere you worked at the same time, you got an
| automated email asking you to rate that person. I don't
| think I'd even call that a "backchannel."
|
| How much influence did that have? Don't know.
|
| I always knew when the bonuses had gone out at Oracle,
| because I'd get a flood of reference questions for people
| trying to leave Oracle.
| rglullis wrote:
| Can you tell me where Damore is working now, and how it
| compares in terms of prestige and compensation compared
| to Google?
| mparkms wrote:
| According to his Linkedin he's working at an undisclosed
| startup. Who knows what his compensation is like, but
| it's not as if going from Google to an early-stage
| startup is particularly uncommon.
| 0des wrote:
| I think the comment you're replying to was supposed to be
| a 'gotcha', I don't think an actual response was
| intended.
|
| Shrug. I could be wrong, I'm terrible at these things
| sometimes.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| Exceptions are not indicative of the rule. And especially
| when you compare Damore to someone rescinding their
| offer, which are nothing alike.
| Retric wrote:
| It's difficult to get a bad reputation in most fields.
|
| Stepping out of an offer isn't something that most people
| will bother telling anyone about. The bar seems to sit
| somewhere around setting a server room on fire.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Thanks to remote work, it's only getting bigger at a
| quicker rate.
| dudul wrote:
| I've declined an accepted offer 1 week before my start
| date. 6 months later the company reached out again to see
| if we could make it work this time.
|
| "Burning bridges" are very exaggerated.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Hell, I accepted an offer and still work at BigTech and I
| still get internal recruiters _from the company_ I work
| at sending me messages on LinkedIn about "exciting
| opportunities". I clearly state on my LinkedIn profile
| where I work.
| hn_neverguess wrote:
| Great, that's n = 1.
|
| For comparison, I would have never ever reached out to
| you again. And if I met you in the hallway at some other
| place, I would have made sure that everyone knows how I
| feel about you.
|
| Most people who worked at one FAANG also eventually work
| at one more during their careers. So if you screw over
| one FAANG, you'll have a hard time at 40% of FAANG.
|
| It doesn't stop there. God forbid you live in the Bay
| Area, and you and I perhaps cross paths at a party,
| Burning Man, or any other event. And for crying out loud,
| you better not be connected to me on Linkedin, because
| people will be reaching out for backchannel references
| for the rest of your career.
|
| The tricky thing about all this is that you'll never
| know. People will just magically stop responding, when
| you felt that things were going great. In my career of 20
| years, I've probably been professionally disappointed in
| something like 4 or 5 people, and I can definitely think
| of 2 who have resurfaced in my life one way or another.
|
| Tech is a huge space when you're starting out. But as
| your career accelerates and you end up gaining more
| visibility, that same space becomes very small very
| quickly. I would not mess with my reputation, as a matter
| of principle, but also as a matter of prudence.
| doctor_eval wrote:
| _burning man_?
| hn_neverguess wrote:
| I met more tech friends at burning man than any other
| place outside my workplaces.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Your statement sounds much like the old "if you get
| caught doing $x at school it will go on your permanent
| record". BigTech is so vast that unless you do something
| egregious it's hard not to get hired back at the same
| one, let alone a competitor.
|
| For every you that wouldn't hire the parent posters,
| there are hundreds of managers that will.
|
| No part of the hiring loop at major tech companies for
| ICs that I am aware of involves checking references. We
| definitely don't do that as part of the loop. Our entire
| hiring process is based on how well you do in the
| interview.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| > For comparison, I would have never ever reached out to
| you again. And if I met you in the hallway at some other
| place, I would have made sure that everyone knows how I
| feel about you.
|
| Do you have a "burn book" of people who have wronged you
| or something? How would you even realize it's the same
| person a decade down the line? Why would you even care?
| geoka9 wrote:
| I get your point, but if, after extending an offer (and
| having it accepted) you suddenly found out the role has
| been "made redundant", would go out of your way to get
| your executive compensation reduced so that the new hire
| could stay and you wouldn't have to "burn bridges" with
| the person?
|
| I'm not taking sides here, but am curious to see your
| argument.
| hn_neverguess wrote:
| I've been a startup founder for the last 20 years, and
| the short answer is yes. I did exactly that same thing in
| 2020 to help onboard someone in February who we otherwise
| wouldn't have been able to keep. Our board asked for a
| hiring freeze, and I pushed through a candidate by
| cutting my salary by 50% (I would have done it anyway out
| of principle, but that's a different story). I know a lot
| of other startup CEOs who lowered their salaries to help
| extend their runways.
| l33t2328 wrote:
| > God forbid you live in the Bay Area, and you and I
| perhaps cross paths at a party, Burning Man, or any other
| event
|
| What, you'll be so personally slighted that this person
| made a business decision that you'll ensure to disrupt
| everyone else's time at burning man/a party/ any other
| event?
| dudul wrote:
| > For comparison, I would have never ever reached out to
| you again. And if I met you in the hallway at some other
| place, I would have made sure that everyone knows how I
| feel about you.
|
| Well, see, I don't even need to work with you to know I
| wouldn't enjoy it :). Spiteful much? And guess what, I
| bet the tech industry is big enough that it will never
| happen, so cheers.
