[arthurjj]

> 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

As someone who lived through multiple rounds of layoffs at big tech companies this seemed quite generous.

[Sohcahtoa82]

Insanely generous.

I got laid off 3 years ago and got a mere 2 weeks + 1 month of COBRA. It was a tech company, but not a big one.

[wayeq]

i assure you they don't do that to be generous, they do it to get you to sign a piece of paper which reduces their legal risk profile

[spopejoy]

Yes but ... people will sign that paper for almost any severance. Consider the alternative (don't sign, get a lawyer etc) -- many folks will just sign to get whatever's on offer

[kibwen]

Companies with less than 20 employees aren't federally required to offer COBRA. Companies larger than that are required to offer at least 18 months of coverage. I don't know how large your old company was, but Coinbase is large enough that this offer, rather than being generous, sounds illegal? https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ebsa/about-ebsa/our-a...

[kelnos]

I think you misunderstood: Coinbase is offering to pay for the first 6 months of COBRA for the laid-off employees. They can still continue with it for the following 12 months if they want, paid out of pocket.

[tkzed49]

They're offering to subsidize the cost that the individual would normally pay for COBRA coverage. They're only required to offer the coverage, but not to pay for it.

However, I don't think this is that unusual in SV layoff packages.

[ryandrake]

If so, that's really generous, given the cost of having to pay for COBRA.

Either way, I'd still be shitting my pants. 16 weeks is not a lot of time to find another job in today's environment. I know devs who have been out of work for years and had to resort to stocking shelves at Home Depot to tread water.

[kelnos]

I would sincerely hope that anyone making tech money has some savings put away and isn't living paycheck-to-paycheck.

[Sohcahtoa82]

Seriously.

Everyone should do their damndest to get 6 months worth of bills into savings. This should be easy for well-paid tech workers.

I've been making tech money ($200-250K) for about 5 years now, and my savings is enough that I could ride out a job loss for at least a full year with no change in lifestyle. With some minor belt tightening (I eat out WAYYYY too much), I could go 2 years before I had to start worrying.

[kakacik]

It would be a reasonable, even logical expectation, but everybody does sometimes less-than-logical things, takes some risks etc. Most of the time it works out somehow, sometimes it doesn't.

I've done my share - after buying one smaller apartment some 12 years ago, paying all legal fees, taxes and full reconstruction I was, overall, -1500 euro worth and now with 2 parallel mortgages on my shoulders. Had to take short term employer's loan to get back into positive numbers (that loan, if fired/let go, would be conveniently ignored so that has been be my main motivation for taking it otherwise its a dumb move on its own).

Getting fired during that period and maybe next 6-12 months afterwards would be still devastating for me, I don't have rich parent/family to fall back on, smart moral hard working folks didn't get paid well during socialism/communism. This is where rich kids have massive non-obvious advantage - like ie Gates, they can go and take big risks that are not that big for them, and come crying to rich daddy if they screw up, or be a hero if lucky. Folks like me, they have to risk everything to even get the chance to play the game (which has its own risks which luckily didn't materialize).

I see it even now with my colleagues - nobody would take any big risk, all very risk-averse because they can. My risks though took me further than they managed to get with a massively better starting position. Sometimes, austerity is a great motivator.

But it was a temporary dip, and I had a bit of luck through it. To be in software engineering and having long term no savings, thats... bad life strategy in most cases.

[abnercoimbre]

Yep, I also know of multiple devs going into nursing. It used to be the other way around!

[pards]

For the non-US readers:

> COBRA is the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. It gives workers and their families who lose their health benefits the right to choose to continue group health benefits provided by their group health plan for limited periods of time under certain circumstances such as voluntary or involuntary job loss, reduction in the hours worked, transition between jobs, death, divorce, and other life events. [0]

[0]: https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/health-plans/cobra

[simonask]

Thanks. It’s wild to see people here express this as “generosity” when they are just covering a few months of what is in every developed nation considered absolute baseline, for life, regardless of employment status.

Americans are not remotely free.

[vl]

This is surprising about COBRA - I thought it’s always 18 months. Moreover it doesn’t make much sense to limit cobra - you are paying full price out of pocket anyway.

[tpmoney]

I read that as they're going to pay the COBRA premiums for 6 months for the laid off employees.