I'll probably get some flack for this, but this is about as good of a layoff email as he could have sent.
* explains the reasons (financials, AI enablement)
* talks about what folks who are leaving get in detail (first) and thanks them
* talks to the folks who are staying
Layoffs are hard, no doubt, and I am not sure he's making the right choice. I see plenty of doubt about some of the actions in other comments that echoes mine. I certainly wouldn't want to have 15 direct reports and also ship production code regularly. But as CEO, it's his job to make these kinds of choices.
The proof is in the pudding as they say. We'll see how Coinbase does with this new orientation in the next year or so and that will determine if this was a wise or foolish move. Is there a flood of talent leaving? Major breaches? Business as usual with better than expected profits?
Time will tell.
This email was 100% AI generated. I just edited a similar sentence from a claude code doc I'm writing - "we're not just X, we're fundamentally Y" is an obvious tell. I guess he's putting his money where his mouth is
Who cares? If you're getting laid off, the only thing that really matters is the severance package.
Its all lip service - either AI generated or hand written.
> If you're getting laid off, the only thing that really matters is the severance package.
I don't think this is true. Humans typically prefer "thanks for the hard work, here's your severance" to "you suck, here's your severance, loser."
Humans like being treated with respect, and words are a big part of that. Money is nice, but it's not the only thing we care about.
The difference between the "thanks" email and the "loser" email is that the second one is intentionally disrespectful.
I'm not convinced a polite but AI-written email hits the same note. At the very least it's unintentionally disrespectful, which isn't a direct challenge. Your boss doesn't care enough to write an email by hand, but also doesn't care enough to burn bridges and insult you.
> At the very least it's unintentionally disrespectful
There is ZERO CHANCE they have used ai unintentionally
> also doesn't care enough to burn bridges and insult you.
By actively using ai they are stating that you are so much beyond them that even a personal "eff you" is not worth the time. One would have to actively try and poke some personally hurtful areas to come off more insulting than use of ai.
So it isn't disrespectful, and neither is it respectful. A perfect nothing, not a thought or care involved. Like a 1-click eCard mailer.
Genuine question. Let's say you are bad with words.
If you ask AI to generate hundred different paragraphs and choose the one which best conveys what you actually feel and want to communicate.
Is it is still a perfect nothing?
Why are you a CEO if you are bad with words. If a CEO's work can be reduced to picking the best option from AI generated text why do they make so much money, and why would anyone chose to invest in a company that could be led by anyone picking from a list of AI responses.
> Is it is still a perfect nothing?
You do get how that's worse, right? The person rather spends their time arguing with the clanker than thinking about the person and putting those thought into words, however unstructured they are.
Yeah, but communication is a two-way street. It might not matter to me that my words are unstructured, but it will to the person I'm writing to if they can't make head nor tail of what I'm saying, or worse, misunderstand it as being insulting when it isn't.
There is a whole industry built around [mis-]conception that people will take less offense on the content if it was presented differently. The predictable result is that it is actually rewriting content, not the presentation or tone. No amount of linkedinese corporate fluffery will wash off the core message that people are getting laid off unless you outright hide the message under ambiguity of double-speak like "slimming down operations", which can mean multiple things.
So essentially you have three choices:
1. Spend time writing (or have written by a copywriter) in corporate fluff dialect, where the actual message is still understandable by all parties. At the cost of appearing tone deaf.
2. Spend time reiterating with a bot that speaks some undefined sub-dialect of LLMinese where the reception of the message is unknown. At the cost of appearing even more tone deaf and insulting than a corporate cog.
3. Spend time restructuring message in genuine voice. At the cost of maybe being heard more harshly than intended.
I fail to see how option 2 can be perceived as anything but the worst, unless you assume that the target audience does not distinguish LLMinese from actual speech.
Totally agree. I don't understand why people are averse to working on their communication "soft" skills compared to other "hard" skills. People who find it hard to express themselves have my sympathy but at the same time I'm flabbergasted how they function in a team or in the workplace. Not to mention people for whom English is not the native language treating LLMs like the Star Trek universal communicator instead of helping with language acquisition.