| hn_neverguess wrote:
| I could respond with something equally snarky, but that
| would detract from the point I am trying to make. I would
| recommend you reread my message and try not to take it
| personally but instead ask yourself if there's a chance
| that the tech industry is not as big as you make it out
| to be. I'll give you two things to think about:
|
| 1. Most people never gain any amount of visibility in
| their lives, and that's fine. But why prevent that from
| at least being a possibility? What if it turns out that
| you have something interesting to say and there's a ton
| of people who want to hear it (eg: you become a VC or an
| expert in something). Not being able to benefit from
| having a personal brand should the opportunity present
| itself would be a hell of a bummer. You'll notice that I
| am being very careful with my own identity when giving
| unpopular feedback.
|
| 2. Sure, in 2022 it would be hard for a startup in Iowa
| to learn that you screwed someone over in Florida. But do
| you really want to bet that the same will be true in
| 2042? In the last 20 years, we went from no social graph
| at all to a social graph in every slice of our lives.
| What are the odds that in the next 20 years we won't see
| continued progress towards transparency and
| accountability?
|
| Reputations have never mattered more, and will only do
| more so in the future.
| ctvo wrote:
| From experience it's not that big of a deal that you walk
| back accepting an offer. These things happen all the
| time:
|
| - Immigration / relocation issues
|
| - Partner / significant other (can't find a job, doesn't
| like the location. etc.) issues
|
| - Health issues
|
| - <Received a better offer but used one of the above
| reasons> issues
|
| I've had candidates not show up on their first day and
| email in that regretfully they won't be able to start.
| Everyone was bummed, but no one wrote down their name in
| a list and shared it.
| 0des wrote:
| >let the burning bridge light your way
|
| welp, this one's mine now. thanks :)
| bombcar wrote:
| Reminds me of one of my favorite lines from Pratchett:
|
| >In the light of all his burning bridges, Vimes slipped
| his hand back into his hip pocket.
| tcfunk wrote:
| This isn't poor ethics it's self care. No one cares if you
| back out of an offer.
|
| Companies are interviewing multiple candidates for a single
| spot, it's insane not to expect reciprocal behavior
| version_five wrote:
| My read of the root comment is "don't get tricked into
| thinking the company / manager cares about you and that you
| owe them something". No point in being naive and personally
| committing to a relationship that the other side is not
| committed to in the same way. It's not a question of ethics,
| it's a question of properly assessing the commitment that's
| being made
| snarfy wrote:
| It's a good lesson. We spend most of our lives forming real
| bonds with humans. Corporations are not humans and
| interactions with them should not be treated as such.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| >It's not a question of ethics, it's a question of properly
| assessing the commitment that's being made
|
| I've been on both ends of this, as an employee a few years
| ago and now an employer. I'm not sure if assuming the worst
| in all employers and putting in the bare minimum/acting
| unethically to avoid being "taken advantage of" is the
| optimal way to act.
|
| It pushes away the good companies that will reward loyalty
| and drive, and attracts unethical companies who have an
| adversarial relationship with their employees.
|
| Same goes for relationships - if you assume that the person
| you're going to marry is simply going to take your house
| and kids and build your relationship about minimising
| feeling stupid if/when it happens, you're not going to have
| a good time.
| armchairhacker wrote:
| Don't be an asshole. If your employer is half-decent don't
| just leave without 2 weeks notice and no replacement, don't
| "put in minimum required effort" which is actually below
| minimum required, don't sabotage the company, and don't be
| strict when your employer has a _true_ emergency situation
| (which is actually an emergency and not every weekend) and
| relies on you.*
|
| But also don't trust your employer. Require important stuff
| in writing and contracts, don't expect your employer to
| give anything extra for hard work / overtime (unless it's
| in contract), don't rely on "promised" benefits or rely on
| your employer to do anything they don't have to.
|
| And also, if you get another offer which pays 200% after
| accepting, or one which requires you to quit immediately,
| you might want to break loyalty. IMO this should go both
| ways: the company and employer should expect the other
| party to "betray" them if there's a huge bonus like that.
| In fact all of this goes both ways and company/employer
| should have a decent, "loyal" relationship to an extent,
| but never put too much trust into each other.
|
| * the other exception is toxic workplaces where your boss
| is being an asshole to you. Although in that case you
| should be trying to leave ASAP
| SheinhardtWigCo wrote:
| > You aren't accepting to an industry, you are accepting to a
| hiring manager.
|
| No, you are accepting to work for a _business_ that is
| legally bound to prioritize the interests of the shareholders
| over those of any employee. They will always, always be
| "rude" to you if that's best for the people whose money
| they're spending to employ you.
| lr4444lr wrote:
| _Don 't have your personal ethics be subject to someone
| else's ethics, because if you do that, then it means you
| don't really have ethics._
|
| In general I agree with this, but the situation described
| usually happens when offers have expiry windows. I'm sorry,
| but a job offer is a major life step for me, and when a
| hiring manager frames it like a TV infomercial with a
| countdown timer, he's dealing on a lower moral plane. After
| all the time we both invested in this process, I don't
| deserve a slick sales maneuver. It's like how I would not
| stab anyone either, but when you raise a block of wood
| overhead and menace at me, it's self defense. I have my long
| term career arc to preserve, including opportunity costs:
| unsolicited hostile negotiating tactics thrown at me will
| meet a defense.
| luckydata wrote:
| eh screw that. having ethics doesn't mean being stupid. I
| reserve my manners for people and organizations that deserve
| them.
