Update on Hiring Plans
blog.coinbase.com
blog.coinbase.com
This was for a relatively senior position, not a fresh grad. Going to be hard to get a new job considering most of the other places have hiring freezes and I chose Coinbase over other offers (mostly from FAANG), these offers have probably been out for over a month now doubt i can resuscitate them.
On top of that most of the other offers were for SF, and my partner already has a job in NYC on this basis.
Nothing but pain. As much as I appreciate the severance, the damage being done here is immense.
Just so others are aware, this is not true. One can have multiple visas issued, but you may only enter the US on one of them. It is very common for people to have 10 year B1/B2 visas and then also get an F1/J1 visa issued later on to be a student which allows you to work on campus. I don't know the OP's situation, but one can also get multiple TN visas issued to work for multiple companies at the same time. This is how nurses from Canada are able to drive across the border and work for different hospitals.
Unfortunately that's not saying very much!
This is simply not true, from CASH, to Gemini and Kraken (even Binanace) have not had this level of continued 'shadyness.'
Just because they appeal to the lowes common denominator and have a large presence in the US and out doesn't mean they are the least shady by a large extent: I still argue BTC-e was the most honest and upfront exchange which got taken out by the FBI despite operating in an entirely different justification (RU).
With that said, we need to shift to decentralized exchanges: BISQ is where people should be by now.
The fees are higher than the aforementioned exchanges, but this is what is being built out, and I have now problem with that at all as an early adopter.
0: https://protos.com/square-bitcoin-jack-dorsey-fintech-cash-a...
1: https://electrek.co/2022/05/26/tesla-delivers-megapacks-bitc...
Harsh, but that is what happens when you lie with dogs: you tend to get fleas.
With that said, you're better off not going there and can now use the severance as run way for your next role.
Let this be a lesson, anyone wanting to deal with CONbase this the type of standard they have, and their customer/userbase has been leaving in droves for a reason.
Their IPO was probably the last gasp of that rotting corpse.
> [...]
> 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
"Although I've accepted your offer, I'll be starting employment elsewhere. And at the end of the day, I think you’ll be proud to have helped dymk navigate this next part of dymk's journey."
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.
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.
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.
Edit: Yikes, I should have presented my poker analogy differently to be more clear!
Lying and deceit is good in poker, but definitely not in business, IMO.
In business the rule is something like this: Pretend that every sentence making claims about the future ends with "... assuming, of course, we either have a signed contract to that effect or nothing significant changes between now and then." That goes for your own statements and the other party's. I think you will do well acting truthfully with those caveats assumed (and avoiding those that don't act truthfully within those caveats).
A reply put it like this, which I like: present your "future-perfect-best self" and expect your employer/potential employer to do the same.
If you make these your rules, you're virtually guaranteeing you'll play with others who think similarly. There is another move at every poker table: get up. Not everyone is playing poker. There are companies and people who interview with integrity. The veteran advantage is in knowing who they are.
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.
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.
welp, this one's mine now. thanks :)
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.
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
Why wouldn't I behave exactly the same way if another company offers me 1.5x the salary?
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 and you can handle it in a professionally ethical way.
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.
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.)
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.
I 100% agree with you on your broader point. That said, this is incorrect. There are no laws that stipulate a business must put shareholders above anything else. There _are_ laws that say employees get first dibs on accrued pay in the event of a bankruptcy, among other things that businesses must do on behalf of employees.
Ref: https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...
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.
>Coinbase has some specific issues that aren't indicative of a broader industry probem
I have seen examples of this from several FAANG companies.
Corporations are not people. They don't have ethics. The most they can have is an ethical culture or guidelines - which still doesn't preclude them from doing anything.
The power imbalance is just too great. Don't be an as**, but don't be naive, either.
Companies are interviewing multiple candidates for a single spot, it’s insane not to expect reciprocal behavior
Ethics is a scam by the powerful to control everyone else.
