Coinbase Founder: The Crazy Journey Of Building A $100 Billion Company: Brian Armstrong

everybody i talked to actually thought. it's a bad idea like any reasonable. person would have quit i was filled with. self-doubt and then coinbase was valued. at a billion dollars crazy brian. armstrong ceo co-founder of coinbase. largest u.s cryptocurrency exchange i. saw technology as a way to try to have a. big impact on the world if the thing. that got you started in the first place. was like fear like fear of never being. important or fear of never feeling. fulfilled you're just gonna give up. cryptocurrency is the biggest. transformation of money since the. invention of paper coinbase was being.

deemed the most trustworthy brand in. crypto it tipped at a certain point from. like oh this growth is really good to. okay things are getting a little crazy. here if you kind of more than double a. company in a year you're really going to. start to see a lot of stuff break. this morning coinbase just telling. employees in an email that it plans to. lay off 18 of its workforce we had never. done a layoff before i had never done. one i remember i went up in for the. company and my voice. cracked. i mean it was awful. oh man. i actually think coinbase is in deep.

trouble here and let me tell you why the. pressure. and the scrutiny and the headlines how. are you dealing with your emotions. this is getting very personal. it's a real superpower to like care less. what other people think. so without further ado i'm stephen. bartlett and this is the diary of a ceo. i hope nobody's listening but if you are. then please keep this to yourself. [Music].

brian. i when i read through people's people's. stories they're sometimes really obvious. um causal factors that led them to. become the people they are today. but with you i'm i'm more compelled by. the less obvious factors if we go back. to your early years when you're a young. man on the west coast yeah of the united. states. what are the the less obvious reasons as. to why you've ended up where you are. today and achieved what you've achieved. in your life.

great question um. one of the less obvious reasons probably. is that. i was an introvert i just wasn't really. very good with people i didn't really. have that many friends you know as a. young person. i was quite shy um i really. found a love of computers and i liked. just being by myself and playing with. computers learning about how they worked. programming and. you know in our. technological age i suppose um. some of the people who got excited about. computers early on and just have found a.

love of building things have now become. you know ceos of companies which is kind. of a strange thing for a long time i. didn't think i could be a ceo because. i envisioned ceos of companies as being. like these military generals who barked. orders at people and they were these. like strong charismatic leaders and. i always felt like well that's not me. i'm kind of like an engineer i'm kind of. a nerd you know and what i've learned. over time is now reading enough books. and things historically. you know introverts can make actually. really good ceos um of course by the way.

there's lots of different types of ceos. there's not just one mold there's people. who love marketing people have. operations people who love sales people. and then there are engineer ceos. um. so that's one reason that i think it's. maybe a little bit less known why i'm. here. another another reason is that. i just became very passionate about this. idea of trying to have an impact on the. world and i think it again may have come. from that that introversion as a kid and. i felt like hey i have good ideas but. it's hard for me to get them out there.

and for people to listen to them and. i didn't feel confident like you know. speaking in some public setting or. whatever i have lots of practice doing. it now so i can i'm a well-trained. introvert but um. you know i saw technology as a way to. try to have a big impact on the world. and it could get my ideas out there in a. scalable way even if i felt like maybe i. couldn't and so i don't know maybe. that's another. un unlikely reason in hindsight then. going back to those early years as well. what was your. luck or privilege what were the factors.

that were out of your control that. happened to be the case that also aided. to that um trajectory yeah i mean there. was a lot of things that went right so i. was in a home with loving parents that. were very supportive of education and my. passions and interests including you. know my mother worked at ibm and so we. had like an early computer in our home. um she was kind of an early programmer. there you know we had early access to. internet things like that i also had you. know i graduated studied i studied.

computer science and economics and i had. um. enough. this was a very important thing i was. not afraid to go try starting companies. because i knew that if i failed i could. actually go back and still get a job. and it wasn't people always think of you. know entrepreneurs oh they're such risk. takers and all the stuff. you know. honestly it's not it's not that risky. like if you're a young person and. you. get a little bit of money to go start a. company like in in silicon valley people. write you angel checks for these things. and you can pay yourself a salary go try.