| jmull wrote:
| I have a general rule not to lie or deceive people.
|
| But when I play poker, I lie and deceive as well as I
| possibly can, without remorse or hesitation. That's because
| lies and deception are part of the game.
|
| Likewise, when I engage in an employment relationship with a
| business, I play by those rules.
|
| It _is_ complicated, and to a degree it certainly makes sense
| to act as though you have a commitment beyond what money paid
| has bought... but just like all companies do, when enough is
| at stake, you should recognize that it's a business
| relationship and it may not be to your advantage to pretend a
| higher level of commitment exists between you than really
| does. It's a tough call. Burning bridges you don't have to is
| not good. Neither is playing the sucker for very long.
| djbusby wrote:
| It's not really lying or deceit. It's just companies talk
| about their future-perfect-best self during the interview
| and offer - as does the candidate.
|
| The unspoken rule is that things can change dramatically in
| a few hours and each party should deal with it - which
| means it's also totally ok to back out of the offer you
| received and move on.
| wslack wrote:
| Some companies don't do this sort of thing. That others
| do doesn't justify making this sort of choice with every
| company.
| [deleted]
| bradlys wrote:
| This is a great way to put it. Lying is 100% part of the
| game with employment. It continues even when you're still
| at the workplace.
|
| Are really people so asinine to believe that hiring
| managers aren't lying through their teeth the entire time
| they talk to you? I guess HN is full of people who are
| naive _or_ have malicious intent.
|
| If anyone here thinks their manager truly cares about them
| (and you work in SV) - you're naive.
| gumby wrote:
| What is the incentive for a hiring manager to lie? What
| could they get from it?
| barry-cotter wrote:
| More and better candidates than if they're completely
| honest about their company? A promotion because they
| managed to keep wages down for staff? A higher salary or
| more stock for the same reason?
| bradlys wrote:
| Legitimately wonder why people find this so so hard to
| understand.
|
| Has no one ever _been_ a manager? Have you never worked
| with managers who had to do these things? I 've known
| _many_ managers who admit to having to do all of these
| things. Some of them are proud that they did it - some
| are ashamed because they didn 't want to but ultimately
| had to otherwise they would've gotten fired.
|
| Ultimately, it doesn't matter whether you do it because
| you _enjoy_ it or because _you have to_ - what matters is
| that you 're doing it and someone is on the receiving
| end.
|
| Genuinely - how many of you have ever done hiring while
| searching for a new company yourself? HN is truly full of
| the self-indulgent and self-righteous to think they're
| not doing this themselves or that this is wonderful to be
| around.
| atq2119 wrote:
| This is far too extreme a position and ends up being
| false as a consequence. Alternatively, you've had a bad
| pick of managers.
|
| A human relationship with your manager with mutual care
| is possible.
|
| The thing to understand is this: your manager is not the
| business.
|
| Unless you're working in a truly tiny company, they
| operate under their own set of constraints and will have
| to make decisions they're not really happy about. If that
| means firing you or low-balling your salary, then sure,
| you may not care much for that distinction in the hurt of
| the moment. And maybe they really are out to get you.
|
| But if you treat your manager like an antagonist, don't
| be surprised if they end up doing the same to you.
|
| (HR is a different story)
| zaidf wrote:
| Could not agree more strongly!
| sonofhans wrote:
| Wow, that is breathtakingly cynical. I've hired many
| people over decades and I've never lied to a single one
| of them. And in the dozen or so tech jobs I've had, only
| one hiring manager (the CEO!) has lied to me. Lastly, I
| only work places where my manager does give a shit about
| me. I've left a couple gigs because I learned I was wrong
| about that, but seen it confirmed in plenty of others.
|
| Your advice is not universal. Consider broadening your
| sample size.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| This is the kind of thing that people tell themselves, to
| act as an anodyne for their own behavior.
|
| In my case, I have _always_ acted with the highest
| personal standards of Ethics and Integrity. _Frequently_
| , the favor has not been returned, and I have had to
| learn to deal with it.
|
| I will say that my Integrity was _directly_ relevant to
| my career. I worked for a Japanese corporation, and they
| knew they could trust me. My employees also knew they
| could trust me.
|
| It's _entirely possible_ to live in the corporate world,
| without surrendering your moral backbone. Anyone that
| tells you different is _lying_ , and they know it.
| colordrops wrote:
| If your personal ethics are to give respect to those who
| respect you, it is not out of line with personal ethics to
| treat corporations and HR departments like the lying
| sociopaths that they are.
|
| And why would you hobble yourself into a disadvantage and
| even potentially take a multiyear hit to your life because
| you have some vague notion of objective ethics? That's just
| letting them take advantage of you. They bet on engineers
| thinking the game is not rigged.
