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If you don’t want your employees to be highly opinionated and engage in ownership politics, perhaps you shouldn’t hire smart people (who tend to be opinionated
by numair 4y ago
If you don’t want your employees to be highly opinionated and engage in ownership politics, perhaps you shouldn’t hire smart people (who tend to be opinionated and think a lot) and hand them shares in your company (hence turning them into co-owners)?
Brian Armstrong wouldn’t have gotten very far with Coinbase if it was just him, on his own. Companies with this sort of management either blow up (RIM) or end up stagnant and dysfunctional (Facebook). He will end up alienating all of the people who he needs to resuscitate his company; moreover the sort of weird, semi-nuts people who create all of the great stuff in our industry (e.g. von Neumann) won’t go anywhere near his company.
Coinbase may be the centralized crypto exchange with the lions’ share of liquidity today, but there’s no guarantee they’ll even exist in an industry that evolves past its shitcoin phase. Maybe he thinks he can single-handedly navigate this transition on his own; let’s see. Clearly, the market doesn’t think so — pretty ironic that he’s a market-maker who ignores market signals…
Edit: I want to note that this tweet is toxic and disturbing on so many levels… It’s also comical given the history of our industry and the Traitorous Eight.
https://mobile.twitter.com/brian_armstrong/status/1535305081360240642 https://mobile.twitter.com/brian_armstrong/status/1535305081...
- bushbaba 4y agoCoinbase’s only moat is regulation and it’s alliance with a bank. It’s not a strong moat. This allows companies like FTX to pay consumers to switch over.
- MichaelZuo 4y agoYour valuing their name brand recognition at 0?
- aaomidi 4y agoNo one really knows who the fuck Coinbase is outside of some very small circles.
- ntoskrnl 4y agoTheir brand name is probably worth less than 0 at this point. Outside of crypto circles, they're unknown. Inside crypto circles, they're known for freezing people's accounts at random and not having any customer service when it happens. Their market share is going down too. https://cryptoslate.com/ftx-trading-volume-surpasses-coinbase-in-record-month/ https://cryptoslate.com/ftx-trading-volume-surpasses-coinbas... They had a nice IPO, but I hope you sold at the top.
- WalterSear 4y agoThey are also known for freezing account access whenever bitcoin is crashing.
- nowherebeen 4y agoYes. Not as a hater but it’s what blockchain was built for. No one cares about brand when they can use another exchange and get exactly the same outcome. It’s a double edge sword.
- swatcoder 4y agoIt’s still very early in whatever the future of this stuff is going to be. If you look at other technology frontiers that were to eventually mature, many of the pioneering brands that were very well known at the time became just a mention in the historical narrative. I think one can make a fair argument that there’s a long road ahead and that Coinbase’s future will have much to do with their positioning (product, partnerships, sticky user capture) and little to do with their brand.
- DonHopkins 4y agoAt least Brian Armstrong's twitter profile picture is mathematically protected by an NFT on the blockchain, so nobody can right-click and copy his cartoon face or business model. Oh, wait...
- skybrian 4y agoI don’t know anything about it, but it looks like FTX isn’t available in the US and FTX.US is banned in New York state?
- robertlagrant 4y agoPlenty of smart people know they don't know enough to have opinions strong enough to act on, and enough information to know who to blame for things.
- google234123 4y agoWhat does the traitors 8 have to do with this? They left and founded companies they believe in.
- smabie 4y agoNo one in the industry really respects coinbase and most people I know have been bearish on them for a long time (some of them profiting handsomely on shorting COIN after the IPO). General consensus is that FTX is going to eat their lunch.
- echelon 4y agoHow has FTX caught up in just three years? That's pretty incredible.
- aaaaaaaaata 4y agoSmarter people who are better at pattern matching and/or math. aka web3's SBF
- nowherebeen 4y agoQuite a few centralized blockchain exchanges have come and gone in the last 10 years. Coinbase is no different. I won’t be surprised if they implode.
- almost_usual 4y agoCoinbase was successful because their biggest competitor at the beginning was Mt Gox. Big VC firms saw the opportunity and pumped crypto for the past decade and those small exchanges imploded. Well now crypto is ‘legitimate’ and Coinbase has to compete with big players. They’ll probably stick around but their market share will continue to decline. Not much growth there, writing is on the wall.
- nowherebeen 4y agoNot to mention Coinbase is only a small size player outside the US. Binance is the biggest exchange in the world. No one outside US uses Coinbase, it’s fees are ridiculous.
- alephnan 4y ago> or end up stagnant and dysfunctional (Facebook) Facebook still one of the largest tech companies, and the largest social media platform, and messaging.
- Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago> end up stagnant and dysfunctional (Facebook) Yeah what a failure that was! In the same realm of failures such as Microsoft, Google, IBM and AT&T Facebook has reached the maximum extension it can possibly have , they stopped just before being subject to DOJ breakup lawsuit like Microsoft, IBM and AT&T before them. I am sick and tired of this narrative of Facebook being a failure, just because you can't get rich via buying the stock and waiting for capital appreciation anymore doesn't make it a failure. It's a company making 100+ billions in sales per year with basically no physical infrastructure and amazing margins still. Their future isn't guranteed but nobody's is.
- rvz 4y agoExactly. I don't know how anyone can be further from reality to keep screaming that (Meta) is a failure; remote from reality. It is in fact the first and the fastest company founded in the 21st century to reach $1TN valuation. Tesla Inc. came second to that. I don't think anyone else can say that. Maybe that is also failure as well? > I am sick and tired of this narrative of Facebook being a failure, just because you can't get rich via buying the stock and waiting for capital appreciation anymore doesn't make it a failure. The company is still profitable after all these years, scandals, fines etc and they still are doing fine. The death of the company has been greatly exaggerated and for those who don't want to hear it, I'm afraid that they (Meta) is still going to be around for another decade.
- here4funzies 4y agoI met Brian once. He has the same psychological traits and behavior as those whom society refers to as narcissists, e.g. Zuckerberg. A dime a dozen in the Silicon Valley CEO class.
- princevegeta89 4y agoThese crypto companies are all floating a level above the scam known as "crypto" in general. In my POV, if crypto crashes hard these companies might as well end up disappearing in a fortnight.
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- dpweb 4y agoThe quote in context: Second, if you have no confidence in the execs or CEO of a company then why are you working at that company? Quit and find a company to work at that you believe in! I don't find it particulary nasty and know nothing about cb's culture.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- DonHopkins 4y agoIt's so unfair to the CEO of a get-rich-quick pyramid scam when his employees pump and dump their own company, then pull the rug and resign when the going gets tough.
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- jokethrowaway 4y agoSmart people are very likely to have opinions AND to understand they are detached from your job or your personal relationships. I am pretty political ( and I'd be happy to debate you to death and then go for drinks with you. I've worked in woke leftist companies all my life (most, if not all, tech places are). Most of my friends don't agree politically with me, I dated people who were my political arch-nemesis. I had brilliant coworkers I enjoyed working with, with whom I shared zero political ideas. I still have to meet someone I consider smart on the workplace that can't detach his political beliefs to the task at hand. Those political activists types were always busy organising committees and chatting on slack instead of delivering features. I wouldn't hire them (independently from their politics).
- passivate 4y agoI don't know everything about Coinbase's history, but I agree with most of the tweet. Airing dirty laundry in public, and arm twisting management is not really a great strategy. There will always be a power asymmetry, and it was understood as such when the employee joined such an organization. Using stock options which are a form of compensation benefit to then position oneself to be above the management is silly. "Smart people" is not some kind of a character trait that engages in such behavior.
- Dracophoenix 4y ago> Airing dirty laundry in public, and arm twisting management is not really a great strategy. I'm decidedly split on this one. There are circumstances that warrant disclosure, even in spite of agreements to secrecy. I think everyone is better off for knowing about the Pentagon Papers or Snowden leaks, or the massive fraud pulled off by Bernie Madoff.
- passivate 4y agoOkay, but I'm not sure what the pentagon papers have to do with coinbase or anything we're discussing here. It goes without saying that I am not proposing a principle that applies in every single situation, for every single person. I don't know anyone who writes comments with that assumption.
- seoaeu 4y agoThe previous tweet is also wild: "[...] But our culture is to praise in public, and criticize in private." Like seriously? In a thread where he’s publicly criticizing the actions of his employees, he really has the chutzpah to point to some corporate "value" about expressing grievances privately?
- skybrian 4y agoI can think of a reasonable argument for this. After something is made public, responding to it in public might sometimes be necessary. It would be better if the dispute never became public, but too late now. And after taking a grievance public, it seems somewhat unreasonable not to expect a public response? Though often, companies don’t respond publicly, and that might be wiser. And responding on Twitter seems like a bad move compared to a blog post or press release? But many people can’t help themselves.
- seoaeu 4y agoI don't blame him for responding publicly. I do however think Armstrong is behaving blatantly hypocritically by calling out his employees for violating the corporate values (that he wrote!), while he himself ignores them out of expedience.