22 ms·

Update on Hiring Plans

374 points by tempsy 4y ago

glofish 4y ago
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 4y ago
  Alt coins have been bleeding a lot lately. Bitcoin is actually holding up pretty well, considering the latest stock market turmoil.
- chx 4y ago
  Eventually, people wise up: there's nothing. It's a scam, it's never been anything else. 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/bitcoin-isnt-the-future-of-money-its-either-a-ponzi-scheme-or-a-pyramid-scheme/ 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.
  - ascendantlogic 4y ago
    Ah yes, the "this time is different" crowd. Toss your prediction in with the rest. https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-obituaries/ https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-obituaries/
  - fleddr 4y ago
    Wildly unhinged takes and talking points from 2015.
    - chx 4y ago
      It is just as true today. It was always a scam. It never was and never can be anything else. I posted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31462469 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31462469 this two weeks ago.
- ascendantlogic 4y ago
  Sounds like another crypto winter, which we've seen multiple times at this point.
gfs 4y ago
> 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!
- larodi 4y ago
  Worst of luck, Amen. Besides, what else to expect from a company that everyone in their guts has a doubt about.
- rvz 4y ago
  I'm afraid you will be disappointed to learn that Coinbase is going to be alive for the next 5+ years.
  - diogenescynic 4y ago
    Not at this rate.
    - rvz 4y ago
      Actually at any rate, given that they still win on either side of the trade and have complied with many regulations; survived any bull or bear market just like they have survived 2013, 2018, 2020 and so on. 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.
JohnJamesRambo 4y ago
"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 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    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 4y ago
      Does the price of BTC actually affect their business, though? I'm naive
      - dragonwriter 4y ago
        Price directly probably not so much, but breadth of interest should, and I would expect that those two things are somewhat correlated.
      - paxys 4y ago
        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.
        4y ago
paxys 4y ago
> 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.
- kbuchanan 4y ago
  What is their next best alternative? Rescinding offers is a way to show loyalty to those who already work for you.
- wdb 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    > 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.
    - runnerup 4y ago
      Or they're applying at small companies with unprofessional leadership. I've seen that fairly often while mentoring second-tier university students. Little fly-by-night cottage industry companies sometimes try to hire out of narcissism but don't have the cash.
say_it_as_it_is 4y ago
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.
- bhawks 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    Wait, are Coinbase employees called "Coinbae"? I can't decide if that's brilliant or awful.
- Animats 4y ago
  They have 2100 employees. What do they all do?
  - DonHopkins 4y ago
    Shill.
  - icedchai 4y ago
    Well, Twitter has 7500 employees and Coinbase seems to have a more complex product.
  - fleddr 4y ago
    If you'd actually be interested in the answer, you wouldn't be asking.
ivraatiems 4y ago
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.
- icelancer 4y ago
  I'd guess the "no politics at work" thing probably helped reduce the number of layoffs coming, if anything.
  - 0des 4y ago
    That's not necessarily a bad thing, to them, I'd imagine from the tone of the article that spawned that rule.
    - icelancer 4y ago
      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.
      - 0des 4y ago
        it's all good man, I think you're alright. just another stranger on the internet like the rest of us.
  - redditmigrant 4y ago
    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 4y ago
    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
sblom 4y ago
As terrible as rescinding offers is, offering severance and job placement assistance is a very interesting approach to minimizing how terrible.
- jstx1 4y ago
  They're offering resume reviews and interview coaching to people who have passed through their entire interview pipeline. I don't see the point.
daniel-thompson 4y ago
> 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
- ackbar03 4y ago
  Hey man, sometimes you gotta take one for the team, even if it means your no longer on the team
  - 130e13a 4y ago
    or never being on the team in the first place
- dymk 4y ago
  Going to use that if I ever have to renege on an offer. "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."
- e-_pusher 4y ago
  “Some of you may die, but it is a sacrifice I am willing to make.”
gz5 4y ago
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.
- ryanSrich 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    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).
  - drinkzima 4y ago
    They burned almost a billion dollars in operating cash flow last quarter, and nearly all of their profitability in the past flowed from retail, which has shifted down dramatically. Not quite as simple as extremely profitable. Page 10 for basic breakdown: https://s27.q4cdn.com/397450999/files/doc_financials/2022/q1/Coinbase-Q122-Shareholder-Letter.pdf https://s27.q4cdn.com/397450999/files/doc_financials/2022/q1...
- ajross 4y ago
  > 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 4y ago
sys_64738 4y ago
Don't quit your current job until you've started your new one.
- mrits 4y ago
  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 4y ago
  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.
- kimbernator 4y ago
  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).
  - sys_64738 4y ago
    > Quitting without notice, which is what you're suggesting, is a great way to screw up that relationship. You don't want to screw up the relationship you have with your colleagues and friends at work. My actual company, fuck 'em.
- 4y ago
xony 4y ago
colesantiago 4y ago
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 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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.
- fleddr 4y ago
  "There are ways to plan better, especially at huge corps like this." 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.
  - jenny91 4y ago
    It's not like all the offers that were rescinded were made before the crash. This is not exucable with the market crash, it's simply poor form and bad planning. They simply should've not made those offers. 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": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31408364 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31408364
KoftaBob 4y ago
"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.
onphonenow 4y ago
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.
- eqmvii 4y ago
  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 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    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 4y ago
    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 4y ago
      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.
rvba 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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.