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| Is this a joke? Companies have no qualms about rescinding
| offers for people who may have already quit their current job
| or who need a job for Visa purposes.
|
| >Coinbase has some specific issues that aren't indicative of
| a broader industry probem
|
| I have seen examples of this from several FAANG companies.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| This is good for Bitcoin.
| jstx1 wrote:
| It's weird to pull things tighter so soon after pausing hiring
| two weeks ago. Why not take all these measures (no new positions,
| now backfills, rescind offers) 2 weeks ago? Did they figure out
| that what they were doing was not drastic enough in that time?
| The whole thing screams of incompetence.
| shrimpx wrote:
| Probably fiddly and impatient board.
| onphonenow wrote:
| Rescinding offers is REDICULOUS.
|
| I don't care what the business case is, how can you have had such
| a short planning horizon that you were making offers and then
| rescinding them before folks start?
|
| Let them start, they will see writing on wall and can start
| looking for a new place with an active job.
| shrimpx wrote:
| A rescinded offer is basically equivalent to getting laid off
| immediately. Honestly I'd rather get a rescinded offer than a
| layoff 3 months into the job.
| eqmvii wrote:
| Tons of law firms did this in 08 and 09.
|
| Those with the ability to choose often chose other firms when
| hiring got back on track later.
| diehunde wrote:
| That's why I never recommend delaying the starting date too
| much. I've seen people accepting offers and giving crazy
| starting dates (like 3 or 4 months). Too much can happen in
| between.
| onphonenow wrote:
| That's on employee a bit then.
|
| But we'd get the HR managers complaining if employees
| accepted offers and then ghosted, so we should complain about
| employers doing this.
|
| Crazy they can't even afford to give folks a 6 month slot in
| a "gardening" type position. Be upfront. Hey, we're hurting,
| we can keep you for 6 months or so, no expectation on work
| output, but growth trajectory is going to be limited and a
| RIF is possible so may not be a bad idea to look for next
| spot.
| Matthias247 wrote:
| Note that in Europe (e.g. Germany) a typical notice period
| can be 3 month. So some people don't even have the option to
| start faster.
| diehunde wrote:
| I didn't know that. I started a new job three months ago in
| the US, and I had to negotiate because they wanted me to
| start in 2 weeks and I wanted a month. They told me three
| weeks was a hard limit.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| This is why every time I've left a job, my last day at my
| previous job was Friday and the first day at my next job was
| Monday. There's something deeply stressful to me about being
| unemployed. I'd much rather take a stress-free paid vacation
| on holiday leave than just be unemployed and have things
| potentially up in the air.
| rvba wrote:
| Can someone explain me something about USA employment law?
|
| Can you rescind offers and suffer 0 consequences?
|
| I can easily imagine a situation, where manager A wants to get
| rid of employee E. So manager A, asks a friend in company B, to
| make an offer for 10M dollars. Then employee E leaves, offer gets
| rescinded by company B.
|
| Employee E left on their own from company A, so "problem solved".
| Obviously some other employee, this time from company B gets
| another miracle offer, just to quit and be rescinded.
|
| I imagine that this is somehow banned, or everyone would be doing
| this?
|
| I saw much wilder stuff going
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Yes, that would be sue-able over and if you could prove the
| pact you would probably win (promissory estoppel). But in the
| ordinary sense you can typically just rescind whatever you want
| and as long as it is not for a protect reason, you are good.
| [deleted]
| GartzenDeHaes wrote:
| If the offer is in writing (always get offers in writing), then
| the employee has some recourse. I imagine this is why CB is
| offering 2 months severance to affected people, or so I read
| elsewhere in this thread.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| There isn't a federal law that covers stuff like this. We
| really only have employment discrimination laws at a federal
| level (i.e. you can't fire someone for being a certain race,
| religion, etc.). So it's up to each state and local area to
| define employment laws and it varies a ton. In some states they
| have 'at will' employment laws that effectively say you can be
| fired for any reason and with or without any notice. I imagine
| rescinding offers fall under this and are perfectly legal in
| some areas.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| The situation you propose is more than just rescinding an
| offer. It's colluding with another company to make an offer in
| bad faith with the intent of rescinding it, in order to entice
| an employee to quit.
| say_it_as_it_is wrote:
| What Brock is omitting is that the last hired are very likely to
| be the first to go in the near future. Anyone who joined Coinbase
| within the last 24 months should be interviewing.
| Animats wrote:
| They have 2100 employees. What do they all _do_?
| icedchai wrote:
| Well, Twitter has 7500 employees and Coinbase seems to have a
| more complex product.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Shill.
| bhawks wrote:
| Which is practically everyone. Coinbase has been on a
| ridiculous hiring spree. Last I looked there were very few long
| time Coinbae left at the company.
| bink wrote:
| Wait, are Coinbase employees called "Coinbae"? I can't decide
| if that's brilliant or awful.
| Ansil849 wrote:
| > We will rescind a number of accepted offers.
|
| So if you accept an offer at CB, give notice to your current
| employer, have CB rescind the offer, and now find yourself
| unemployed? Is that what's happened here?
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| Yes, precisely that.
| Ansil849 wrote:
| That is just utterly outrageous.
| 762236 wrote:
| It's better than firing them once they arrive, after
| relocation, isn't it?
| happyopossum wrote:
| Yes. Hopefully you didn't burn any bridges on the way out the
| door - boomerangs aren't unheard of or unwelcome at most
| healthy companies.
| googlryas wrote:
| This happened to a friend of mine(not with CB, not even in tech
| - a sales job) - he sued them and ended up getting a severance
| package for a job he never worked at. I'm not sure if it was
| just a settlement or an actual judgement against them though.
| jscottmiller wrote:
| > We acknowledge and take responsibility for the experience of
| those impacted.
|
| No; apart from a bit of severance pay, the responsibility is on
| your former hires to restart their job hunts or plead for their
| previous roles. "Taking responsibility" is not a declaration but
| an action.
