Coinbase cuts headcount by 14% citing AI acceleration. The shares are gaining

Coinbase cuts headcount by 14% citing AI acceleration WHO DO YOU BLAME?

Cofounder/CEO/Chair Brian Armstrong: 49.6% voting power MM

In 2020, amidst global protests for racial justice, Armstrong issued a blog post that effectively banned employees from discussing social issues or activism at work: "We don't advocate for any particular causes or candidates internally that are unrelated to our mission, because it is a distraction from our mission... we won't engage in broader societal issues."

Brian is a proponent of "Freedom Cities"—privatized zones built on federal land that would be exempt from the laws that govern the rest of the country

Meta Platforms director Marc Andreessen:

Impeding the development of AI in any way, he argues, “is a form of murder.

"Our enemies are 'social responsibility', 'stakeholder capitalism', 'Precautionary Principle', 'sustainable development goals', 'social justice', and 'environmental, social, and governance (ESG)'... These are all ideas that would lead to a stagnant, decadent, and ultimately dead society."

The dual class share structure:

The holders of our Class B common stock are entitled to twenty votes per share, and holders of our Class A common stock are entitled to one vote per share.

Jeffrey Billings, the independent trustee for certain trusts established by Brian Armstrong (representing 18.9% voting power)

Co-founder/director Frederick “Fred” Ernest Ehrsam III (10.6% voting power)

co-founder and general partner of the crypto-focused venture capital firm Paradigm

co-founder and CEO of Nudge, a neurotechnology startup developing non-invasive brain–computer interfaces

Duke University

While Fred is often seen as the quiet intellectual counterpart to Marc Andreessen, his philosophy is arguably even more dystopian to critics because it moves beyond just software—aiming to program human governance and the human brain itself.

Fred is the Quiet Architect of a future where human systems are replaced by cold code.

Fred is a major backer of the Prometheus Summit, a secretive gathering of tech elites focused on "longevity" and "assisted reproductive technologies."

In 2026, Fred was appointed to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) by President Donald Trump

The 2 women on the board, seems very DEI-ish

The shares are gaining WHO DO YOU BLAME?

Investors

Up 15$ in 2 days: $655M for brian

Diary of a CEO founder says he hired someone with ‘zero’ work experience because she ‘thanked the security guard by name’ before the interview WHO DO YOU BLAME?

The so-called “meritocracy” MM

“I hired someone who’s CV was two lines. Their experience was zero”

Elon Musk's SpaceX Could Be Fast-Tracked Into S&P 500 After IPO Under Proposed Rule Changes AND Elon Musk settles SEC lawsuit over Twitter purchase and agrees to pay $1.5m fine

A trust in Musk’s name will pay a $1.5m civil penalty, without admitting wrongdoing. Musk won’t have to give up any money he allegedly saved from the delay. In its January 2025 lawsuit, the SEC said Musk’s 11-day delay in revealing his initial 5% Twitter stake in late March and early April 2022 let him buy more than $500min shares at artificially low prices, before he finally revealed a 9.2% stake. WHO DO YOU BLAME?

The SEC Commissioners

Jan 2025

Chair Gary Gensler (D)

Commissioner Hester Peirce (R)

Commissioner Mark Uyeda (R)

Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw (D)

Commissioner Jaime Lizárraga (D)

Today MM

Chair Paul Atkins (R)

Commissioner Hester Peirce (R)

Commissioner Mark Uyeda (R)

Vacant

Specifically Paul Atkins

During his first stint as an SEC Commissioner (George W. Bush), Paul was famous for his dissent against large corporate penalties

He argued that fining a company for the "sins" of its executives just hurts the innocent shareholders a second time

Recently in the same Administration with Musk (DOGE)

Generally believes the SEC overregulates; Musk has referred to the SEC as “bastards”

Commissioner Hester Peirce

The perennial dissenter (pre-Trump 2.0): Whenever the SEC would sue a crypto firm or fine a high-profile CEO, Peirce would release a blistering public letter explaining why the SEC was wrong, overreaching, and "paternalistic."

Hester is the primary author of the Token Safe Harbor proposal, which essentially argues that tech companies should be allowed to operate for three years without any SEC oversight to "find their footing."

Hester has long argued that the SEC’s disclosure requirements are "bloated" and "immaterial." In her view, Musk’s failure to file a 13D form for his Twitter stake wasn't a crime—it was a failure to comply with a "clunky, outdated bureaucracy."

"In our purportedly enlightened era, we pin scarlet letters on allegedly offending corporations without bothering much about facts and circumstances... After all, naming and shaming corporate villains is fun, trendy, and profitable."

The S&P 500, managed by S&P Global Dow Jones Indices, on Th...