I don't love my kid because of ethics, I love my kid because I love my kid. I'm not kind to my annoying neighbor because "it's the right thing", I'm kind to my neighbor because, despite his being annoying, I appreciate his friendship.
Ethics that you're advocating for exist so people running companies an take advantage of you, full stop. If it's more important for you to feel smugly superior, good for you, but I don't buy into it. I'd rather minimize how exploited I am.
You don't have to buy into someone else's definition of "ethics" in order to life a full, happy life, which involves loving your community and being kind to your neighbor. The rejection of mainstream ethics doesn't mean you have to be a monster, it just mean you're going to stop being manipulated for the benefit of someone far more powerful then you who never even paused for a moment to consider ethics.
edit: obviously I'm being a bit hyperbolic here. Spinoza and de Beauvoir both establish fairly exquisite ethical systems. But by en large "pop" ethics is a scam that is asymmetrically followed to the advantage of people in power. Quick example: Music companies want you to consider ethics when pirating music, but absolutely never bring up ethics when it comes to decisions around artists that could potentially increase profits.
I simply put myself in the shoes of the other person and ask, how would my decision make them feel? I may be even more selfish, in some interpretations, because I think that behaving this way impacts others, and pretty soon you have a culture of respect and empathy, which I think is good for everyone including myself. So I am acting towards my own benefit.
I haven't read Stirner or Spinoza much, but it seems like common sense to behave ethically in the way that I've described. And maybe you have a point with Stirner regarding your later music piracy point, because I don't pirate music, and I don't do it for any reason other than I feel my integrity is worth more than any song. I don't care at all for the major labels' thoughts, I do it for "selfish" reasons and maybe it's egoism. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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.
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.
If Amazon gives me an exploding offer, I shed no tears for Bezos by rescinding. You might perceive this as rare depending on where in your career you are, but going through this has fundamentally changed my perspective on job hunting.
There is a power imbalance. If I rescind, a normal company will survive. When I was rescinded on, I had to completely change my life plan, apply for unemployment (unsuccessfully), and re-interview while studying for finals. In a twist of irony, I ended up rejoining the company that rescinded my offer a year later (it's a good gig, what can I say) and it spread that some interns had their offers rescinded that year -- bloodboiling. Companies will literally not care, and I will not either.
It sounds like a death spiral with the lack of backfilling.
...
Describes quite a few tech companies to be honest.
What a mess!
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.
Used to be rare.
This happened to plenty of people I knew personally during the covid layoffs and I see no reason it won't happen again (in fact we're discussing a pretty well known company doing it right now in these very comments).
> Don't compromise your reputation
Your reputation with who? I've never considered working for a previous employer in my entire career and never, ever known hiring managers at one company to have influence over another.
I used to feel very safe when leaving a role but it's unfortunately just not the way things are these days. Same goes for "ghosting". I used to think it was repulsive for candidates to ghost a potential employer during an interview, however I've been on the receiving end of companies ghosting a shocking number of times.
I wish we lived in the world you are describing, but we don't.
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
Plus you get the added bonus of an additional two weeks pay.
Young people might not even realize, but back in the olden times of non-"unlimited vacation" employers were required to payout your unused vacation time when you left (usually leaving you with a fair bit of extra cash).
Unlimited vacation means that you no longer get this even though you probably take the same amount of leave, so you have to figure out a way to make up for this yourself.
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
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.
If you haven't quit your job and the offer is pulled but they pay you out a month or two..
Coinbase HR are just being jackasses and deserve to be blacklisted. This behavior should not be tolerated to prevent employees from giving 0 day notice when they quit and screwing over the rest of us. I know they are going in my hiring notebook for do not hire.
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.
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.
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!
Many tech companies have done this...
https://www.businessinsider.com/google-rescinds-job-offers-c...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-05-26/twitte...
https://www.protocol.com/workplace/stripe-hiring-issues-resc...
My attempt at levity was really ad hominem; I regret it!
Trust, but verify. You shouldn't set yourself up to get massively screwed if a corporate pinky swear falls through. But if you act like an asshole in ever interaction, you're going to select for people who find that the norm.