| tqi wrote:
| > We will apply our generous severance philosophy to offset the
| financial impact of this decision.
|
| What does that mean for people who accepted but have not started?
| vrkr wrote:
| 2 months pay
| pvarangot wrote:
| That's generous? I've been through two RIFs and countless
| hiring freezes some with rescinding offers in big name
| companies, startups and "unicorns" and it was always at least
| that or more.
| [deleted]
| kimbernator wrote:
| If this is true, they -really- should say so publicly. The
| situation sucks, but 2 months of pay would make it a lot
| better, at least for me.
| ivraatiems wrote:
| Wow. They must really be in trouble. Rescinding accepted offers
| is a super shitty thing to do and I'm sure they know that. I bet
| layoffs are next.
|
| I'd make a snarky comment about "how's that no politics in the
| workplace policy working out for you," but real talk, I'm sure it
| has nothing to do with this, so it'd be a cheap dunk. The
| underlying problems with crypto are so multitudinous that they
| easily dwarf any such practice.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| I'm surprised they even announced it publicly, it can do
| nothing but make them look like a terrible place to go apply
| for work if they do things like yank offers. Although I guess
| since they aren't hiring for anything in the near future it
| doesn't matter but I bet this perception will persist well
| beyond when they start hiring again.
|
| I wonder if this announcement was pressure from management and
| the board to make some public announcement for shareholders
| that Coinbase is doing something, anything, to cut costs and
| weather the crypto and tech downturn.
|
| And for sure, if you work as a recruiter for Coinbase and still
| have a job... time to start tapping your network for other
| opportunities.
| killerdhmo wrote:
| I think it's a PR CYA move. It was being picked up on social
| media and they had to say something
| bombcar wrote:
| They could have just stopped new hiring, and not rescinded
| any offers.
|
| The fact they felt they had to means layoffs are right
| around the corner, and they're in a very bad spot.
| icelancer wrote:
| I'd guess the "no politics at work" thing probably helped
| reduce the number of layoffs coming, if anything.
| redditmigrant wrote:
| When it can be used as the reason a company succeeds, it
| should be used as the reason the company isn't doing well.
| tbatchelli wrote:
| yeah, it also probably means that the ones that stayed are
| getting laid off, but the ones that left are probably in a
| better situation
| 0des wrote:
| That's not necessarily a bad thing, to them, I'd imagine from
| the tone of the article that spawned that rule.
| icelancer wrote:
| I agree - that's actually what I meant. I think my comment
| is being taken differently than how I meant to write it,
| but such is life.
| ryanSrich wrote:
| Coinbase as a business, at least one that is traded publicly,
| never made sense during off cycles for crypto at their current
| scale. It makes sense in that it'll still be a business, and
| can certainly still make money, but it's extremely seasonal.
| Coinbase during a crypto bear market might be "worth" 10-100x
| less than what it might be worth in a bull market.
|
| As such, I imagine they'll have these wild swings every 4-6
| years. I think many people don't realize just how incredibly
| stagnate and boring crypto is when it's not consuming every
| part of everyone's online identity. The bad news is that for
| companies like Coinbase they essentially have to drastically
| downsize every few years. The good news is that with proper
| planning, they can really make the profits from a bull market
| last.
| CPLX wrote:
| This whole premise assumes that "crypto" will be a thing long
| enough to be cyclical.
| aaronharnly wrote:
| I expect that it will continue to be the preferred
| mechanism for paying criminals. It genuinely improves on
| the experience for both criminal and victim vs alternatives
| like wire transfers and cash. There is a decently large
| market for paying criminals (illegally but also legally, eg
| ransomware), so some base level can be expected to
| continue.
| kebman wrote:
| It's mostly stupid criminals who accept crypto since it's
| much more easy to trace than cash. Privacy coins are a
| completely different matter tho.
| gentoo wrote:
| Law enforcement and private surveillance companies are
| currently investing a ton of effort into using public
| blockchains (which is most of them) to unmask
| participants in crypto transactions. At the same time,
| they're putting more pressure on Coinbase and friends to
| do aggressive KYC, and Congress keeps considering bills
| that would effectively outlaw anonymous crypto purchases.
| It's not going to be the safest way to collect ransoms
| for long, if it even is today.
| ryanSrich wrote:
| We're past a decade already. I think gambling is pretty
| popular. So I expect it to only increase in popularity
| until it inevitability gets regulated into the dirt.
| i_like_waiting wrote:
| Well in case that it won't be a thing long enough, then
| there will be no coinbase in current business model, so I
| guess its correct strategy.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| Coinbase doesn't need to care about the value of crypto, it
| makes money on fees when people buy or sell against USD. All
| it should care about is the traded volumes, and they don't
| necessarily have to be a lot lower in a bear market.
| ascendantlogic wrote:
| But they almost always are a lot lower during bear cycles.
| puranjay wrote:
| Volume dies completely in bear markets
|
| We're not even in a proper bear market and its already
| collapsing
|
| Just see dex trading volume metrics or OpenSea volume data
| on Dune.com - a much better indicator of the state of the
| crypto markets since you can't hide on chain data
| ryanSrich wrote:
| Volume barely exists during a bear market. Attention is the
| currency by which crypto lives and dies. Even negative
| attention is attention. A bear market is the lack of
| attention. It has nothing to do with the macro price of any
| coin.
