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> We’ll be concentrating around AI-native talent Is this code for "we're firing all the old people"? As I understand it, I can say I'll only hire proficient En

> We’ll be concentrating around AI-native talent Is this code for "we're firing all the old people"? As I understand it, I can say I'll only hire proficient English speakers (a "bona fide occupational requirement"), but I can't say I'll only hire native speakers, as that would discriminate against various protected groups. This seems like the same thing—proficiency may be a bona fide requirement, but expecting they learned this year's workflow first is age discrimination. I don't expect ethical conduct from crypto companies and will not be sad if they are sued into oblivion.

CityOfThrowaway 5mo ago
No, it's obviously not. There is nothing about being old that prevents you from being AI-native.
- scoot 5mo ago
  To be "AI native" (a la digital native) you have to have grown up with the technology. I'm not sure exactly which children they're planning to replace all their staff with, nor how they plan to get around the child labour laws.
  - paulhebert 5mo ago
    Thank you! It's the dumbest term and I hear it thrown around way too often
    - reillyse 5mo ago
      I can't reply to the other comment because it's been flagged, but I just wanted to point out that I do not think employees should be treated like cattle. I was being sarcastic. I was using the language of tech bros to satirize the situation. I'm actually shocked that people could take my comment at face value and not realize it was obviously sarcastic. That is eye opening.
      - paulhebert 5mo ago
        Yeah that’s fair. I can see how it was sarcastic on re-reading. It can be hard to tell online! Sorry for the misunderstanding
- ryandrake 5mo ago
  I don't even know what "AI-native" even means. The term is sufficiently vague to shield any number of discrimination schemes.
  - CityOfThrowaway 5mo ago
    It's a term of art that straightforwardly means people who embrace AI-assisted programming. As opposed to the very large number of engineers who actively don't like it, or have enough change aversion to have avoided it.
    - sillyfluke 5mo ago
      AI-native should mean those who were born/came-of-age/started learning programming in the era of mature AI. It shouldn't be many people (relatively speaking) at this stage. The term that best suits "people who embrace AI-assisted programming" is AI-first programmers, which is what they literally mean by the looks of it. Clearly, they just use what they think sounds cooler.
  - frollogaston 5mo ago
    If they wanted to discriminate on age, they wouldn't need a term for it. Big tech companies have been doing it with things like college interns or paying for student loans.
- Terr_ 5mo ago
  Hold up, even before discussing the word "native", there's a weird logical-disconnect between the above two comments. I think paraphrasing is the simplest way to illustrate: {1} scottlamb: "I suspect their lofty stated goal of X is a lie, to disguise their true goal of Y, which is something common which companies find much easier and more-desirable." {2} CityOfThrowaway: "You are wrong, because it's obvious that X is achievable... if you define 'native' in a certain way." {3} Terr_: "Uh, what? That doesn't make sense. The feasibility of X isn't part of Scottlamb's argument. Even if we assume X is possible, it isn't evidence they actually intend X over Y.
  - CityOfThrowaway 5mo ago
    Sure, but we're talking about Coinbase, which is a relatively young company not staffed with a bunch of old people in the first place. It's totally random to accuse them of using "AI-native" to fire old people.
    - Terr_ 5mo ago
      > a relatively young company not staffed with a bunch of old people 1. What statistics support this assumption? (Either for Coinbase specifically, or "tech companies" in general.) 2. Nobody has to be a literal greybeard in order to be in the crosshairs of downsizing. Just look at Amazon's "make them quit before vesting finishes" pattern.
    - t43562 5mo ago
      It might just be "expensive" people - old is relative.
- jasonfarnon 5mo ago
  "There's nothing about being a non-native English speaker that prevents you from being proficient." This is the comment's point. We're talking about proxies and correlations here, not physical law.
- torben-friis 5mo ago
  Native implies mother language. As in "this is how I learned from the start". Either it's badly named or people are trying to be included (?).
  - frollogaston 5mo ago
    It's just badly named
reverend_gonzo 5mo ago
I would disagree. I am among the oldest on our team and also the most in tune with AI. I see AI-native as those who have embraced it, and are learning to leverage it appropriately.
- keithnz 5mo ago
  Same, I've been coding for 40+ years, and other people I know of similar length of time also seem real quick to adopt AI. I'm constantly having to show the young devs how to get the most out of their AI agents and also adapting my workflows regularly as things changes. Weirdly its some of the youngest who are most resistant, I think because they are learning coding skills, and just have got the hang of coding such that they are productive, and AI is coming in and taking that away from them largely, they are still keen to code. While I've enjoyed coding, realistically it's always been the bottleneck in creating software. A lot of the process is about how to effectively manage that bottle neck, now a lot more options are available. Iterating quick, trying different things, experimenting. Much easier to throw something away when you have better ideas.
  - vl 5mo ago
    I started with x86 assembler and Turbo Pascal (I still remember when I got documentation for Turbo Vision - this was groundbreaking!). The simple truth is that I had to constantly learn something new and this is how it is in this profession. We’ve been in the trenches and we did it over and over again. Now I’m using AI full time, doing same thing I always did - shipping products. Newcomers with first set of skills don’t understand what is meta responsibility in this field - it’s never coding something, it’s shipping products to solve business needs.
  - shigawire 5mo ago
    As a "young" coder I am hesitant because I don't have decades of skills to fall back on. It is even more abstraction, even harder to follow the code I'm "writing" with AI. Also I have a fear that if/when the AI tide recedes, I'll be the one caught with my pants down since I have been forced to vibe code the majority of my career. As opposed to greybeards who can fall back on their decades of knowledge.
paulcole 5mo ago
> but expecting they learned this year's workflow first is age discrimination. Huh? If it came out this year then everybody had a chance to learn it this year?
- scottlamb 5mo ago
  Everybody had a chance to learn it those year. No one who had already learned to code had a chance to learn it first, as in before other ways of coding. Not everyone can be AI-native. You might assume they aren't going to be so stupid as to try to exclude everyone who isn't new to programming. I wouldn't. They're a crypto business. See also "digital native", a popular term which is absolutely about growing up after the technology in question was ubiquitous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_native https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_native
  - paulcole 5mo ago
    Quite a reach.
- noisy_boy 5mo ago
  First as in that was the first thing they learned and can't really think in non-ai terms.
blitzar 5mo ago
Ai-native ... as in have never done anything without the assistance of an LLM. This sounds suboptimal to me - probably the kind of employee I would avoid for as long as possible.
sajithdilshan 5mo ago
What makes you think old people have inferior knowledge on AI?
SomaticPirate 5mo ago
I think unethical and illegal activity is par for the course in most realms of American business. And I would replace “sued into oblivion” with mandatory arbitration and “appropriate settlement”.
trashface 5mo ago
Most likely indeed firing old people, but at coinbase that is probably like age 28+