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  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.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- GartzenDeHaes 4y ago
  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 4y ago
  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.
jscottmiller 4y ago
> 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 4y ago
> 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 4y ago
  2 months pay
  - kimbernator 4y ago
    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.
  - pvarangot 4y ago
    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 4y ago
      [deleted]
Animats 4y ago
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/ https://www.coinopsy.com/dead-coins/
- redisman 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    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.
- rinze 4y ago
  I guess all that easy money being sucked out of the system must be leaving some noticeable voids already.
- dylkil 4y ago
  >The crypto bubble is popping For the 4th time. See you in 4 years for the next crypto bubble.
- rvz 4y ago
  > 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.
iLoveOncall 4y ago
This is good for Bitcoin.
jstx1 4y ago
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 4y ago
  Probably fiddly and impatient board.
Ansil849 4y ago
> 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 4y ago
  Yes, precisely that.
  - Ansil849 4y ago
    That is just utterly outrageous.
    - 762236 4y ago
      It's better than firing them once they arrive, after relocation, isn't it?
      - qbasic_forever 4y ago
        You'd be eligible for unemployment assistance in that case. I'm not sure you qualify if you didn't actually start and only had an offer.
        ergocoder 4y ago
        You do you. For me, that sounds worse. It is not hard to tell my current manager that I would like to stay because coinbase rescinds the offer. If your manager cannot handle this, then I have even worse news for you... You have a shitty manager that will screws you up one day.
- happyopossum 4y ago
  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.
mychele 4y ago
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 4y ago
  Yep, 90 days max.
ElijahLynn 4y ago
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:.
jedberg 4y ago
> 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".
herpderperator 4y ago
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.
satya71 4y ago
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 4y ago
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.
- deeptote 4y ago
  Yeah they hit me up about a month ago. I've been a crypto-skeptic for a while so I chose to not step up to that slot machine. The pay was usually really good, and the work is interesting, but I can't sleep at night knowing that I'm helping scam people.
Barrera 4y ago
> ... we will extend our hiring pause for both new and backfill roles for the foreseeable future and rescind a number of accepted offers. and later: > We will also rescind a number of outstanding offers for people who have not started yet. ... Will those rescinded offers get severance?
fnordpiglet 4y ago
Rescinding job offers is about the worst move a company can make for their talent reputation. A major bank I worked with rescinded job offers to college graduates during one recession and it took us a decade to remake our reputation. From that point on we would sooner let current employees go to make room for offered jobs (realistically layoffs were already happen if things got that bad). That the tech industry seems to be thinking this is an acceptable way to treat people, but the organizations that follow this trend will be realized for the meat grinder culture they must be. No one that respects their talent treats people who have quit jobs and turned down other offers to work for them in this way.
- SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
  To be fair, Coinbase has never made a secret of the fact that they have a meatgrinder culture. "Unremarkable performance gets a generous severance package", in their CEO's words.
sg47 4y ago
Time for the Great Unresignation!
curioussavage 4y ago
Can't really say I dodged a bullet because I'm not employed either way but I was about to get an offer from them a month ago when I decided it just didn't seem like a place I wanted to work at. Not regretting the decision at all
Patrol8394 4y ago
It is so easy to destroy your culture and trust, and very hard to gain it back. 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?
- tenpies 4y ago
  > I think CB is on a very slippery slope. There are plenty of opportunities out there. Why working at CB? 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.
99_00 4y ago
When are the cheap GPUs going to start flooding eBay? I haven't built a PCin decades. What 1 thing should I read to prepare?
sammaher1 4y ago
I'm a new grad who was set to to start in 3 days, just got rescinded. Guess I'm back on the hunt now :(.
- turtledove 4y ago
  Bummer, but also, you dodged a bullet. I know nothing about you, but you absolutely can do better than Coinbase. Shady as fuuuuuuuuuuuuck company.
mfDjB 4y ago
This is a real disappointment. Had a great job lined up at Coinbase that I was quite excited about, was in the middle of visa processing when this happened (why I had to quit my previous job, can’t have two visas in the US). 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.
- chipgap98 4y ago
  What type of job were you going in for at Coinbase? I and I’m sure others here would be interested in helping if possible
- jasd 4y ago
  I'm not sure what visa you are on, but for H1B you don't need to quit/give up your visa with current company to start processing with new employer. Even after your h1b with new company is approved it isn't necessary to quit your current job or give up that visa. Also, if you're in software, a lot of people here can help. Good luck! Hopefully you'll find something soon.
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  Some of the FANG shops are still pretty desperate from the great resignation. You might get luckier than you think resuscitating the offers.
  - ShamelessC 4y ago
    yeah I'm pretty sure Facebook would hire just about anyone at this point based on the desperation in the emails I get from them.
    - astonex 4y ago
turtledove 4y ago
Hahahaha haha ha. Get wrecked, Coinbase.
V-2 4y ago
Rescinding accepted job offers, and not a single word along the lines of "apology" or "sorry" in the statement? That's a bit bold, in my view. Am I missing something?
april_22 4y ago
What kind of job were you going for at Coinbase and how was the hiring process like?
nprateem 4y ago
I was literally looking at their jobs page today and was going to apply... rescinding offers is a bad move. They've damaged their reputation with this. I wouldn't hand in a 30 day notice for a company known for doing this.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
break_the_bank 4y ago
Last year they went from a normal 4 year grant to an yearly grant of a fix dollar value in order to protect employees from a down turn. Now they ended up doing layoffs, tells you how big a BS this grant structure is. 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.
greyhair 4y ago
Rescinding outstanding offers. Ouch. Double ouch. 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.
cheshire137 4y ago
Adding them to my list of places who rescind offers, on there with Stripe, Splunk, and Twilio. The Venn diagram of that list completely overlaps with a list of places I won't work.

