<story><title>Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees</title><url>https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/06/14/coinbase-will-layoff-around-1100-employees/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>shinryuu</author><text>A lot of wealth is parked in shares of companies. I&amp;#x27;m not sure to what extent that is actually productive...?</text></item><item><author>throwaway894345</author><text>Also, billionaires&amp;#x27; wealth isn&amp;#x27;t parked in a vault, right? It&amp;#x27;s invested in companies, so it&amp;#x27;s working in the economy whereas it would otherwise go to the government. It&amp;#x27;s not obvious to me that the government is going to provide more value for the public in general than industry, but I would like for that to be the case (an easy solution for inequality that doesn&amp;#x27;t shrink our economy overall).</text></item><item><author>jerry1979</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m not settled on this yet. I&amp;#x27;m from the USA, and one thing that concerns me is the geopolitics of billionaires. What happens when USA taxes billionaires out of existence? Russia and China still have billionaires. Does that do something to the power relationships in the world? Is there such a thing as &amp;quot;our&amp;quot; billionaires?&lt;p&gt;The other question I have has to do with feudalism. If we let &amp;quot;our&amp;quot; billionaires exist, does that mean that we keep feudalistic pressures at bay? Or do we enhance those pressures? Is that even the right question?</text></item><item><author>Johnny555</author><text>&lt;i&gt;People keep pointing to Armstrong&amp;#x27;s $110M house like it&amp;#x27;s some sort of injustice. If you think billionaires should exist at all, then that&amp;#x27;s one of the least-bad injustices imaginable&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ok, I&amp;#x27;ll admit it, billionaires should not exist at all, there should be a heavy wealth tax that makes it hard to become a billionaire. Will a CEO work less hard if he (and his peers) can only ever gain $100M in net worth before a wealth tax on assets kicks in?</text></item><item><author>sillysaurusx</author><text>I think if employees feel slighted by being fired, they&amp;#x27;re fooling themselves. The best mindset is that you could be gone tomorrow. It gives you clarity and purpose. It also happens to be the truth.&lt;p&gt;Coinbase was also extremely generous with severance. 12 weeks plus two for every one year at the company, I think. I&amp;#x27;ve had the experience of being let go without notice and without severance.&lt;p&gt;Devs seem a little more grizzled this time around, so I think this mindset is slowly becoming the norm. College grads seem skittish, but they always are.&lt;p&gt;People keep pointing to Armstrong&amp;#x27;s $110M house like it&amp;#x27;s some sort of injustice. If you think billionaires should exist at all, then that&amp;#x27;s one of the least-bad injustices imaginable. It&amp;#x27;s probably true that no Armstrong, no Coinbase, and 10% of Coinbase is the prize.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: It&amp;#x27;s actually 14 weeks: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;blog.coinbase.com&amp;#x2F;a-message-from-coinbase-ceo-and-cofounder-brian-armstrong-578d76eedb12&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;blog.coinbase.com&amp;#x2F;a-message-from-coinbase-ceo-and-co...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Three and a half months of dev salary is pretty incredible.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>RHSeeger</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m confused by this statement. If I buy shares from a company, that company has more money to spend on growth&amp;#x2F;bonuses&amp;#x2F;whatever. If I buy shares from another person, that person has money to do things with. I don&amp;#x27;t see how there is even a thing such as &amp;quot;parked in shares of a company&amp;quot;; it doesn&amp;#x27;t park there, it is immediately available for investing in other things.&lt;p&gt;Now, the money could sit in the bank, sure. But even then, the vast majority of the money &amp;quot;in the bank&amp;quot; is actually being lent out to other people, who spend it.&lt;p&gt;So unless the money is literally sitting in a vault, it&amp;#x27;s not &amp;quot;parked&amp;quot; anywhere.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m very open to being corrected here, so feel free to do so. My understanding of economics is decidedly limited.</text></comment>
<story><title>Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees</title><url>https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/06/14/coinbase-will-layoff-around-1100-employees/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>shinryuu</author><text>A lot of wealth is parked in shares of companies. I&amp;#x27;m not sure to what extent that is actually productive...?</text></item><item><author>throwaway894345</author><text>Also, billionaires&amp;#x27; wealth isn&amp;#x27;t parked in a vault, right? It&amp;#x27;s invested in companies, so it&amp;#x27;s working in the economy whereas it would otherwise go to the government. It&amp;#x27;s not obvious to me that the government is going to provide more value for the public in general than industry, but I would like for that to be the case (an easy solution for inequality that doesn&amp;#x27;t shrink our economy overall).</text></item><item><author>jerry1979</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m not settled on this yet. I&amp;#x27;m from the USA, and one thing that concerns me is the geopolitics of billionaires. What happens when USA taxes billionaires out of existence? Russia and China still have billionaires. Does that do something to the power relationships in the world? Is there such a thing as &amp;quot;our&amp;quot; billionaires?&lt;p&gt;The other question I have has to do with feudalism. If we let &amp;quot;our&amp;quot; billionaires exist, does that mean that we keep feudalistic pressures at bay? Or do we enhance those pressures? Is that even the right question?</text></item><item><author>Johnny555</author><text>&lt;i&gt;People keep pointing to Armstrong&amp;#x27;s $110M house like it&amp;#x27;s some sort of injustice. If you think billionaires should exist at all, then that&amp;#x27;s one of the least-bad injustices imaginable&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ok, I&amp;#x27;ll admit it, billionaires should not exist at all, there should be a heavy wealth tax that makes it hard to become a billionaire. Will a CEO work less hard if he (and his peers) can only ever gain $100M in net worth before a wealth tax on assets kicks in?</text></item><item><author>sillysaurusx</author><text>I think if employees feel slighted by being fired, they&amp;#x27;re fooling themselves. The best mindset is that you could be gone tomorrow. It gives you clarity and purpose. It also happens to be the truth.&lt;p&gt;Coinbase was also extremely generous with severance. 12 weeks plus two for every one year at the company, I think. I&amp;#x27;ve had the experience of being let go without notice and without severance.&lt;p&gt;Devs seem a little more grizzled this time around, so I think this mindset is slowly becoming the norm. College grads seem skittish, but they always are.&lt;p&gt;People keep pointing to Armstrong&amp;#x27;s $110M house like it&amp;#x27;s some sort of injustice. If you think billionaires should exist at all, then that&amp;#x27;s one of the least-bad injustices imaginable. It&amp;#x27;s probably true that no Armstrong, no Coinbase, and 10% of Coinbase is the prize.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: It&amp;#x27;s actually 14 weeks: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;blog.coinbase.com&amp;#x2F;a-message-from-coinbase-ceo-and-cofounder-brian-armstrong-578d76eedb12&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;blog.coinbase.com&amp;#x2F;a-message-from-coinbase-ceo-and-co...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Three and a half months of dev salary is pretty incredible.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>SkyPuncher</author><text>For many of us on this site, I suspect that actually contributes to our salaries.&lt;p&gt;Either directly as VC capital or indirectly via public ownership. If billionaires suddenly couldn&amp;#x27;t own public companies, stock prices would drop and we&amp;#x27;d likely see layoffs.</text></comment>