CityOfThrowaway 5mo ago

No, it's obviously not. There is nothing about being old that prevents you from being AI-native.

scoot 5mo ago
To be "AI native" (a la digital native) you have to have grown up with the technology. I'm not sure exactly which children they're planning to replace all their staff with, nor how they plan to get around the child labour laws.
- paulhebert 5mo ago
  Thank you! It's the dumbest term and I hear it thrown around way too often
  - reillyse 5mo ago
    I can't reply to the other comment because it's been flagged, but I just wanted to point out that I do not think employees should be treated like cattle. I was being sarcastic. I was using the language of tech bros to satirize the situation. I'm actually shocked that people could take my comment at face value and not realize it was obviously sarcastic. That is eye opening.
    - paulhebert 5mo ago
      Yeah that’s fair. I can see how it was sarcastic on re-reading. It can be hard to tell online! Sorry for the misunderstanding
ryandrake 5mo ago
I don't even know what "AI-native" even means. The term is sufficiently vague to shield any number of discrimination schemes.
- CityOfThrowaway 5mo ago
  It's a term of art that straightforwardly means people who embrace AI-assisted programming. As opposed to the very large number of engineers who actively don't like it, or have enough change aversion to have avoided it.
  - sillyfluke 5mo ago
    AI-native should mean those who were born/came-of-age/started learning programming in the era of mature AI. It shouldn't be many people (relatively speaking) at this stage. The term that best suits "people who embrace AI-assisted programming" is AI-first programmers, which is what they literally mean by the looks of it. Clearly, they just use what they think sounds cooler.
- frollogaston 5mo ago
  If they wanted to discriminate on age, they wouldn't need a term for it. Big tech companies have been doing it with things like college interns or paying for student loans.
Terr_ 5mo ago
Hold up, even before discussing the word "native", there's a weird logical-disconnect between the above two comments. I think paraphrasing is the simplest way to illustrate: {1} scottlamb: "I suspect their lofty stated goal of X is a lie, to disguise their true goal of Y, which is something common which companies find much easier and more-desirable." {2} CityOfThrowaway: "You are wrong, because it's obvious that X is achievable... if you define 'native' in a certain way." {3} Terr_: "Uh, what? That doesn't make sense. The feasibility of X isn't part of Scottlamb's argument. Even if we assume X is possible, it isn't evidence they actually intend X over Y.
- CityOfThrowaway 5mo ago
  Sure, but we're talking about Coinbase, which is a relatively young company not staffed with a bunch of old people in the first place. It's totally random to accuse them of using "AI-native" to fire old people.
  - Terr_ 5mo ago
    > a relatively young company not staffed with a bunch of old people 1. What statistics support this assumption? (Either for Coinbase specifically, or "tech companies" in general.) 2. Nobody has to be a literal greybeard in order to be in the crosshairs of downsizing. Just look at Amazon's "make them quit before vesting finishes" pattern.
  - t43562 5mo ago
    It might just be "expensive" people - old is relative.
jasonfarnon 5mo ago
"There's nothing about being a non-native English speaker that prevents you from being proficient." This is the comment's point. We're talking about proxies and correlations here, not physical law.
torben-friis 5mo ago
Native implies mother language. As in "this is how I learned from the start". Either it's badly named or people are trying to be included (?).
- frollogaston 5mo ago
  It's just badly named