I was slotted for the last release. At the end of the summer. Just before my kids would return to college / high school. The first release was in May. I could spend the whole summer thinking about what to do next, and beach days with my kids.
So I told management, I am out of here in May. They said 'no, and if you leave, you lose your vacation pay and severance'.
So I called HR, explained my thinking, and told them to get me out of there in May. Management was not happy, but HR took full responsibility for the moved date. And I got to spend a glorious late spring and early summer lazing about before reentering the work force.
When else are you going to be able to take time off so easily? Rescinded offers are pretty rare to waste such a good opportunity
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.
The playing God shit by founders has to end and this move by Coinbase gives a huge boost to employees to hedge their offers. I won't be surprised if employees accept 2 offers, join one and after a a couple of days say no to the other or ghost them.
Perhaps if the co-founders hadn't paid themselves over a billion in stock compensation, this wouldn't have happened.
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.
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).
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.
TLDR: HR definitely does not care about you. It’s all about making sure the company doesn’t get in trouble while they do their best to exploit you.
Last part is extremely uncool.
https://www.lookintobitcoin.com/charts/bitcoin-investor-tool...
When N=3 because that's the entire size of the sampling pool, failing to take heed of those patterns is an unforced error.
Fundamentals in crypto are existential, favorable qualities of a token that can survive severe downturns (bear markets, depressions).
For BTC, fundamentals are absolute scarcity combined with buy-in/popularity.
For ETH, fundamentals are utility/flexibility and network effect.
For HorneyDonkeyKongCoin, fundamentals are...none. It will go to zero and never come back.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Those with the ability to choose often chose other firms when hiring got back on track later.
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.
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.
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.
This only goes one way, and that way is down.
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?
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
Coinbase ran a gambling business like an exchange business. That's their mistake. The guys who knew they were running unregulated slot machines are doing fine.
Precisely. Holders HODL during bear markets. Traders go bankrupt. New money stays on the sidelines. Everyone else forgets about crypto for a few years.
Crypto trade volume collapses catastrophically in bear markets
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.
The fact they felt they had to means layoffs are right around the corner, and they're in a very bad spot.
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.
Who, me? Doubt it. Worst of luck to them!
Until all cryptocurrencies are totally wiped out, banned and stopped completely 100%, then Coinbase is finished. Realistically and especially at this rate, I'm afraid that is simply not going to happen.
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.
Not really true for crypto. The crypto crash of the last 2 months was extreme and sudden, not an ordinary "bear market". It puts the company as a whole into an existential mode. And not just this company, most of tech companies.
Also, Coinbase was getting into all kinds of side projects, like an NFT marketplace. Due to market conditions, NFTs all of a sudden are dead. People pull out their liquidity and trading stops.
Say they had offers for 10 NFT experts. Now they need none. What are they to do, hire them anyway?
I do feel for your friend. Tell her what my dad always tells me: don't worry, they didn't take away your hands or brain. You'll be fine.
Her offer was rescinded and she's devastated about it. She received her offer in the past couple of weeks, well after the stock lost a lot of its value and they announced a hiring "slow down":
"I'm not sure yet if they will/have rescinded her offer or not."
In the meanwhile, the timeline got clarified? Anyway, I agree with you if the offer was made when the downturn was already obvious.
It's a shitty situation, and it will be followed by much more of it, cross industry. The music stopped playing. Don't waste time wondering why it stopped, find a chair.
It is really difficult for me to see how XXXXX going into pieces fails your global career.
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.
Despite tens of billions in investments poured into the space, crypto is fundamentally unable to create lasting value.
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.
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.
Besides the wealthy, there's the army of believers putting in small money.
For the 4th time. See you in 4 years for the next crypto bubble.
I think CB is on a very slippery slope. There are plenty of opportunities out there. Why working at CB?
- Banning political discussion
- Ask employees to rate each other
- Rescind accepted offers
- What's next?