| puranjay wrote:
| Crypto is the future of finance in bull markets
|
| Its a total scam in bear markets
|
| That's pretty much the sentiment across the board
|
| I do wonder how SoftBank investing $680M into SoRare at the
| height of the NFT boom is going to work out. If SoRareStats
| is correct, they did 170Eth of auction volume in 24 hours. If
| they have the same fees as OpenSea, that's roughly $8,000 in
| daily revenue.
| ryanSrich wrote:
| > I do wonder how SoftBank investing $680M into SoRare at
| the height of the NFT boom is going to work out.
|
| This only goes one way, and that way is down.
| puranjay wrote:
| Yep. OpenSea, too, raised funding at 13B valuation right
| at the peak of the NFT mania
|
| I don't understand how VCs work. I was deep in the NFT
| world at that time and outside of the influencers on
| Twitter, every single trader I know was just in it to
| dump NFTs on someone else. And everyone knew that it
| wasn't sustainable at all.
|
| How can VCs look at something like this, abandon all
| common sense and buy in right at the top of a mania
| phase?
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| Don't see why that should be the case. Unless there are
| massive swings in the number of trades, setting a flat rate
| for transactions should insulate them from the actual prices
| of crypto assets.
| puranjay wrote:
| Volume goes down, fees collected go down
|
| Crypto trade volume collapses catastrophically in bear
| markets
| ryanSrich wrote:
| > Unless there are massive swings in the number of trades,
|
| Precisely. Holders HODL during bear markets. Traders go
| bankrupt. New money stays on the sidelines. Everyone else
| forgets about crypto for a few years.
| bluk wrote:
| As far as the Coinbase marketplace, it may have "seasons" but
| the margins from fees will probably shrink over time
| regardless. A recent episode from Crypto Critics' Corner ( ht
| tps://anchor.fm/cryptocriticscorner/episodes/Cryptocurrenc...
| ) covered some of the headwinds facing Coinbase. Coinbase (at
| least the CEO) claims this is not a problem so it will be
| interesting.
| herpderperator wrote:
| Tangential, but: I was going to say this looks exactly like
| Medium, then I realized it is in fact Medium but with a custom
| domain.
| sblom wrote:
| As terrible as rescinding offers is, offering severance and job
| placement assistance is a very interesting approach to minimizing
| how terrible.
| jstx1 wrote:
| They're offering resume reviews and interview coaching to
| people who have passed through their entire interview pipeline.
| I don't see the point.
| satya71 wrote:
| My first job offer was rescinded after I accepted. All I got was
| a cellphone as consolation, that got stolen a month later.
|
| Feel for the new grads who got offers from Coinbase.
| pta2 wrote:
| I got an email from Coinbase recruiter asking for an interview
| like 3 weeks ago about how they are in "hyper growth" stage. I
| said no because I was not confident that Coinbase will ride out
| the current market effects without layoffs. From "hyper growth"
| hyperbole to rescinding offers in 3 weeks. Damn, that is rough.
| daniel-thompson wrote:
| > We will rescind a number of accepted offers.
|
| > [...]
|
| > And at the end of the day, I think you'll be proud to have
| helped Coinbase navigate this next part of its journey.
|
| If my eyes could roll any further they would fall out the back of
| my head
| mychele wrote:
| Rescinded offers also impact recent foreign graduates who plan to
| start a job with OPT. This comes with a deadline or you need to
| leave the country.
| pm90 wrote:
| Yep, 90 days max.
| gz5 wrote:
| The advice in these types of economic times from VCs etc. is to
| get to default-alive, e.g. a viable shot at cash flow positive
| before the money you have in the bank is gone.
|
| While that view is understandable, can folks think of companies
| who did 20% type layoffs at the eve of bad times, e.g. 2001 or
| 2008, and then became market leaders, expanding as the market
| recovered?
|
| I know Coinbase is not a typical startup given their IPO but they
| are a startup in other senses.
| paxys wrote:
| Most of the largest tech players today (including Microsoft and
| Google) did rounds of layoffs in 2008. Of course in those cases
| it was more trimming some fat rather than a do or die
| situation. But there are plenty of companies that have survived
| existential crises of this nature and come back stronger.
| gz5 wrote:
| I should have worded that better - was trying to think of
| startups (or companies with startup characteristics (like the
| high losses and increasing costs coinbase had last q)) coming
| back after a very large reset.
| ryanSrich wrote:
| Coinbase is an extremely profitable company. I don't think any
| VC advice applies to them. I think their valuation just got way
| out of hand, and with the crypto bear market just getting
| started I imagine they'll downsize like this during every cycle
| to come.
| paxys wrote:
| Profitable, yes. Sustainable, probably not. They are
| scrambling to open up lines of _stable_ revenue that they can
| rely on once crypto mania starts dying down (and that is
| already happening to some degree).
| ajross wrote:
| > can folks think of companies who did 20% type layoffs at the
| eve of bad times, e.g. 2001 or 2008, and then became market
| leaders
|
| Amazon did a quite famous layoff in 2000, actually.
| zippergz wrote:
| That was WELL under 20% of their workforce. I think it was 1
| or 2%.
| ajross wrote:
| Looks like it was 15%, and actually in January 2001:
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB980887670133130934
|
| But it was very heavily covered at the time, and viewed as
| a sign of the inevitable collapse of the internet economy.
|
| They ended up doing OK.