374 points by tempsy 4y ago

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 4y ago
Alt coins have been bleeding a lot lately. Bitcoin is actually holding up pretty well, considering the latest stock market turmoil.
chx 4y ago
Eventually, people wise up: there's nothing. It's a scam, it's never been anything else. 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/bitcoin-isnt-the-future-of-money-its-either-a-ponzi-scheme-or-a-pyramid-scheme/ 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.
- ascendantlogic 4y ago
  Ah yes, the "this time is different" crowd. Toss your prediction in with the rest. https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-obituaries/ https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-obituaries/
- fleddr 4y ago
  Wildly unhinged takes and talking points from 2015.
  - chx 4y ago
    It is just as true today. It was always a scam. It never was and never can be anything else. I posted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31462469 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31462469 this two weeks ago.
ascendantlogic 4y ago
Sounds like another crypto winter, which we've seen multiple times at this point.

gfs 4y ago

> 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!

larodi 4y ago
Worst of luck, Amen. Besides, what else to expect from a company that everyone in their guts has a doubt about.
rvz 4y ago
I'm afraid you will be disappointed to learn that Coinbase is going to be alive for the next 5+ years.
- diogenescynic 4y ago
  Not at this rate.
  - rvz 4y ago
    Actually at any rate, given that they still win on either side of the trade and have complied with many regulations; survived any bull or bear market just like they have survived 2013, 2018, 2020 and so on. 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.

JohnJamesRambo 4y ago

"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 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    Does the price of BTC actually affect their business, though? I'm naive
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      Price directly probably not so much, but breadth of interest should, and I would expect that those two things are somewhat correlated.
    - paxys 4y ago
      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.
      - 4y ago

paxys 4y ago

> 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.

kbuchanan 4y ago
What is their next best alternative? Rescinding offers is a way to show loyalty to those who already work for you.
wdb 4y ago
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 4y ago
  > 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.
  - runnerup 4y ago
    Or they're applying at small companies with unprofessional leadership. I've seen that fairly often while mentoring second-tier university students. Little fly-by-night cottage industry companies sometimes try to hire out of narcissism but don't have the cash.

