Oof. So not only are they giving their remaining managers more reports, but those managers will be expected to do lots of other, non-management work.

Sure, nothing can go wrong there... Even if they didn't have non-managerial work to do, 15+ direct reports is just too many. They're not going to get to spend enough time meeting each report's needs, not a chance.

I think as layoffs emails go, it's a pretty good one (as the current top comment points out[0]), but boy, I would not want to be working at a company like what Coinbase is turning into. Non-technical teams shipping code to prod? No thanks. "AI-native pods"? No thanks. I do like the idea of one-person teams; I was at my most productive when I was in that kind of role (though I'm not sure my experience generalizes). I get that companies are still struggling to figure out how to adapt to LLMs, but... damn.

Pretty solid severance package for the folks being laid off, though.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48021843

* 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.

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.

Is Brian here? Can he speak more to this? What exactly are non technicals shipping to production code?

I've got no position in Coinbase but is that a wise thing to say as a public company? I'd be alarmed if I were a share holder

As someone who lived through multiple rounds of layoffs at big tech companies this seemed quite generous.

While AI is likely a productivity boost, the underlying reason is not AI.

If you look at Coinbase in 2020 they had roughly 1,200 employees. By 2022 they had roughly 4,500 employees.

They over hired and now they are pairing back, this is all it is.

No, you didn't. You watched engineers use AI to ship in days something that looks like what used to take a team weeks. After enough rounds of feature evolution, you'll realise that what they actually shipped isn't at all the same. Anthropic's C compiler, which also seemed like a good start that would have taken people much longer to deliver, ended up being impossible to turn into something actually workable.

In a year or so, software developed by "AI-native talent who can manage fleets of agents to drive outsized impact" - which is another way of saying people who ship code they don't understand and therefore haven't fixed the architectural mistakes the agents make - will become impossible to evolve, and then things will get very interesting.

AI can help software developers in many ways, but not like that.

Geeks who didn't even stand near professional sports should really shut up about anything sport related, lol.

I would really like to see professional, established coach running around with young prodigies on a peak of their biology.

> - AI-native pods: We’ll be concentrating around AI-native talent who can manage fleets of agents to drive outsized impact. We’ll also be experimenting with reduced pod sizes, including “one person teams” with engineers, designers, and product managers all in one role.

And AI clowns will cheer and applaud this, not seeing that they're now doing the job of 5(!) people with the same salary. Why is nobody talking about this?

Also, I find it really bizarre that those neo feudal lords see their companies as just a life stock to count. They don't even count people, just see them as numbers to reduce/scale up. Modern tsardom, but instead of being tied via official decree you're now tied by your lifestyle and family.

"Some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make"

However, I understand rationale, as the money was not in-flowing enough.

---- edit ----

When reading about AI-native talent who can manage fleets of agents, I shout out. Hire me. I will tell you why this won't work

Experimenting or cost-cutting? Are these one-person "teams" you g to be paid more for having multi-domain roles regardless of how fast AI can churn out pseudo-MVPs?

We're going to see this become a trend beyond Coinbase, IMO. The idea that companies just want employees to be more productive is a farce. The C-suite would prefer to make no profit, have few to no employees, and get personally richer in the process.

What's the theory on this? It seems to be common conclusion, but I don't understand why AI changes the situation here.

I understand that AI means you can do more with fewer people. Fewer people means less coordination overhead and fewer managers and fewer layers. What I don't get is why you want your managers to be doing IC work more so with AI than before. I don't see why anything changes about needing roughly 1 first line manager for every 6-8 people, or why it would be more beneficial now that the managers have production programming responsibilities.

Both before and after AI it's important that managers have real technical knowledge of the codebase. Having managers do actual production IC work in my experience has been a bad allocation of resources, though, and I don't see why AI changes that.

(a) Someone has to do the management tasks. Why do we think that isn't a full time job anymore?

(b) When managers do production IC work, in my experience it increases the load on ICs in review, because the manager one would _expect_ to not be _as_ expert as pure ICs on the codebase, and yet they are perceived as "senior". ICs then have overhead in having to manage that power imbalance in review. I have known a few extremely productive manager/ICs… but the effect on their teams was not super great. It made the manager into something of a micromanager and the actual ICs lacked autonomy.

This is going to end poorly for them. The only good managers I've had over around 20 years in the industry were 100% people managers and had no IC type of role expectations.

I've personally walked away from multiple manager role interview loops when I ask about the split only to find that they expected managers to also take on partial roles with IC engineering work. I know I can't be effective in either when having to juggle two entirely different hats, and in my anecdotal experience I've never seen anyone else do it well either.

Crypto was a big hype of last decade.

Every year that goes by there are fewer people interested in an old hype, and therefore a smaller and smaller market for coinbase.

