Jon Cagle

@Playerinthgame Never once have I gotten a response from AI and thought "gee I wish this were significantly more wordy" wtf

don't feel bad, guys, the techno-optimist manifesto guy doesn't understand what an LLM is either

@pt_grimes @brian_armstrong Most obvious "let's cut staff and blame AI for our terrible resource management" action this year.

@brian_armstrong Coinbase is down 23% since its IPO, this is not about AI. The crypto industry is struggling and this company is failing.

This is an email I sent earlier today to all employees at Coinbase: Team, Today I’ve made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%. I want to walk you through why we're doing this now, what it means for those affected, and how this positions us for the future. Why now Two forces are converging at the same time. We need to be front footed to respond to both. First, the market. Coinbase is well-capitalized, has diversified revenue streams, and is well-positioned to weather any storm. Crypto is also on the verge of the next wave of adoption, with stablecoins, prediction markets, tokenization, and more taking off. However, our business is still volatile from quarter to quarter. While we've managed through that cyclicality many times before and come out stronger on the other side, we’re currently in a down market and need to adjust our cost structure now so that we emerge from this period leaner, faster, and more efficient for our next phase of growth. Second, AI is changing how we work. Over the past year, I’ve watched engineers use AI to ship in days what used to take a team weeks. Non-technical teams are now shipping production code and many of our workflows are being automated. The pace of what's possible with a small, focused team has changed dramatically, and it's accelerating every day. All of this has led us to an inflection point, not just for Coinbase, but for every company. 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. What this means 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. What does this mean in practice? - Fewer layers, faster decisions: We are flattening our org structure to 5 layers max below CEO/COO. Layers slow things down and create coordination tax. The future is small, high context teams that can move quickly. Leaders will own much more, with as many as 15+ direct reports. Fewer layers also means a leaner cost structure that is built to perform through all market cycles. - No pure managers: Every leader at Coinbase must also be a strong and active individual contributor. Managers should be like player-coaches, getting their hands dirty alongside their teams. - 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. In short: AI is bringing a profound shift in how companies operate, and we’re reshaping Coinbase to lead in this new era. This is a new way of working, and we need to leverage AI across every facet of our jobs. To those who are affected I know there are real people behind these decisions — talented colleagues who have poured themselves into this company and our mission. To those of you who will be leaving: thank you. You’ve helped build Coinbase into what it is today, and I am sincerely grateful for everything you've done. All impacted team members will receive an email to their personal account in the next hour with more information, and an invitation to meet with an HRBP and a senior leader in your organization. Coinbase system access has been removed today. I know this feels sudden and harsh, but it is the only responsible choice given our duty to protect customer information. To those affected, we will be providing a comprehensive package to support you through this transition. US employees will receive a minimum of 16 weeks base pay (plus 2 weeks per year worked), their next equity vest, and 6 months of COBRA. Employees on a work visa will get extra transition support. Those outside of the US will receive similar support, based on local factors and subject to any consultation requirements. Coinbase prides itself on talent density. Our employees are among the most talented people in the world, and I have no doubt that your skills and experience will be highly sought after as you pursue your next chapters. How we move forward To the team that is staying, I know this is a difficult day. We’re saying goodbye to colleagues and friends you've been in the trenches with. But here’s what I want you to know as we move forward together: Over the past 13 years, we have weathered four crypto winters, gone public, and built the most trusted platform in our industry. We’ve made it this far by making hard decisions and by always staying focused on our mission. This time will be no different – nothing has changed about the long term outlook of our company or industry. And most importantly, our mission has never been more important for the world. Increasing economic freedom requires a new financial system, and we’re building it. The Coinbase that emerges from this will be more capable than ever to achieve our mission. Brian

@brian_armstrong Translation: we over extended thinking market only goes up and to right, now we need to cull staff, fortunately we can blame AI and spin this as a positive. Well positive for me and the shareholders too stupid to realize what is happening.

@rushicrypto Luckily Trump's first term expanded standard deduction so many people don't itemize any longer 😉

Being able to deduct your mortgage from your taxes but not your rent is a form of class warfare.

@OrevaZSN Poor leadership.

We had an incredible opportunity to make remote work the global standard, and we blew it. Seriously: What happened? Why did so many companies go back to the office?

@omgsidewalks Buy a decent rice cooker

I'm 22. Please recommend to me oddly specific life tips. No general “surround yourself with positive people” tips. I want the most random, specific advice possible please.

@DissentFu How many people do you employ again?

Billionaires create jobs though right?

@MikeWithAHotDog @businessbarista Morons are also an issue. I'd prefer to work with AI.....

@businessbarista How long are we keeping this cope going. It's clearly an AI issue.

human skill issue, not a technology issue.

@aprilajoyr Oh boy. Wait til you find out about the old testament....

