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Coinbase has 4700 employees!?! Like a team of 5 software engineers, and a customer support team of 10, and 1 boss ought to cover it...

consumer451 4y ago
Does that cover legal/regulatory/compliance?
- nicky0 4y ago
  I guess they need the other 4684 employees for legal and compliance.
- paulcole 4y ago
  Of course not. HN Headcount Guy™ sincerely believes anything that isn’t engineering (and perhaps occasionally a single support person who also delivers the catered lunches and does the marketing “work”) doesn’t exist.
- code_runner 4y ago
  Obviously crypto companies can get by without any real regulatory considerations for a while…
  - consumer451 4y ago
    I believe Coinbase is the exception here.
    - subradios 4y ago
      Coinbase is a double exception, they didn't just ask for regulatory approval for their lending product, they asked for permission to file the application. Can't wait for the next round of crypto hype, excited to see mew use cases along with new scams.
mritchie712 4y ago
support team of 10? they have 100 million users and sell a not-so-simple product to consumers who often don't understand what they're buying. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/coinbase-statistics/ https://www.businessofapps.com/data/coinbase-statistics/
- VLM 4y ago
  businessofapps.com claims they only do 8M transactions per month, and have/had 4500 employees, so 8M transactions / 4.5K employees / 20 working days/month that's 88 transactions to post per day. They don't need datacenters, quill pens and paper accounting could handle that 200 years ago with about 3 hours work per day. Generally supermarket cashiers can do somewhat less than 30 transactions per hour, so I think its justified they should be able to do all the accounting manually in three hours. The numbers do look a bit odd.
  - mritchie712 4y ago
    Yeah, the right number is probably somewhere between 10 and 4500.
nfRfqX5n 4y ago
they run an exchange that is open 24/7. 5 engineers couldn't even handle the operational load.
finolex1 4y ago
If you can build a coinbase equivalent with 16 people, the real question to ask is why hasn't anybody yet.
- VLM 4y ago
  I could open a "full service" gas station with dudes to fill the tank and wipe the windshield and upsell services. It varies by state, but nobody put full service gas stations out of business where I live. The market wiped them out; just can't run full service, doesn't mean the workers didn't sweat enough or the market wasn't competitive enough. People won't pay what it costs to run, so they don't run that anymore. Wash your own windshield and pump your own gas. The other problem is its a form of sophistry to react to "the absolute numbers are awful" with a prayer to the efficient market hypothesis like "why hasn't a more successful competitor arisen". That deflects from the original question in a sophistry manner, not answers it. Sure, I'm a believer too, but can't answer a technical question with a prayer. The original question stands unanswered, why are the absolute numbers so utterly awful? Note I'm a happy customer, it would be nice for them not to go out of business, but with those numbers...

consumer451 4y ago

Does that cover legal/regulatory/compliance?

nicky0 4y ago
I guess they need the other 4684 employees for legal and compliance.
paulcole 4y ago
Of course not. HN Headcount Guy™ sincerely believes anything that isn’t engineering (and perhaps occasionally a single support person who also delivers the catered lunches and does the marketing “work”) doesn’t exist.
code_runner 4y ago
Obviously crypto companies can get by without any real regulatory considerations for a while…
- consumer451 4y ago
  I believe Coinbase is the exception here.
  - subradios 4y ago
    Coinbase is a double exception, they didn't just ask for regulatory approval for their lending product, they asked for permission to file the application. Can't wait for the next round of crypto hype, excited to see mew use cases along with new scams.

mritchie712 4y ago

support team of 10? they have 100 million users and sell a not-so-simple product to consumers who often don't understand what they're buying. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/coinbase-statistics/ https://www.businessofapps.com/data/coinbase-statistics/

VLM 4y ago
businessofapps.com claims they only do 8M transactions per month, and have/had 4500 employees, so 8M transactions / 4.5K employees / 20 working days/month that's 88 transactions to post per day. They don't need datacenters, quill pens and paper accounting could handle that 200 years ago with about 3 hours work per day. Generally supermarket cashiers can do somewhat less than 30 transactions per hour, so I think its justified they should be able to do all the accounting manually in three hours. The numbers do look a bit odd.
- mritchie712 4y ago
  Yeah, the right number is probably somewhere between 10 and 4500.

nfRfqX5n 4y ago

they run an exchange that is open 24/7. 5 engineers couldn't even handle the operational load.

finolex1 4y ago

If you can build a coinbase equivalent with 16 people, the real question to ask is why hasn't anybody yet.

VLM 4y ago
I could open a "full service" gas station with dudes to fill the tank and wipe the windshield and upsell services. It varies by state, but nobody put full service gas stations out of business where I live. The market wiped them out; just can't run full service, doesn't mean the workers didn't sweat enough or the market wasn't competitive enough. People won't pay what it costs to run, so they don't run that anymore. Wash your own windshield and pump your own gas. The other problem is its a form of sophistry to react to "the absolute numbers are awful" with a prayer to the efficient market hypothesis like "why hasn't a more successful competitor arisen". That deflects from the original question in a sophistry manner, not answers it. Sure, I'm a believer too, but can't answer a technical question with a prayer. The original question stands unanswered, why are the absolute numbers so utterly awful? Note I'm a happy customer, it would be nice for them not to go out of business, but with those numbers...