And yeah, I know my tone is harsh and appears to lack empathy and I have only my writing skills to blame and a lack of time. That said I won't be the one to throw it in a LLM for "refinement" otherwise how would I improve? I'm not sure LLMs are to communication as are forklifts to lifting and moving stuff.
As a side note, the general advice regarding code review in my experience was not to take it personally and it's kinda funny to me for reasons I can't pin point how people (like me) have started giving unsolicited advice or criticism in regard to writing when in actuality both (code and writing) reflect personally on the human on the other side of the screen.
Anyway, I pretty much went off on my own tangent here with an apparent lack of empathy to boot but if we end up disregarding such fundamental human skills then what's to stop us from becoming dunces in a few generations? Sure, I'll add another abstraction layer even if it has a lot in common with reading tea leaves because it's not like I manually flip switches to input a program but I'll try my best to keep my individuality where it matters to me, specifically when it comes to expressing myself.
Thank you for coming to my TED rant.
You are contradicting yourself: either presentation is not important so LLM use does not matter (as long as core message is still there), or it is important and and LLM can change how the message is received (by improving presentation or making it worse).
I don't see a contradiction. What they are saying is that no amount of non-ambiguous presentation can make poor content acceptable. They never said the presentation was meaningless.
Example: A friend has died and consolation is given. No amount of consolation makes the death a good thing for you, but there is still a difference in how that consolation is presented to you.
But what if was "Thanks for the hard work, here's your legal minimum severance" vs "You suck, here's a lavish severance so you don't ever come back"?
Words are fake, money is real.
In Fire & Blood, it is said "words are wind, but wind can fan a fire," so be polite folks.
Quaint.
[dead]
It's the only thing crypto folks care about, so idk, I think it's fitting.
There are other audiences, too.
One group are the ones who are staying. They lose teammates, they have to restructure work and fear whether there will be another round soon, which may hit them.
And then there are customers, investors, ... who need to be assured they are not dealing with a failing company.
>Who cares?
People with dignity.
If the main guy's email is written by AI, at this point we're actually in an invasion of the body snatchers scenario.
Who actually is required?
.. fundamentally, it's only the person collecting payment.
> To get there, we are not just reducing headcount and cutting costs, we’re fundamentally changing how we operate: rebuilding Coinbase as an intelligence, with humans around the edge aligning it.
For sure this part screams LLM
> rebuilding Coinbase as an intelligence, with humans around the edge aligning it
Wow. That’s my cue to never use Coinbase again.
Reminds me grok
"We’re not building Skynet, we’re cutting costs and putting the survivors on prompt duty"
Anything in that format gives that AI feel
+1 and the irony of this CEO-Idiot calling LLMs "intelligence" and putting people, the stupidest of which are 1000x orders of magnitude more intelligent than an LLM, in the second spot "aligning it", i.e. fixing the AI slop.
I think a lot of LLMs are trained on corporate communications, and since companies have been copying each other for years, it’s hard to tell them apart.
Yep, it's 25+ years of corporate communications.
This is just good writing, not a 100% proof of AI being used.
I assume blaming AI is a way to soften the blow even if its not really a reason, it sounds hip and attractive to investors who want to hear that sort of thing.
Of course it is. That's the reason it's getting pushed so hard. Their end game ideal would be to get rid of all the developers.
“Welcome to layoffemailreviews.com - your daily source of best and most honest layoff email reviews in the industry.
Is there a flood of talent leaving after this one? Major breaches? Only time will tell.
Buckle up, and don’t forget your pudding!”
> this is about as good of a layoff email as he could have sent.
Except for that tone-deaf part at the end, where right after he talks to the people who "will be leaving" (that is, the people getting kicked out), he says that Coinbase will be stronger and healthier for this. Which makes it hard not to draw the conclusion that the people "leaving" are part of the unhealth.
The CEO probably does not even think that, and just wants to reduce costs. But from what was written, the implications are decidecly suboptimal.
It would be amusing but counterproductive to have a layoff email talk about how they’re firing their best and smartest employees.
If you are really doing a reorg / restructure / reimagination you would likely be losing some good and some bad, some new employees and some people who have been there since day 0 (and everything in between). I think it would be productive to acknowledge that.
But the reality is it is a standard MBA driven "bottom x%" cull dressed up with some 4d chess strategy.
So just leave it out.