it for a couple years and it doesn't. work you go back to a company and you. it's often viewed as a badge of honor um. that you've tried to start up you have. this entrepreneurial dna you're somehow. more valuable inside a company now if it. doesn't work and you go back. in many places in the world that's not. the case you know failure of a company. is considered a badge a mark of shame. not a badge of honor. and then. i think many people don't have the. luxury of being able to kind of raise. these seed rounds and things like that. which many places in the world you can't. do that crypto is trying to help that by.

the way but in silicon valley you can. get angel checks for things and so. i tried starting many different things. over the years as kind of as side. projects but with coinbase specifically. i didn't really i didn't even quit my. job to try it full time until i had. gotten sort of an angel investment so. i was able to pay myself something it. wasn't a lot but i was able to pay. myself something and de-risk it um yeah. if i'd asked you then at say 10 years. old what you what you wanted to be when. you grew up what would you have told me. at 10 years old i mean i really. i really had no idea i think the first.

glimmer of it that i had was in high. school. and i i had started building some. websites and i remember as a senior in. high school i went on this retreat and. uh i had i do remember having this. thought like. the thing that has excited me the most. in my life so far was i had built this. kind of simple website or app and. it felt like it was this really. incredible feeling i went to sleep and i. woke up in the morning and i checked the. stats and like you know 200 people or. something had visited the website while. i was sleeping and i was like wow that. was so cool i don't know who these.

people are they're all over the world it. felt like a superpower like if i could. build something that could be. working and helping people while i was. sleeping. you know if not if not 200 people why. not 2 000 2 million whatever and so i do. remember having sort of a. it's stuck in my memory like that of all. the things i've tried in my life you. know sports and reading and science and. in school and whatever as a high. schooler that was the thing that really. got me excited in a way that nothing. else had at that point so i was probably. in the very early stages of discovering. my passion at that point.

just just listening to you speak there. my my brain was telling me that because. i was trying to make this link between. why being an introvert led you to. technology and then also having this. sort of desire to have impact but it. sounds like there technology allowed you. to be be an introvert and have impact. because it was the the bridge between. the the outside world yeah so when that. website goes live you don't have to see. these people or persuade them yeah but. you can have your impact by by a piece. of technology that's enabling something. in their lives exactly. you go off and study economics.

in university and yeah college yeah so i. had been taking some programming classes. um on the side in high school. i couldn't help it i i i like in my free. time. i would just play with computers until. like two in the morning three in the. morning i was like dead tired at school. every day because i was like wide awake. at night like playing with computers. learning about linux and like all these. things. and um. school was a little bit boring in some. ways. so.

yeah i basically decided okay if i'm in. this interested in computers my parents. were supportive of this of course there. was like community college classes and i. went to go try to take some of those. classes to learn programming there was i. got some books from the library about. like how to program java and things like. that and i couldn't i couldn't. understand any of it. but i was trying to. work my way through it so then when it. came time to go to college i was. basically like okay computer science. that seems like the closest thing to. what i'm interested in i was also. interested in business and they didn't. offer a business degree so i studied. economics instead that was like the. closest thing to a business degree they.

offered and. that was literally my my thinking now of. course i had no idea later i'd started. crypto company which was literally the. intersection of computer science and. economics but yeah at the time i just. thought i want to. i want to write software and i want to. learn how to start a business. and at some point during college you. start your first. i guess real company. yeah which is a tutoring business yeah. was that. did you have grand plans of turning that. into a a mega was that or did you. stumble into that.

more like stumbled into it yeah i mean. so. as a college student my roommates and i. were always trying to think about how to. make extra money and i went around and i. was looking at these on-campus jobs so. you could work at the library there was. like a coffee shop. and you know they paid like 10 15 an. hour or something like that. and one of the upper classmen. i remember he told me you know i'm. tutoring this high school kid and. they're paying me 60 an hour i was like. wow. 60 an hour is it just it was like three. or four x what you could make at these. other on-campus jobs.

