Coinbase Lays Off Nearly 700 Workers In 'AI-Native' Restructuring 45
Coinbase is laying off about 700 workers, or 14% of its workforce, as CEO Brian Armstrong says the company is restructuring to become "lean, fast, and AI-native." Engadget reports: Armstrong claimed he'd seen engineers "use AI to ship in days what used to take a team weeks" and that non-technical teams in the company are "shipping production code," while Coinbase is automating many of its workflows. "All of this has led us to an inflection point, not just for Coinbase, but for every company," Armstrong wrote. "The biggest risk now is not taking action. We are adjusting early and deliberately to rebuild Coinbase to be lean, fast and AI-native. We need to return to the speed and focus of our startup founding, with AI at our core."
An AI-driven restructuring is only one half of the equation for Coinbase, though. Armstrong wrote that while the company "is well-capitalized, has diversified revenue streams and is well-positioned to weather any storm," the crypto market is down. As such, Coinbase is attempting to become leaner and faster ahead of the next crypto cycle. The company is eliminating some management layers and organizing the business around "AI-native talent who can manage fleets of agents to drive outsized impact," Armstrong wrote. "We'll also be experimenting with reduced pod sizes, including 'one person teams' with engineers, designers and product managers all in one role." That sure sounds like an attempt to get workers to take on more responsibilities.
An AI-driven restructuring is only one half of the equation for Coinbase, though. Armstrong wrote that while the company "is well-capitalized, has diversified revenue streams and is well-positioned to weather any storm," the crypto market is down. As such, Coinbase is attempting to become leaner and faster ahead of the next crypto cycle. The company is eliminating some management layers and organizing the business around "AI-native talent who can manage fleets of agents to drive outsized impact," Armstrong wrote. "We'll also be experimenting with reduced pod sizes, including 'one person teams' with engineers, designers and product managers all in one role." That sure sounds like an attempt to get workers to take on more responsibilities.
First Post (Score:1)
I'm surprised we don't have AI beating me to this!
Re: (Score:2)
I would have preferred a frosty piss explaining WTF "coinbase" is and what actual useful economic function it actually has, since this is information sadly missing from TFS and TFH, alas...
But then it is apparently a "shitcoin exchange", that is, a betting site, so whatever.
Really? Wow! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Really? Wow! (Score:5, Insightful)
Also I am so fucking sick of how AI makes it so that we can pretend Trump didn't put us into a recession. It is stupidly obvious we are in recession right now but because of the AI bubble and AI washing of layoffs we can all just pretend we aren't.
Re: (Score:1)
With a dodgy asset ...
No. Coinbase also handles real "fiat" currencies, real stock, real ETFs, etc.
Re: (Score:2)
Non-technical teams shipping production code will make all assets dodgy, methinks.
Re: (Score:2)
I had much the same thought (on the "this couldn't possibly end poorly" response to trusting AI to code this...
But I stuck around for the AI bubble tie in -
100% agree
I hate the AI hype and BS so much I just can't wait for that bubble to pop but yeah it's going to reveal we're in a recession.
The "good" news is that we already are in a recession - like when the bubble pops it won't suddeny make one - we are already here but it WILL finally affect the stock trading/speculation class
I'm hoping when the bubble d
Re: (Score:3)
the bubble bursting - so we can get on with maybe putting an economy/society back together not based on "but if we throw enough power and chips at the word-guessing machine it might learn to cure cancer"
That's a lovely thought. But there has been no Final Bubble. We keep making them, and we keep making recessions. Pretty much every 10-15 years for quite a while now.
We will never "get on with... putting an economy/society back together".
We will leverage our future to escape the consequences of this bubble/recession. Which will cause another bubble/recession.
As Buzz Lightyear says: To $100 trillion debt, and beyond!
Re: (Score:3)
Have you ever tried to use Coinbase when the site was busy? It's a disaster. You're not going to be able to convince me that unstable crap was ever properly QA tested or load tested.
Re: Really? Wow! (Score:3)
I remember attempting to buy $100 worth of bitcoins when they were around $0.10 or maybe around d $1. I could well afford the loss, just in case, but all the sites had massively suspicious credit card handling and I just gave up. I would be very wealthy now, but this did convince me that the whole crypto environment was just shooting everything from the hip.
