Comment by yao420 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by yao420 | Hacker News Reader

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I studied CS and worked at 2 FAANGS before joining Coinbase in 2020 then a blockchain layer 1 a couple of months ago. Coinbase made me multiple 7 figures on IPO day and even with the crypto crash my current job has a cash salary of $350k and ~$200k in tokens.

Yes the tech is not usually innovative or groundbreaking but nothing I worked on in my web2 career or college was cutting edge either.

When looking for a new job this year I got a l6 offer at meta, senior at apple, staff cloudflare and a couple of startup offers. Not only was the base pay significantly less, the tech and companies were boring, most required in office attendance.

So I went with a blockchain company because they were chill, fully distributed, pay was high, and work interesting (we use a lot of cryptography, I have 2 phd’s on my team).

Am I a cryptobro believing this field is the future? No it could all go to zero. Has crypto allowed me to retire and make more money than nearly every colleague in university and FAANGS? Yes.

In other words, “yes I’m helping grifters scam people, but it sure pays well.”

Pretty much. After watching the Sackler family escape with billions despite destroying America with opioids I’ve come to the conclusion that America is garbage and there is nothing important here except money. I’m securing my family and their future, nothing else.

But yeah crypto grifts sucks but my college roommate now works at Goldman Sachs, an old university TA works Exxon offshore drilling, a couple of classmates are African logistics specialists (acquire land at ANY cost including literally lying to poor peasants to sign over property) at Bain. Is there a ranking for better or worse?

All of capitalism and by extension society is rotten to the core.

This reminds me of the speech in The West Wing, where the president explains his reasoning for accepting the censure.

No one takes responsibility for anything anymore. We foster, we obfuscate, we rationalise. "Everybody does it." That's what we say. So we come to occupy a moral safe house where everyone's to blame so no one's guilty. I'm to blame. I was wrong.

If at the end of the day you can sleep well, more power to you! But things will continue to decline if everyone's only looking out for themselves.

I work in crypto (for a company that does market making) and I don't think I'm doing philanthropic work, but let's not kid ourselves into thinking it's any less ethical than working for MANGA.

Am I a cryptobro believing this field is the future? No it could all go to zero//

why it could all go to zero ?

anyone can say all these things

But Yao42 works at Coinbase, and I want to know his point of view on why he says this.

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