Coinbase is on a path to death. It might take 20 years, but the decline has already begun.

What happens when this person inevitably leaves and they have no one who knows even a little bit about the process or tools used?

As someone who did have 15 direct reports for a while, it’s a joke.

You basically are their manager in name only. Your time is so split you can’t give any one direct reports the attention they deserve. Quarterly and annual reviews are a farce because you genuinely don’t really know how people are doing except the signals you can receive when you’re not in a meeting with one of your 15 reports.

Just goes to show how far up their own asses some CEOs are. Meanwhile real people just want a boss who cares. Hope Brian feels happier with an extra billion dollars or whatever this year!

With the amount of tech leaders blabbering about this, I came to the conclusion that the profession of the future is going to be Security Engineer.

It almost makes we wish there were legal requirements for giving proof backing up the reason. It doesn’t need to be an actually good or noble one, but just in the sense of actually being accurate information being put into the world. I imagine this could be sold as a part of financial transparency laws.

Because as of now, it really seems like companies are using AI as a cover to fire people.

Boy that's scary for a company that's effectively fintech...

What I'm really intrigued by is the non technical staff deploying code to production. Now that's a gamble I want to see in the crypto space.

+ 2021 | 3,730 employees + 2022 | 4,706 employees + 2023 | 3,416 employees + 2024 | 3,772 employees + 2025 | 4,951 employees + 2026 | 4,250*

*Estimated following May 2026 layoffs.

So the reduction gets them closer, but still higher than where they were in 2024. Given the fact that the crypto business doesn't seem to be growing much over the last few years it can be argued that they over hired in 2025 and going back to 2024 numbers just makes sense. And as others have said in the comments, they haven't turned a profit so likely this makes business sense and the AI shine is trying to make the news less ugly for investors.

As a security engineer this statements fills me dread.

Oof. That smacks of hubris and valley-buzzwordism.

> Leaders will own much more, with as many as 15+ direct reports.

> Every leader at Coinbase must also be a strong and active individual contributor.

So, a manager who's managing 15 people AND expected to ship -- that sounds awful for both sides.

Also, it is clear at this point that thought tech leaders decide, probably over group chats mere mortals are not allowed in, on messages to deliver for a few days, urbi et orbi: introspection is overrated; the leaders-followers dichotomy; now, the disdain for "people managers," as if they were imposed by the Galactic Empire instead of being people whom their organization hired for years.

And, like, what sort of message is, to be sent when announcing lay-offs: "from now on, teams will have not 14 but 15 ICs (whatever numbers), the new IC will be the manager, who will continue to be a manager but also will do some IC work"?.

It is high-school all over again.

Since roughly 2018 I reckon, at least.

And I suspect that over the coming year, we'll be watching the consequences of this unfold.

> Non-technical teams are now shipping production code

if you vibe code financial systems this cannot mean anything good for your business

Given Coinbase is a financial platform this doesn't make me feel great. Hopefully they're contributing in areas that don't affect security or money.

Crypto is always about to take off. If the company is sitting so well, and is facing imminent growth, then they don't need to do layoffs, they want to. Or the company is not sitting so rosy and they're not too sure about their future.

> Non-technical teams are now shipping production code

What could go wrong?

If you're a leader and you've said that your company is too big and have to downsize by 10+%. This is a you're the problem.

Firstly, the business needs to have active business and new initives. If you are not supporting that: You've failed.

If you're so inefficient that you need that extra 14%, you made that mistake.

If you "overhired" and didn't find a way to use that extra capacity to find the business.. you are the problem.

If you say that AI has changed your business, that 14% more people means 14%*the AI lift of more capacity to accomplish greater things.

It's not the talent, and it's not the talents' fault for your issues. A lot of people assume that layoffs means removal of bad performers. The reality is not there.

Heh. This is the kind of phrasing that just begs to be misunderstood.

Can anyone share how and when they see market is getting in a better shape?

Specifically I am curious, how we would be working with AIs even if market gets in a better shape

Terrifying.

As a reward, people driving the productivity have now received a reduction in their colleague pool.

It wasn't that long ago that, in SV, the dominant values were humility, kindness and openness to all views (even if behind the scenes there was the ruthlessness demanded by capitalism). The last few years have seen this value system corrode, and it seems like its hurting everyone. From the tech workers constantly churning for no good reason, to the tech executives sequestered in their own thought bubbles until reality finally hits them (usually, too late to change).

However, do we really need them to AI-wash the fact that as a lot of companies, this company over-hired during ZIRP? Do we really need them to AI-wash the fact that the crypto hype is gone, therefore their business is smaller? “Company as intelligence” and “AI productivity” are just buzzwords so their stock price doesn’t suffer.