Also, what would happen to your beloved assets if they go bankrupt?
For now, but give it six months I would tell you that they'd take a job at Coinbase for the same reason anyone today works anywhere: for the pay cheque.
We've had an entire generation of tech workers that forget that there are market downturns and in these downturns you end up with thousands of laid off people competing for the same job - often a job that you would have considered "under" you 6 months ago. I'm talking someone with 5 years more experience than you willing to take your job, and they'll do it for less money to boot.
It's in times like that where people will accept a job at Coinbase, because Coinbase will be around. And they'll be around because back in the early stages of the downturn they took the painfully necessary step of reducing payrolls.
> 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".
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.
The shills first shilled the coin itself, the Washington Post in 2015 had a very good summary https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/08/bitco...
> So the Bitcoin faithful have tried to not only convert people, but also convince them to martyr themselves, financially-speaking, for the crypto cause. It goes something like this. Hey, do you want to hear about the future? It's a digital currency called Bitcoin that lets you spend or move your money online without paying any fees. Sounds great. How does it do that? Well, Bitcoin saves you money by making transactions irreversible. So ... if I get scammed, I got scammed? There's nothing I can do about it? Yes. Okay, but is it at least easy to use? The thing is, I don't actually use it. I just hoard it. I'm waiting for some greater fools to push up the price by using theirs. Oh. Yeah. So you should buy some Bitcoins and use yours.
Then starting in 2017 but really gathering steam in 2018 came stablecoins.
And, of course, 2020 was the real start and 2021 the peak of NFTs.
Both stablecoins and NFTs are in ruins now. Note how quick NFT was compared to stablecoins -- and USDT still holds but that won't last either.
Unless a new shilling vehicle can be found, bitcoin is next.
It was always a scam. It never was and never can be anything else.
I posted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31462469 this two weeks ago.
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.
Amazon did a quite famous layoff in 2000, actually.
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.
How many others like Amazon did 20% layoffs and then died anyway?
Page 10 for basic breakdown: https://s27.q4cdn.com/397450999/files/doc_financials/2022/q1...
Back in 2000 I left a long term position because I was unhappy at work (there was a lot of turmoil) and filled out a few applications, In response I got two promising offers. The one I was leaning towards put the offer 'on hold'. Not rescinded completely, but no explanation, just 'on hold'.
I couldn't take the risk, and accepted the other offer, which was best in hind sight.
The 'on hold' was because the company had been bought one day before my start date, and the deal had to close first, because I would be hired into the new company. If they had told me that, I might have waited, but they could not, because it would have been insider info on the purchase.
Rescinding an offer is brutal. I don't think hiring organizations make that decision lightly, and they certainly shouldn't.
If I had turned down my other offer, and the delayed one had fallen through, that would have been career altering. It would have completely changed the arc of my life, likely not for the better.
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
Many states have "at will employment", which means you can be fired at any point for basically no reason.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment
For the extremely high end of salaries (your theoretical "10M" offer), you would do well to negotiate explicit terms of severance pay, or a signing bonus or other incentive, in your offer before signing it. Your employer will be bound by the terms of a signed job contract or other legal document. You should at the bare minimum not quit an active position on a verbal offer, wait until the full legal paperwork has been fully negotiated and signed. But there are almost no "default" protections applied at the state or federal level. Also job contract terms are often highly in favor the employer and non-negotiable language at most entry level / minimum wage jobs, leading to the vast majority of Americans working with a very low level of employee legal protection.
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.
What does that mean for people who accepted but have not started?
Stripe, lyft and uber do the same. At Stripe( at least) VPs and up get the standard 4 year fixed number of stock grants which basically creates a class system.
Get wrecked, Coinbase.
and later:
> We will also rescind a number of outstanding offers for people who have not started yet. ...
Will those rescinded offers get severance?
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).
You don't want to screw up the relationship you have with your colleagues and friends at work. My actual company, fuck 'em.
Feel for the new grads who got offers from Coinbase.
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.