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I think the reality is that Coinbase is so obviously a rocketship that the CEO could say anything and they’d have no trouble with recruitment or retention. Exis

I think the reality is that Coinbase is so obviously a rocketship that the CEO could say anything and they’d have no trouble with recruitment or retention. Existing employees have stock grants worth millions, and new employees are getting great offers. The people who will take these jobs are generally going to be bullish on crypto. If you expect crypto to become a bigger piece of the economy in the future, it would be crazy to give up the opportunity to own a bunch of Coinbase stock. I’d spend a year listening to Brian Armstrong tell me that my thetans need adjusting for 5000 shares of Coinbase.

woodruffw 5y ago
It's a story as old as time: investors (and employees with equity) will put up with just about any yahoo and their dictates (and noxious politics) as long as the money keeps rolling in. The pathetic handwringing here about "virtue signaling" and Coinbase's struggles is the height of farce.
- throw_m239339 5y ago
  > It's a story as old as time: investors (and employees with equity) will put up with just about any yahoo and their dictates (and noxious politics) as long as the money keeps rolling in. It's a tech company, it's not a YMCA nor a progressive PAC. Obviously, a large number of people here just can't tell the difference anymore, but that's only a cultural issue, not a technical one. The only thing obnoxious here is the people not realizing they can't have their way everywhere and can't impose their stupid petty identity politics everywhere they go.
joshuamorton 5y ago
COIN has lost 25% since IPO (in that time, GOOG, FB, MSFT, AAPL, HOOD are up, PP is even, and SQ is down marginally), and their offers aren't particularly better than <anywhere else>, so it doesn't seem like this is true. Like, even if you think crypto is going to be super relevant, there's tons of other cryto startups. Coinbase has or had first mover advantage, but that's no longer an enormous advantage.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
  Coinbase’s stock is currently approximately equal to the IPO price and the IPO was six months ago. Coinbase and Robinhood (another rocketship) both experienced a pop after their respective IPOs and later dropped back down near IPO price. This isn’t a particularly relevant metric, in my view. At the IPO, the rocketship factor is already priced in. Look at the company’s trajectory over the decade it has existed.
  - joshuamorton 5y ago
    > Look at the company’s trajectory over the decade it has existed. The decade where it wasn't "mission focused"?
  - ac29 5y ago
    > Coinbase’s stock is currently approximately equal to the IPO price Coinbase is down a little over 27% since IPO, at a time when the wider US stock market is up around 10%. That's not "approximately equal" in any meaningful way. > At the IPO, the rocketship factor is already priced in. I'll agree with you here - there was a ton of hype and the IPO price was largely based on an expected rocketship trajectory that failed to materialize. Its extremely telling that many of their executives have cashed out 100% or nearly 100% of their available stock options.
- jcliff 5y ago
  Something that I don't think is widely appreciated enough is that Coinbase Ventures holds chunks of many of these startups.
  - notyourwork 5y ago
    Any specifics I should check out?
    - jcliff 5y ago
      well, a partial list of their investments is here: https://ventures.coinbase.com/ https://ventures.coinbase.com/ Some major ones aren't included such as CoinSwitch Kuber which Coinbase Ventures recently co-led a $260M round.
meowtimemania 5y ago
Coinbase has an rsu policy where you are not granted some number of shares each year but rather some dollar amount. So if my offer letter says I get $50k worth of rsus each year, and then Coinbase’s stock increases 10x, i’m still just going to receive 50k
- jimmydorry 5y ago
  If you are bullish on crypto, 50k of Coinbase stocks should have a significant pay off, like buying 50k of Google stock a decade ago.
  - bhickey 5y ago
    Your beliefs about the value of pog stocks has little bearing on the value of pog stocks.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- satvikpendem 5y ago
  Is that not the case for most companies? At FAAMG I've seen yearly stock grants be in dollar figures and not number of shares.
  - yunohn 5y ago
    They are expressed in dollars, but converted to stocks at the grant-time value, and vested in number of stocks.
    - what_ever 5y ago
      Coinbase is different. The conversion to stocks doesn't happen at grant-time value for all of the grant. The conversion happens at the start of every year of the grant life. So if the stock goes up in the first year, you get fewer stocks for the second year (equaling to grant/4 in value). See my other sibling comment in this thread.