| puranjay wrote:
| But that's just one company. And Amazon is pretty much
| one of the greatest businesses built in the last 50
| years.
|
| How many others like Amazon did 20% layoffs and then died
| anyway?
| sys_64738 wrote:
| Don't quit your current job until you've started your new one.
| kimbernator wrote:
| I still believe having a good relationship with your previous
| employers isn't the worst thing - I have at least a few that
| have said that if I'm ever in need of a job that they'd be glad
| to bring me back in. In unstable economic times that kind of
| relationship puts me at ease. Quitting without notice, which is
| what you're suggesting, is a great way to screw up that
| relationship.
|
| Of course, if you're working somewhere that you'd never want to
| go back to under any circumstances, all bets are off.
|
| This reminds me of something one of my previous employers did.
| They had hired a ton of new engineers straight out of college
| and gave them a couple weeks to relocate to the city, get
| apartments, etc. After about 2 weeks of their training,
| executives decided it was time for some layoffs. The main
| targets? Those new employees. Company severance policy was only
| based on tenure, so these people probably got $20 and were
| unemployed, with a brand new lease, in a city they didn't know
| (and frankly, one that isn't at the top of most peoples' lists
| to live in).
| jstx1 wrote:
| Notice periods are still a thing. And in many places outside of
| the US they aren't just a thing you do out of courtesy
| (sometimes much longer than 2 weeks too). And even notice
| periods didn't exist, what's stopping the company from laying
| off new hires anyway?
| mrits wrote:
| I'm not sure that is the lesson to learn from this. I actually
| worked at a place that closed shop the first day of our new VP
| of Product.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| For a moment I had to check whether this was my comment or not.
| I said almost the same thing, and it's probably very true right
| now.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I just save an ungodly amount of income so that I can quit at
| anytime, pop the clutch, and tell them to eat my dust.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| That's not really possible, every employment agreement in tech
| I've seen explicitly forbids moonlighting or working for other
| competitors.
| icedchai wrote:
| That stuff is just to scare you. In 25+ years, I've never NOT
| moonlighted. I did get a "talking to" by a VP once, earlier
| in my career, about having too many "outside business
| activities." His concerns were promptly ignored.
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| From what I am reading: The moral of this story's comments seems
| to be accept (multiple offers) early, backout (of the not-as-good
| offers) late and don't put in my last-day's notice in until as
| late as possible, since we are playing a capitalistic game. Of
| course there are exceptions but if we are talking about the
| majority of stereotypical organizations then...:shrug:.
| glofish wrote:
| Sounds like crypto is in big trouble.
|
| While Coinbase's value is not dependent on a given price of a
| given crypto currency they are quite dependent on people using
| and trading some crypto currency.
|
| Sounds like people are not doing that.
| kebman wrote:
| Alt coins have been bleeding a lot lately. Bitcoin is actually
| holding up pretty well, considering the latest stock market
| turmoil.
| gfs wrote:
| > And at the end of the day, I think you'll be proud to have
| helped Coinbase navigate this next part of its journey.
|
| Who, me? Doubt it. Worst of luck to them!
| rvz wrote:
| I'm afraid you will be disappointed to learn that Coinbase is
| going to be alive for the next 5+ years.
| larodi wrote:
| Worst of luck, Amen. Besides, what else to expect from a
| company that everyone in their guts has a doubt about.
| Animats wrote:
| The crypto bubble is popping. There are a huge number of dead
| coins and NFTs, with more to come. Bitcoin and ETH are useful
| enough to stay around, but most of the off-brand ones are doomed.
|
| List of dead coins.[1]
|
| NFTs stall, rather than crashing. High asking price, low offering
| price, few sales. Peak NFT volume was in late 2021.
|
| Everything that depended on growth rather than profits is
| tanking. Even Softbank is in trouble.
|
| [1] https://www.coinopsy.com/dead-coins/
| victor9000 wrote:
| I'm not qualified to say if the bubble is popping, but I am
| seeing a lot of GPUs on the market at or below MSRP.
| rinze wrote:
| I guess all that easy money being sucked out of the system must
| be leaving some noticeable voids already.
| dylkil wrote:
| >The crypto bubble is popping
|
| For the 4th time. See you in 4 years for the next crypto
| bubble.
| redisman wrote:
| I don't see how this is any worse than the "ICO" craze a few
| years ago. Probably 99% of those scams are now dead. Rumors
| about crypto's death are always greatly exaggerated
| pavlov wrote:
| This time around was no worse than the ICO craze of 2017, but
| importantly it wasn't any better either.
|
| Despite tens of billions in investments poured into the
| space, crypto is fundamentally unable to create lasting
| value.
| rvz wrote:
| > The crypto bubble is popping.
|
| For the 900th time, the crypto bubble is _' popping'_ or it has
| already _' popped'_. The speculators and bag-holders are
| getting flushed and wiped out once again just like in 2017.
| This is before regulations are coming and it is happening
| again.
|
| Meme-coins and other useless ERC-20 tokens will collapse and
| become abandoned where as the utility in many other
| cryptocurrencies (coins not tokens) will continue to survive.
|
| Until then it has to go down before another drive higher which
| will probably happen after another Bitcoin halving, most likely
| in a couple of years time.