say_it_as_it_is 4y ago

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.

bhawks 4y ago
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 4y ago
  Wait, are Coinbase employees called "Coinbae"? I can't decide if that's brilliant or awful.
Animats 4y ago
They have 2100 employees. What do they all do?
- DonHopkins 4y ago
  Shill.
- icedchai 4y ago
  Well, Twitter has 7500 employees and Coinbase seems to have a more complex product.
- fleddr 4y ago
  If you'd actually be interested in the answer, you wouldn't be asking.

ivraatiems 4y ago

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.

icelancer 4y ago
I'd guess the "no politics at work" thing probably helped reduce the number of layoffs coming, if anything.
- 0des 4y ago
  That's not necessarily a bad thing, to them, I'd imagine from the tone of the article that spawned that rule.
  - icelancer 4y ago
    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.
    - 0des 4y ago
      it's all good man, I think you're alright. just another stranger on the internet like the rest of us.
- redditmigrant 4y ago
  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 4y ago
  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

sblom 4y ago

As terrible as rescinding offers is, offering severance and job placement assistance is a very interesting approach to minimizing how terrible.

jstx1 4y ago
They're offering resume reviews and interview coaching to people who have passed through their entire interview pipeline. I don't see the point.

daniel-thompson 4y ago

> 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

ackbar03 4y ago
Hey man, sometimes you gotta take one for the team, even if it means your no longer on the team
- 130e13a 4y ago
  or never being on the team in the first place
dymk 4y ago
Going to use that if I ever have to renege on an offer. "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."
e-_pusher 4y ago
“Some of you may die, but it is a sacrifice I am willing to make.”

gz5 4y ago

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.

ryanSrich 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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).
- drinkzima 4y ago
  They burned almost a billion dollars in operating cash flow last quarter, and nearly all of their profitability in the past flowed from retail, which has shifted down dramatically. Not quite as simple as extremely profitable. Page 10 for basic breakdown: https://s27.q4cdn.com/397450999/files/doc_financials/2022/q1/Coinbase-Q122-Shareholder-Letter.pdf https://s27.q4cdn.com/397450999/files/doc_financials/2022/q1...
ajross 4y ago
> 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 4y ago

sys_64738 4y ago

Don't quit your current job until you've started your new one.

mrits 4y ago
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 4y ago
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.
kimbernator 4y ago
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).
- sys_64738 4y ago
  > Quitting without notice, which is what you're suggesting, is a great way to screw up that relationship. You don't want to screw up the relationship you have with your colleagues and friends at work. My actual company, fuck 'em.
4y ago

xony 4y ago

colesantiago 4y ago

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 4y ago

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 4y ago
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.
fleddr 4y ago
"There are ways to plan better, especially at huge corps like this." 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.
- jenny91 4y ago
  It's not like all the offers that were rescinded were made before the crash. This is not exucable with the market crash, it's simply poor form and bad planning. They simply should've not made those offers. 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": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31408364 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31408364

KoftaBob 4y ago

"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.

onphonenow 4y ago

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.

eqmvii 4y ago
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 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    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.

rvba 4y ago

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 4y ago
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.
Manuel_D 4y ago
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.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
GartzenDeHaes 4y ago
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 4y ago
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.

jscottmiller 4y ago

> 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 4y ago

> 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 4y ago
2 months pay
- kimbernator 4y ago
  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.
- pvarangot 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    [deleted]

Animats 4y ago

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/ https://www.coinopsy.com/dead-coins/

redisman 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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.
rinze 4y ago
I guess all that easy money being sucked out of the system must be leaving some noticeable voids already.
dylkil 4y ago
>The crypto bubble is popping For the 4th time. See you in 4 years for the next crypto bubble.
rvz 4y ago
> 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.

iLoveOncall 4y ago

This is good for Bitcoin.

jstx1 4y ago

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 4y ago
Probably fiddly and impatient board.

Ansil849 4y ago

> 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 4y ago
Yes, precisely that.
- Ansil849 4y ago
  That is just utterly outrageous.
  - 762236 4y ago
    It's better than firing them once they arrive, after relocation, isn't it?
    - qbasic_forever 4y ago
      You'd be eligible for unemployment assistance in that case. I'm not sure you qualify if you didn't actually start and only had an offer.
      - ergocoder 4y ago
        You do you. For me, that sounds worse. It is not hard to tell my current manager that I would like to stay because coinbase rescinds the offer. If your manager cannot handle this, then I have even worse news for you... You have a shitty manager that will screws you up one day.
happyopossum 4y ago
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.

mychele 4y ago

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 4y ago
Yep, 90 days max.