Coinbase is just confirming that nothing has changed. Having folks with zero security mindset shipping production code, is already bad when they are tra
Re: (Score:2)
Good for you. I got out when the carbon footprint became too big.
And they want to handle our "money" ? (Score:2)
"non-technical teams in the company are "shipping production code,""
And they expect us to trust them enough to handle our "money"? Sorry, "move fast and break things" is for irrelevant stuff like social media, not financial software.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes they expect you to trust them. After all, coin buyers are already a self-selected group of known gullible individuals.
Go fishing in the lake that gets restocked.
Re: (Score:2)
Hahahah, indeed. That one is called "delusion". The fireworks will be impressive.
Can't wait (Score:3)
Can't wait until AI makes a security hole and a billion dollars' worth of cryptocurrency disappears overnight.
Re: Really? Wow! (Score:2)
What are they doing with 5k employees? Unbelievable.
Everything you hate in one company (Score:5, Insightful)
Crypto grift, AI bubble and psychopathic billionaire CEO.
Re: (Score:1)
Crypto grift, AI bubble and psychopathic billionaire CEO.
Don't forget holding your retirement portfolios of stocks, bonds, ETFs, etc too :-)
Re:Everything you hate in one company (Score:4, Informative)
AI is hitting crypto like a truck (Score:1, Flamebait)
Also the orange one keeps slamming the markets through sheer incompetence and because of that the crypto markets take a hit because they are more or less tied to the state of the real markets. Despite what they will tell you.
Bitcoin isn't quite at the bottom it was at before but i
Re: (Score:2)
Shut up
Re: (Score:2)
It makes a lot more sense to use off-cycle power for AI inference (or training) than it does for mining tokens, too.
Re: (Score:2)
If you knew anything about proof of work, you'd know the bitcoin protocol self-adjusts difficulty in 2,016 block intervals. Every 2,016 blocks the bitcoin network adjusts difficulty up or down depending on how many blocks were mined in the previous 20,160 minutes. If more than 2,016 blocks were mined, difficulty is raised. If less, difficulty is lowered.
This difficulty adjustment, which occurs every 2 weeks (give or take) keeps the bitcoin mining reward in balance the the electrical cost of mining.
Therefore
Re: (Score:2)
And yet, Bitcoin is still nothing but a waste of time, effort, and energy.
Let's call it what it is (Score:5, Insightful)
We hired too many devs, we are laying them off, we are blaming AI.
Re:Let's call it what it is (Score:4, Insightful)
Either that or "we are firing devs we really need and creating a massive problem".
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, the industry goes through that every decade.
restructuring, offshoring, hiring too many people, AI.
Re: (Score:2)
My guess is the root cause to this mess is that "manager" cannot deal with engineers not only being much smarter than they are but also having skills they could never hope to ever master. So they try to assert dominance whenever they can by firing engineers. Of course, that is about the worst thing they could do for business success.
Re: (Score:2)
The article didn't mention "devs", just something vague about management layers.
I think the approaching macroeconomic downturn is an equal motivator to any overhiring they did. Luxuries are the hardest-hit segment during a depression. People won't have money to gamble on Coinbase anymore. Or invest, I guess - God help the poor souls who think that's what they're doing.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Let's call it what it is (Score:2)
Second that. In fact closer to 5k. It appears to be a common practice: take on a lot dead weight during market boom, then unload it to boost the stock a little more
Coinbase was a train wreck already (Score:4, Interesting)
AI-Native? (Score:4, Interesting)
AI-Native you say? ... you mean hype-compliant.
Oh, I see
Mobile first (Score:2)
AI-native?
Is that like mobile first?
Cool. I’m so impressed.
Re: (Score:2)
Translation: (Score:1)
"Our current BS isn't working, NEW BS now!"
to ship in days, so what is Coinbase shipping ???? (Score:2)
The usual question: what did they do? (Score:2)
Once again, I'm not shocked by the percentage laid off, but I'm shocked by the number of individuals. If 700 people was 14% of their workforce, then this company had about a hundred times as many employees as I would have guessed. Not that my guesses are particularly well-informed, but when I look at what this company's product appears to be and compare it to my own experiences, I can't help but make guesses that are apparently 99% off! (I'm that dumb!?)
What do employees at these large companies do all day?
Everlasting Crypto Pyramining (Score:2)