reverend_gonzo 5mo ago

I would disagree. I am among the oldest on our team and also the most in tune with AI. I see AI-native as those who have embraced it, and are learning to leverage it appropriately.

keithnz 5mo ago
Same, I've been coding for 40+ years, and other people I know of similar length of time also seem real quick to adopt AI. I'm constantly having to show the young devs how to get the most out of their AI agents and also adapting my workflows regularly as things changes. Weirdly its some of the youngest who are most resistant, I think because they are learning coding skills, and just have got the hang of coding such that they are productive, and AI is coming in and taking that away from them largely, they are still keen to code. While I've enjoyed coding, realistically it's always been the bottleneck in creating software. A lot of the process is about how to effectively manage that bottle neck, now a lot more options are available. Iterating quick, trying different things, experimenting. Much easier to throw something away when you have better ideas.
- vl 5mo ago
  I started with x86 assembler and Turbo Pascal (I still remember when I got documentation for Turbo Vision - this was groundbreaking!). The simple truth is that I had to constantly learn something new and this is how it is in this profession. We’ve been in the trenches and we did it over and over again. Now I’m using AI full time, doing same thing I always did - shipping products. Newcomers with first set of skills don’t understand what is meta responsibility in this field - it’s never coding something, it’s shipping products to solve business needs.
- shigawire 5mo ago
  As a "young" coder I am hesitant because I don't have decades of skills to fall back on. It is even more abstraction, even harder to follow the code I'm "writing" with AI. Also I have a fear that if/when the AI tide recedes, I'll be the one caught with my pants down since I have been forced to vibe code the majority of my career. As opposed to greybeards who can fall back on their decades of knowledge.

paulcole 5mo ago

> but expecting they learned this year's workflow first is age discrimination. Huh? If it came out this year then everybody had a chance to learn it this year?

scottlamb 5mo ago
Everybody had a chance to learn it those year. No one who had already learned to code had a chance to learn it first, as in before other ways of coding. Not everyone can be AI-native. You might assume they aren't going to be so stupid as to try to exclude everyone who isn't new to programming. I wouldn't. They're a crypto business. See also "digital native", a popular term which is absolutely about growing up after the technology in question was ubiquitous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_native https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_native
- paulcole 5mo ago
  Quite a reach.
noisy_boy 5mo ago
First as in that was the first thing they learned and can't really think in non-ai terms.

blitzar 5mo ago

Ai-native ... as in have never done anything without the assistance of an LLM. This sounds suboptimal to me - probably the kind of employee I would avoid for as long as possible.

sajithdilshan 5mo ago

What makes you think old people have inferior knowledge on AI?

SomaticPirate 5mo ago

I think unethical and illegal activity is par for the course in most realms of American business. And I would replace “sued into oblivion” with mandatory arbitration and “appropriate settlement”.

trashface 5mo ago

Most likely indeed firing old people, but at coinbase that is probably like age 28+