MAGA: We're a Christian nation! Pope: Okay, Christians should be against war. MAGA: Separation of church and state please!

@anothercohen I desperately hate teams, but it is far better than slack.....

I'm tempted to finally churn off Slack. We're paying ~$6k/year for 40 people and they just quoted me $21k/year for the business version that includes a BAA (and all the shitty AI features). Incredibly overrated software

@EntropyCowboy @Jason Do you not think the average OC user is burning far more tokens than any other $200/month non OC user. And likely hitting $200 in token usage in a few days of the month because there's no incentive to be efficient...

@jon_cagle7 @Jason Dude why else would u need a 200 dollar sub if you were burning less than 200 bucks in API? Lol. Everybody knew the game rules. You commit to 200 and antropic should have been happy to have customers who are paying that. Should have appreciated all paying customers big and small

Here’s the explanation of anthropic ankling OoenClaw — discuss

There's plenty of comparable companies that have pricing based on "unlimited" or near unlimited usage....buffet being simplest. You can bring 1 competitive eater with you and it's funny to watch them eat $5,000 of food on a $30/ea bill. But if you show up with an entire convention of competitive eaters ready to go every single meal. It's unlikely the buffet is going to be open to them at $30/ea...,.

@jon_cagle7 @bcherny @jaredctate Yes, as far as I'm concerned, there shouldn't be any difference, and then once we go over, we start using the credit.

Starting tomorrow at 12pm PT, Claude subscriptions will no longer cover usage on third-party tools like OpenClaw. You can still use these tools with your Claude login via extra usage bundles (now available at a discount), or with a Claude API key.

@JoshExile82 @bcherny @jaredctate You're bringing your competitive eater family, friends, anyone you know, to the all you can eat buffet, then whining that you're all not allowed. "But if I'm paying 18.99 for the buffet, I don't understand why I can't eat 20lbs of overcooked meat????"

@bcherny @jaredctate It’s odd tho. We are using a service we pay for with a model that is still doing its job. It’s just wrapped in harness in a sense. It’s not like it’s changing how sonnet or opus operate? It’s not like people are getting free usage. I assume you guys are getting way more data

@Kyl35tring @bcherny @jaredctate .....if this is true then why wouldn't you WANT to switch to the API? It would be cheaper for you....

@bcherny @jaredctate @bcherny My OpenClaw heartbeat uses fewer tokens than a Claude Code thinking block. This isn't about infrastructure. It's about platform lock-in. You're charging me extra to use MY tokens through software you don't control. At least be honest about it.

@sreeram_k @bcherny @jaredctate They're definitely sad to see you go I'm sure.

@bcherny @jaredctate Why don’t you just honestly say - you cannot tolerate real competition from Open Source. I got my credits and cancelled my subscription. I am going to happily pay your competitor 2x the max subscription cost - their model anyway codes better than yours.

@fabienr34 @bcherny @jaredctate For manual interaction with the model.....generally via some sort of chat interface.....were you truly under the impression that your $200/month subscription was intended to be used by a computer/scripts the same way a human would interact with it?

@bcherny @jaredctate But what exactly are subscriptions used for, then? Because in reality, we often come across API credits.

@americantantrum @bcherny @jaredctate Yes. They're basically known for making most of their income off their side projects and definitely not from selling tokens to actual power users of the platform.

@bcherny @jaredctate complete horseshit. everyone with eyes knows why you did this. youre unprofitable and open sourced applications do nothing to grow your market share. this is you protecting your future fortune.

@OnlyTerp @bcherny @jaredctate Do you think they do this because they enjoy pissing customers off? Is that really more likely than "the subscription is a gimmick that we lose money on as a 'taste' to get them addicted then get them on the API for the true power users?

@bcherny @jaredctate if it cost even a remotely similar price to use the api outside of the subscription we wouldnt be mad but ur basically using a bunch of mumbo jumbo jargin to act like u didnt just force a 10x price increase on anyone who was using opus in openclaw. so intellectually dishonest

@MarioHachemer @bcherny @jaredctate If you would like to waste analyst times on a detailed post explaining a decision, scrounge up a few bags of cash, train a model, and launch a competitor?

@bcherny @jaredctate This argument would sound a lot less hollow if you had a long detailed blogpost on how these usage patterns actually differ and how your infrastructure better supports the CC patterns. Just say it's a strategy to be relevant in the app layer with the subscription.

I'm torn on adding some friction here. I like the idea of people trying to be more mindful and deliberate about token usage. But also hate that this creates another (albeit shallow) moat that people need to navigate, get frustrated, then not bother using or building something cool.

@jon_cagle7 @Jason not necessarily bait and switch, but api billing forces you to rethink how much context you actually need. no more free rides on unlimited context