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Coinbase Will Shut Down For Four Weeklong Breaks This Year (protocol.com) 28

Coinbase has embraced many of the workplace changes prompted by the coronavirus pandemic. The company became remote-first, and it's even closing its San Francisco headquarters to hammer in its focus on working from anywhere. From a report: Now, nearly all of Coinbase will shut down for four separate weeks throughout the year so employees can "enjoy downtime without work piling up," chief people officer L.J. Brock said. "Four weeks of coordinated recharge time might sound like a lot of time off for a company in hypergrowth, but given the intensity of our work throughout the year, we think this is the best way to ensure our pace is sustainable for the long term," Brock wrote in a blog post Monday. Coinbase has also tested so-called recharge weeks before. Most of the company took one at the end of 2020, and it added two recharge weeks last year after finding that employees weren't taking enough time off. Brock said over half of surveyed employees said the weeks off helped them reset.
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Coinbase Will Shut Down For Four Weeklong Breaks This Year

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  • like robinhood shutdown so you can't sell when it's high or can't buy when it's takes an dip.

    • If they shut down the exchange side, they may enable some pumping and dumping on people who can't adjust and find another way to trade.

    • like robinhood shutdown so you can't sell when it's high or can't buy when it's takes an dip.

      Coinbase does not seem to have mentioned anything to their customers. There's no email notification, and there's nothing on the customer-facing web site about this story at all.

      Being a Luddite who does not do cryptocurrency, this whole thing is really confusing.

      Is Coinbase really freezing all buy/sell/trading for a MONTH? At some chosen semi-secret moment?

      Customers won't be able to control or even see their investment accounts, and will just come back in about a month? I thought this crypto stuff was basica

  • That Coinbase's support will get even worse than it is now during these break periods. As it is, it can take several weeks to get a halfassed response to a support ticket.

  • > The company’s flexible time off policy won’t change even with the recharge weeks, but Brock said Coinbase is encouraging workers to schedule vacations during those weeks “when they can.”

    Why would somebody schedule vacation time at the same time as a recharge week? Unless you get paid twice for the same week, you're losing out by doing this... Unless of course they simply meant that employees should try to wrap their vacation weeks around the recharge ones to get a longer brea
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      If we are being charitable we could interpret his words as he encourages employees to go away from home on vacation, i.e. completely disengage and get away from their normal daily life so that they get the maximum benefit from it.

      How much discretionary vacation time do they offer?

    • Maybe they mean employees should schedule visiting other places during those recharge weeks.
  • Hoorah. I don't work for Coinbase, so I cannot give an insider opinion, but if this sentiment is genuine, it could be the light at the end of the tunnel.

    Europeans love to crack at Americans for how much me work; so additional time off to holidays is very valuable. It puts us more in line with westernized countries and I am sure it's value added for the corporation.

    Btw, don't get me started on how bad China is in this regard 6 day work weeks are common with 7 day work weeks and 1 or 2 days off a month being

    • What this announcement is really saying is that Coinbase can't afford to hire any more staff. That should be very troubling news to crypto bros (but they'll spin it as a good thing).

      • by cstacy ( 534252 )

        What this announcement is really saying is that Coinbase can't afford to hire any more staff. That should be very troubling news to crypto bros (but they'll spin it as a good thing).

        Coinbase has about 410 million $US operating income, 1,300 employees. How does mandating paid accrued vacation equate to inability to hire?

        Most companies do this, but they certainly don't do it for every employee in the company on the same day. That sounds like a colossal mismanagement issue, unless maybe it's a tiny startup. This company has been a going concern for over 9 years and is on the NASDAQ.

        • Luckily Coinbase happens to be a publicly-traded company required to file quarterly financial statements. The most recent one from November shows a whopping $1.3 million in total revenue for the quarter ending Sep. 30, 2021 against $1 million in operating expenses, for a total net operating income of $291k. That's not a typo. Less than 300 thousand dollars for the entire quarter.

          https://www.sec.gov/Archives/e... [sec.gov]

          Who misled you into believing the numbers you posted?

          Also, perhaps prospective employees want t

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion
            • Well I look quite the fool now, well done! I still believe Coinbase is in serious trouble with their involvement with Circle and USDC. Also it's a huge red flag in cryptoland to see "Cash and cash equivalents" combined. We all know "cash equivalent" isn't really equal to cash to these people.

          • by cstacy ( 534252 )

            Luckily Coinbase happens to be a publicly-traded company required to file quarterly financial statements. The most recent one from November shows a whopping $1.3 million in total revenue for the quarter ending Sep. 30, 2021 against $1 million in operating expenses, for a total net operating income of $291k. That's not a typo. Less than 300 thousand dollars for the entire quarter.

            https://www.sec.gov/Archives/e... [sec.gov]

            Who misled you into believing the numbers you posted?

            Also, perhaps prospective employees want to be paid in real money and not shitcoins?

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] says:

            Revenue Increase US$ 1.14 billion
            Operating Income Increase US$ 408.9 million
            Net Income Increase US$ 322.3 million
            Total Assets Increase US$ 5.86 billion
            Number of Employees 1,249

            Maybe I'm reading that wrong?

    • Europeans love to crack at Americans for how much me work; so additional time off to holidays is very valuable. It puts us more in line with westernized countries

      No it doesn't because in our nations paid annual leave is mandatory with 4 weeks considered a bare minimum and that applies to every employee in any company no matter what its size, wether it employes 100,000 or just one person.

  • I am certainly in favor of giving employees more time off, it makes sense on every level. Shutting the company down, though? Especially one in the business Coinbase is in? That's pretty fucking stupid and, ultimately, completely unnecessary.

    • by Entrope ( 68843 )

      How many of these will pass before employees try to come back and find that somebody liquidated most of the company's cryptocurrency and/or locked all their accounts while everyone was on break?

    • The funniest part is that they say they're shutting down for foue week-long breaks to avoid work piling up... Those are going to be four pretty shitty Mondays.

    • Not really. Here in the UK 2 week summer shutdowns and a week at Xmas at companies used to be a common thing. The one I'm working at has a one week shutdown in summer and a two week shutdown over Xmas.
  • ...since that will be a tense time anyway. Just post a note to all users when the site is back up warning them not to bother pounding the site with account queries because your portfolio is zero'd out now in any case.

  • ... to green stupid waste is an improvement, I guess.
  • by Anonymous Coward
    it's usually because they were killing their employees. Not that they care, but it's expensive to hire and train them, and when companies run the numbers they find it cheaper to give a block of time off to avoid Karoshi.

    It's a little odd to do a shutdown though, and kind of dodgy given it's a crypto company. Might be a good time to consider a new exchange...

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