{"id":50740,"date":"2022-06-14T20:42:10","date_gmt":"2022-06-14T20:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/coinbase-faces-internal-crisis-as-it-lays-off-1100-staffers\/"},"modified":"2022-06-14T20:42:10","modified_gmt":"2022-06-14T20:42:10","slug":"coinbase-faces-internal-crisis-as-it-lays-off-1100-staffers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/coinbase-faces-internal-crisis-as-it-lays-off-1100-staffers\/","title":{"rendered":"Coinbase faces internal crisis as it lays off 1,100 staffers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Coinbase, the notorious cryptocurrency exchange founded in San Francisco, appears to be grappling with an internal crisis of sorts as it deals with tech and crypto industry headwinds.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the company announced that it would lay off 1,100 employees – nearly a fifth of its staff. It’s the final blow to the company’s rapid reversal of fortunes; after embarking on a mass hiring spree and a titanic Super Bowl ad earlier this year, the company paused hiring and reneged on already-accepted job offers.<\/p>\n

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But in an unfortunately routine staff email sent and publicly posted by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong spelling out the company’s too-rapid growth and the global economic downturn, one sentence stood out (and not just because it’s the top-highlighted quote on the layoff notice) .<\/p>\n

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Armstrong explained that laid-off individuals would have access to all Coinbase systems cut off, and that they would receive the news in their personal emails.<\/p>\n


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“Given the number of employees who have access to sensitive customer information,” Armstrong wrote, “it was unfortunately the only practical choice, to ensure not even a single person made a rash decision that harmed the business or themselves.”<\/p>\n

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That part is less routine. It’s not common for CEOs to anticipate that any laid-off employees may sabotage the company on their way out, let alone allude to any concern of that in a public-facing message.<\/p>\n

What could be the cause of that ill will?<\/p>\n

Last Friday, a petition to remove chief operating officer Emilie Choi, chief product officer Surojit Chatterjee and chief people officer LJ Brock with a vote of no confidence was leaked onto the tech forum Hacker News. In it, an anonymous list of employees expressed concerns that their decision-making has not been “in the best interests of the Company.” <\/p>\n

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