00:00Let's discuss more with Bloomberg crypto reporter Emily Nicole, who joins us from London.
00:04Emily, thank you so much for joining us.
00:07Can you talk to us more about what stood out to you in this announcement?
00:11We have Brian Armstrong saying that he will concentrate the remaining staff around AI skills while reducing layers of management.
00:19There were a few things in Brian's statement that really stood out.
00:22One is which, as you pointed out, he wants to concentrate teams around AI, saying things like they might even
00:28have one person teams in future where we have roles like engineering, product design, all collapsed into a single person.
00:35And then there's also the need for teams to get used to using AI agents as well.
00:39He wants staff that can handle fleets of agents to do all the jobs that, you know, multiple people might
00:44have done in the past.
00:45That will also help condense management across the company.
00:48So we'll see fewer teams with multiple managers.
00:50Managers will also have to do more work rather than just managing people.
00:54They'll also be responsible for product, responsible for shipping things.
00:57This is all kind of a broader shift that Coinbase says is happening at foot.
01:00But it's also, you know, there's broader cost cuts that need to happen at the company.
01:04And that's one of the things that's motivating the staff cuts as well.
01:06Why do the broader cost cuts need to happen, Emily?
01:10Coinbase had a pretty difficult quarter at the end of last year.
01:12It was something where revenue was down about 20 percent and there was a net loss for the quarter as
01:17well.
01:17We're expecting earnings from Coinbase on Thursday that will tell us how the most recent quarter has gone.
01:21But if we think about what journey Bitcoin has been on since October, it hit 126,000 and then has
01:26been down since then.
01:28It's down about a third from that point right now.
01:30So it's been very whipsory.
01:32And that kind of market's difficult for exchanges.
01:34On the one hand, volatility can mean more trading, which can mean more income.
01:38But equally, if coin prices are down and they're not recovering, that gets fewer new buys into the system.
01:43And that's not great for a company like Coinbase.
01:45Emily, we're also seeing layoffs at Coinbase, PayPal, Block, Crypto.com.
01:49What does that say about the broader industry?
01:51Is it really AI related or do you think it has something to do more about the crypto winter that
01:56we're seeing?
01:58AI is definitely the buzzword at the moment.
02:00And that's not just in crypto.
02:01That's everywhere, right?
02:02So we're definitely hearing about it a lot from companies.
02:05And it's something that companies that are making job cuts are saying is part of the reason behind it.
02:09They want to shift more towards AI related production.
02:11But, you know, at the same time, we can't ignore the fact that the market is down right now.
02:15It's a difficult period for crypto exchanges in particular.
02:18We've seen them make job cuts just like this in previous fair cycles.
02:22So there's no reason to suspect that this wouldn't be happening now as well, even if we didn't have AI.
02:26We've done a story previously about whether or not this is a kind of AI washing trend,
02:31especially when it comes to a company like Block that laid off about half of its staff citing AI related
02:35changes at the company.
02:37And it remains to be seen whether or not we'll actually see AI take over those job roles or if
02:41we might see more people come back into the fold when markets are high again.
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