woodruffw 5y ago

It's a story as old as time: investors (and employees with equity) will put up with just about any yahoo and their dictates (and noxious politics) as long as the money keeps rolling in. The pathetic handwringing here about "virtue signaling" and Coinbase's struggles is the height of farce.

throw_m239339 5y ago
> It's a story as old as time: investors (and employees with equity) will put up with just about any yahoo and their dictates (and noxious politics) as long as the money keeps rolling in. It's a tech company, it's not a YMCA nor a progressive PAC. Obviously, a large number of people here just can't tell the difference anymore, but that's only a cultural issue, not a technical one. The only thing obnoxious here is the people not realizing they can't have their way everywhere and can't impose their stupid petty identity politics everywhere they go.

joshuamorton 5y ago

COIN has lost 25% since IPO (in that time, GOOG, FB, MSFT, AAPL, HOOD are up, PP is even, and SQ is down marginally), and their offers aren't particularly better than <anywhere else>, so it doesn't seem like this is true. Like, even if you think crypto is going to be super relevant, there's tons of other cryto startups. Coinbase has or had first mover advantage, but that's no longer an enormous advantage.

fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
Coinbase’s stock is currently approximately equal to the IPO price and the IPO was six months ago. Coinbase and Robinhood (another rocketship) both experienced a pop after their respective IPOs and later dropped back down near IPO price. This isn’t a particularly relevant metric, in my view. At the IPO, the rocketship factor is already priced in. Look at the company’s trajectory over the decade it has existed.
- joshuamorton 5y ago
  > Look at the company’s trajectory over the decade it has existed. The decade where it wasn't "mission focused"?
- ac29 5y ago
  > Coinbase’s stock is currently approximately equal to the IPO price Coinbase is down a little over 27% since IPO, at a time when the wider US stock market is up around 10%. That's not "approximately equal" in any meaningful way. > At the IPO, the rocketship factor is already priced in. I'll agree with you here - there was a ton of hype and the IPO price was largely based on an expected rocketship trajectory that failed to materialize. Its extremely telling that many of their executives have cashed out 100% or nearly 100% of their available stock options.
jcliff 5y ago
Something that I don't think is widely appreciated enough is that Coinbase Ventures holds chunks of many of these startups.
- notyourwork 5y ago
  Any specifics I should check out?
  - jcliff 5y ago
    well, a partial list of their investments is here: https://ventures.coinbase.com/ https://ventures.coinbase.com/ Some major ones aren't included such as CoinSwitch Kuber which Coinbase Ventures recently co-led a $260M round.

meowtimemania 5y ago

Coinbase has an rsu policy where you are not granted some number of shares each year but rather some dollar amount. So if my offer letter says I get $50k worth of rsus each year, and then Coinbase’s stock increases 10x, i’m still just going to receive 50k

jimmydorry 5y ago
If you are bullish on crypto, 50k of Coinbase stocks should have a significant pay off, like buying 50k of Google stock a decade ago.
- bhickey 5y ago
  Your beliefs about the value of pog stocks has little bearing on the value of pog stocks.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
satvikpendem 5y ago
Is that not the case for most companies? At FAAMG I've seen yearly stock grants be in dollar figures and not number of shares.
- yunohn 5y ago
  They are expressed in dollars, but converted to stocks at the grant-time value, and vested in number of stocks.
  - what_ever 5y ago
    Coinbase is different. The conversion to stocks doesn't happen at grant-time value for all of the grant. The conversion happens at the start of every year of the grant life. So if the stock goes up in the first year, you get fewer stocks for the second year (equaling to grant/4 in value). See my other sibling comment in this thread.