| puranjay wrote:
| Would have expected another run after the next halving but
| we're in uncharted territory honestly. Bitcoin and crypto
| only came about in the post 2008 era of easy money. If that
| spigot dries up, its not certain they will keep going up
| every halving like they used to.
|
| On the other hand, after the current central bank
| shenanigans, trust in centralized institutions is even lower
| and non-centralized currencies become more attractive.
|
| Its a wait and watch for me.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| "In response to the current market conditions and ongoing
| business prioritization efforts, we will extend our hiring pause
| for both new and backfill roles for the foreseeable future and
| rescind a number of accepted offers."
|
| Last part is extremely uncool.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| LIFO is common in broad layoffs, that are responding to overall
| business velocity and not more specific need determination, and
| the people that haven't started yet are very much the LI.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| Coinbase isn't new to the four year crypto cycle set by
| bitcoin halvings, they shouldn't have hired the people in the
| first place in the bear year. Rescinding job offers is a
| really bad look.
| triyambakam wrote:
| Does the price of BTC actually affect their business,
| though? I'm naive
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Price directly probably not so much, but breadth of
| interest should, and I would expect that those two things
| are somewhat correlated.
| paxys wrote:
| Random BTC fluctuations probably don't make too much of a
| difference, but as of their Q4 '21 report 86% of their
| trading volume is actually from outside Bitcoin. Those
| have all taken a massive hit in recent months, and I
| can't expect that is good news for Coinbase.
| redisman wrote:
| Bitcoin still drives the whole crypto market value. If
| Bitcoin went to $10 tomorrow, every other coin would be
| worth $0
| paxys wrote:
| Right now it's the other way around. Bitcoin has held its
| value pretty well while everything around it is crashing.
| bombcar wrote:
| People are much less likely to buy and trade if the
| market is trending downwards, and they make their money
| on buying and trading.
| andy81 wrote:
| N=3 is an absurd sample size to base hiring or investment
| decisions on, especially considering that each halving will
| have a smaller effect than the previous.
| wbsss4412 wrote:
| It's better than making an assumption that runs
| completely contrary to the he limited actual data that
| you do have.
| mentalpiracy wrote:
| N=3 is an absurd sample size when you are sampling from
| an otherwise large pool.
|
| When N=3 because that's the entire size of the sampling
| pool, failing to take heed of those patterns is an
| unforced error.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| And yet here we are, in another bear year right on
| schedule...
|
| https://www.lookintobitcoin.com/charts/bitcoin-investor-
| tool...
| CydeWeys wrote:
| I don't see what the Bitcoin halvening has anything to do
| with this. The halvenings have been known from the very
| beginning and are thus priced in. The downturn we're seeing
| now is caused by market volatility, the exact opposite of a
| guaranteed halvening that we already knew was coming a
| decade ago.
| 1270018080 wrote:
| An aside, I like how crypto borrows terminology from real
| financial instruments. Like "cycles" when the industry as
| we know it has existed for maybe 10 years. I've even heard
| "fundamentals" thrown around. There's no earnings or
| assets! How are there fundamentals?? Aside over.
| brian_cloutier wrote:
| crypto assets have different fundamentals.
|
| For businesses it's important to understand earnings and
| assets because those put a floor on the price of the
| business: they set a price level at which you are very
| likely to see demand for taking over the business. At the
| end of the day, though, when you study fundamentals you
| are making guesses at supply and demand.
|
| The price of a Bitcoin depends on how many people are
| trying to use it for remittances and how easily those
| people can acquire Bitcoin and how long recipients hold
| before selling. Demand also depends on the macro
| environment and it's historic correlation with other
| markets. Supply depends on the issuance rate and energy
| prices (higher prices will force miners to sell more to
| pay for their operations). Many other factors are at
| play; by predicting them you can make guesses as to
| future supply and demand and future bitcoin prices.
| whatshisface wrote:
| How is there scarcity in Bitcoin when 1, 1000, or 107
| Satoshi can all serve the purpose of sending one dollar
| overseas? I have never understood how supply and demand
| can work for currencies.
| 0des wrote:
| 13 years
| gerikson wrote:
| It's just finance cosplay.
| tempsy wrote:
| think it's more like a barbell. last time Uber did a mass
| layoff it included a lot of more senior managers who had been
| there awhile. they are far more expensive than the entry
| level new hire who is actually doing the work...
| xony wrote:
| colesantiago wrote:
| Not surprised.
|
| Looks like basing your business model on gamblers and speculators
| isn't doing well at all.
|
| Creating a company propped up by vulture capitalists (especially
| in the gambling sector) is completely immoral.
|
| We now need is a complete crypto crash to will wipe this casino
| out completely.
| jenny91 wrote:
| I have a good friend who has just graduated from college and is
| affected by this. It's extremely stressful for her and a very
| rude entry into the professional workforce, it's already rough
| enough for her. I'm not sure yet if they will/have rescinded her
| offer or not.
|
| It's very disappointing to see a company treat employees like
| this. There are ways to plan better, especially at huge corps
| like this.
|
| If you're in a position making decisions like this in your
| organization, please remember that decisions like this affect
| real people and have a serious impact on their wellbeing in
| numerous ways.
| larodi wrote:
| You know what is rude?... to have lived in a world where
| everyone knew everyone so much that people were afraid to be
| laid off a company, because the world would know it. 30 years
| ago - the world of IT.
|
| It is really difficult for me to see how XXXXX going into
| pieces fails your global career.
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