Today, not a single mention in that email.

I can't help but feel that there is a superficial chasing of trends at play here (adopting the same playbook that Block used earlier).

Question is, where will we all be in 3 years from now?

I was shocked at how easy it was to train and develop a model that can replace senior leadership in a company.

The CEO was the easiest. I simply loaded the model with as much corporate jargon, double talk and the ability to talk down to people. The model nearly wrote itself.

Then simply ingesting the Wall Street Journal, Barrons, Financial Times and SEC 10-K reports and annual reports, I was able to compile the perfect CFO. It was able to spit out regulatory reports, answer questions on investor calls.

Strangely, the component of the model I had write in house was the ability to give up part of their bonus to keep key people employed. Seems in all of those financial reports, there were no examples of anyome that the model could leverage.

How long would it be that people realise that they are playing "passing the parcel" with a ticking explosive?

The reads like typical MBA-efficiency-idiocy taken to the extreme. Clearly this guy is so deeply isolated from the actual work that he cannot even begin to comprehend just how utterly stupid this idea is. It's one thing to push for 100x engineering "output" with "AI", but something completely different to expect a single person to be 3-4 persons in one. Pure schizophrenia - but at least companies like Coinbase which adopt the AI-first illusion will burn themselves faster and leave the room for something new and genuinely innovative.

The Tether narrative has just been broken and Iranian assets have been frozen:

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/04/24/politics/us-freezes-crypt...

This of course means that the primary use case of Bitcoin, sanctions' evasion, is no longer secure.

It becomes clearer and cleared that Lutnick and Trump are actually the deep state and the big boys mean it. Further crackdowns on China and Russia are coming and it does not look good for Bitcoin.

But by all means, cite AI nonsense as a favor to fellow founders to pump up their valuations.

Good luck to those (human) teams when the briefness stuff hits the fan thanks to an AI hallucination... oh wait, the Active Individually-contributing leaders will be there to lend a hand, right?

There is nothing that can go wrong with having non-tech people vibecode slop and push it to production... and certainly not when money (or monetary equivalents) are at play.

Print it all out and bring it to the meeting please.

The AI bullshit is CEO feel-good talk.

I think all of us are a bit sad now that AI has essentially removed what it means to be a coder.

There will never again be the time like we had, the golden age of being a nerd. We nerds had it all, and then we destroyed it by making something too smart!

As a Texan, it's kind of like cowboys. Coders were wrangling the computer, but now we have been replaced by industry and mechanics.

Having read the twitter post, it was raw and honest, and I want to share some ideas about life that I feel are relevant.

The first one is that when you work, you should always do something you believe in, because nobody can take that away from you.

If you worked for the money, or because someone told you you could be a part of a cool team, your whole world falls apart when you get let go.

But if you work because you truly believe your work is worthwhile, you will always be glad you did it.

I feel that people on here continually complain about capitalism and how bad corporations are. I challenge all you all to check yourself and ask what are you doing to be a part of the system. If you go accept employment at a 9-5, you are part of the system and making it stronger.

I have always refused to have a job. At age 32, I have only ever worked at one company as an employee, and that only for a short time, and the person was a genuine friend of mine.

I ask each person here to quit working at a company. I think all of us should choose to only ever work at a nonprofit.

Fundamentally Capitalism can't be defeated if we complain and then try to negotiate the biggest salary or benefits.

It's logically stupid for us to be saying they are evil, when we do the exact same thing with a salary.

Instead, each of us should work at a nonprofit, and we should NEVER accept a salary but instead ask them to give to us when they have something left over.

Ultimately, friends, I chose to tell my boss one day (the guy I ended up being an employee at his small company for for a bit), that I didn't want a salary, just donate if you want.

Ever since then, I have been happy.

I hated life when I worked for money. But now, I love it. I have gotten to code on many fun projects, but for the first time I felt alive.

It was terrifying with a wife, a kid and a mortgage to say that. But I am a true believer that the universe, or God has a plan for everyone, and that if you stop worrying and doing what you are told, and just go out and love people, it will all work out.

What I found is that the pay you get working for free is better than the pay you could ever get with money.

You can finally live with yourself when you just love everybody, every day.

If you pay me, and I did great work, you will never know if I love you. But if I did it for free, for all of eternity, you will know that you know that I care about you. And that, to me, is worth more than all the money in the world.

That's why I never accept a salary when I work. I just let people give as they feel fit.

Yes, it is hard, and it doesn't always feel fun. But it is 1000X worth it.

Thank you for reading, God bless you and have a great day!

I think this will be commonplace in the not too distant future.

Some disasters will happen, just like they did before AI. Skeptics will gleefully point out these failures while more and more non-technical teams ship code.