ElijahLynn 4y ago

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:.

jedberg 4y ago

> 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".

herpderperator 4y ago

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.

satya71 4y ago

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 4y ago

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.

deeptote 4y ago
Yeah they hit me up about a month ago. I've been a crypto-skeptic for a while so I chose to not step up to that slot machine. The pay was usually really good, and the work is interesting, but I can't sleep at night knowing that I'm helping scam people.

Barrera 4y ago

> ... we will extend our hiring pause for both new and backfill roles for the foreseeable future and rescind a number of accepted offers. and later: > We will also rescind a number of outstanding offers for people who have not started yet. ... Will those rescinded offers get severance?

fnordpiglet 4y ago

Rescinding job offers is about the worst move a company can make for their talent reputation. A major bank I worked with rescinded job offers to college graduates during one recession and it took us a decade to remake our reputation. From that point on we would sooner let current employees go to make room for offered jobs (realistically layoffs were already happen if things got that bad). That the tech industry seems to be thinking this is an acceptable way to treat people, but the organizations that follow this trend will be realized for the meat grinder culture they must be. No one that respects their talent treats people who have quit jobs and turned down other offers to work for them in this way.

SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
To be fair, Coinbase has never made a secret of the fact that they have a meatgrinder culture. "Unremarkable performance gets a generous severance package", in their CEO's words.

sg47 4y ago

Time for the Great Unresignation!

curioussavage 4y ago

Can't really say I dodged a bullet because I'm not employed either way but I was about to get an offer from them a month ago when I decided it just didn't seem like a place I wanted to work at. Not regretting the decision at all

Patrol8394 4y ago

It is so easy to destroy your culture and trust, and very hard to gain it back. 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?

tenpies 4y ago
> I think CB is on a very slippery slope. There are plenty of opportunities out there. Why working at CB? 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.

99_00 4y ago

When are the cheap GPUs going to start flooding eBay? I haven't built a PCin decades. What 1 thing should I read to prepare?

sammaher1 4y ago

I'm a new grad who was set to to start in 3 days, just got rescinded. Guess I'm back on the hunt now :(.

turtledove 4y ago
Bummer, but also, you dodged a bullet. I know nothing about you, but you absolutely can do better than Coinbase. Shady as fuuuuuuuuuuuuck company.

mfDjB 4y ago

This is a real disappointment. Had a great job lined up at Coinbase that I was quite excited about, was in the middle of visa processing when this happened (why I had to quit my previous job, can’t have two visas in the US). 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.

chipgap98 4y ago
What type of job were you going in for at Coinbase? I and I’m sure others here would be interested in helping if possible
jasd 4y ago
I'm not sure what visa you are on, but for H1B you don't need to quit/give up your visa with current company to start processing with new employer. Even after your h1b with new company is approved it isn't necessary to quit your current job or give up that visa. Also, if you're in software, a lot of people here can help. Good luck! Hopefully you'll find something soon.
vorpalhex 4y ago
Some of the FANG shops are still pretty desperate from the great resignation. You might get luckier than you think resuscitating the offers.
- ShamelessC 4y ago
  yeah I'm pretty sure Facebook would hire just about anyone at this point based on the desperation in the emails I get from them.
  - astonex 4y ago

turtledove 4y ago

Hahahaha haha ha. Get wrecked, Coinbase.

V-2 4y ago

Rescinding accepted job offers, and not a single word along the lines of "apology" or "sorry" in the statement? That's a bit bold, in my view. Am I missing something?

april_22 4y ago

What kind of job were you going for at Coinbase and how was the hiring process like?

nprateem 4y ago

I was literally looking at their jobs page today and was going to apply... rescinding offers is a bad move. They've damaged their reputation with this. I wouldn't hand in a 30 day notice for a company known for doing this.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

break_the_bank 4y ago

Last year they went from a normal 4 year grant to an yearly grant of a fix dollar value in order to protect employees from a down turn. Now they ended up doing layoffs, tells you how big a BS this grant structure is. 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.

greyhair 4y ago

Rescinding outstanding offers. Ouch. Double ouch. 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.

cheshire137 4y ago

Adding them to my list of places who rescind offers, on there with Stripe, Splunk, and Twilio. The Venn diagram of that list completely overlaps with a list of places I won't work.