so i decided to try doing it myself. i got in touch with some people i. started tutoring high school kids just. in like math and science and things like. that and it paid really well and so my. roommate and i at the time we were. starting to just brainstorm like why. don't we start a little tutoring company. and help high school kids and their. parents match with you know the you know. tutors at the basically university. students at the university where i was. going to school. and so we got that going we got maybe 10. 20 of our of our fellow students kind of. connected in. and then we said all right let's make a.

website for this to connect even more. people maybe try to expand it to other. schools. you know eventually. over a period of a couple years this. this idea just kept evolving and we. started to think about it as we didn't. really know this at the time but it was. we were kind of making an online. marketplace like airbnb for but but for. tutoring. and um yeah i got to practice like. building web applications um there was. payroll and incorporation and sales and. marketing and taxes and. um. it i could never really get it to grow.

enormous and to make it become like a. really big business which we can talk. about if you want but that was the seed. of it that later. became a little bit more of a company. why then why couldn't you make it become. a big business what was the. in hindsight the lesson yeah the barrier. okay so we learned this sort of the hard. way about creating a marketplace which. was that in this particular industry in. tutoring a lot of times uh you would. introduce a. student and a tutor. and they would sort of we our business.

we were trying to take like a 10 fee by. matching these people and we were. basically trying to do all the payments. through our website like billing and you. know. with a 10 fee and what would happen. often is they would meet the tutor if. and they'd do initially the first. payment but then afterwards they'd start. paying them under the table and so um. we were i realized at a certain point we. were basically just getting in the way. they they wanted us to just match them. but they didn't want us to be the whole. billing apparatus it was a much more. like a local. repeat business in-person business and. so for years and years i struggled with. that.

there was a counterintuitive moment. which allowed me to kind of pivot away. from that so i eventually realized this. thing isn't working i need to go get a. quote-unquote real job. and. as i was going to. start my the real job this was at um. basically airbnb where i became an early. employee. i was i was about to shut down the. tutoring site and i was like feeling a. lot of pain about that because like well. i don't know there are still like five. ten thousand people every month who are. kind of looking at this thing and using.

it it feels like such a pain to shut it. down. or such a bad thing so i was like what. if what if i were just to put everything. on autopilot you know we're not gonna be. involved in any of the payments there's. no customer support this is literally. just going to be a directory like a. tutoring directory and you can contact. these tutors you can pay them however. you want. um. and i'm just going to try to make it. like a free thing maybe i'll put up some. ads. and so i basically had like a week. before i was starting my my new job i. got rid of all the payments i messaged. all the people using it i was like you. can pay now people directly.

and um i was gonna put up some ads and i. did one more thing at the last hour. which is i said if you want to have like. a featured profile as a tutor. with like a little badge on a featured. badge and come up first in search. results then you can just pay 10 a month. and that was it and i basically. stopped looking at the website and i. went to go focus on my new job. and every year thereafter the site. doubled after i made that change. um and so basically i guess the lesson. was you know. stop trying to extract value and start.

trying to create more value and at that. point i think that was only the the only. tutoring directory online that had free. profiles and you could just contact the. tutors and so it actually started to. grow. later later uh um somebody ended up. acquiring it for maybe like two million. dollars or something so to me that was. like. it was like a seven or eight year. base hit the outcome yeah where for. years you know five six years i was. struggling to get anything to work but. the the truth is okay they paid two. million dollars for it yeah but the.

lessons you learn. uh many of those translate into the. business that you went on to build in. coinbase what is there anything else. because i look at my first startup that. i made out of you know dropping out of. university then started yeah and there's. so many lessons one of them is what you. said is i was i was so romantic about my. hypothesis about what this business. should be that i got in the way of what. customers wanted to do yeah so hearing. you say that really relates but is there. anything else that you learned from that. seven-year first. you know kind of messy startup that. of key philosophies for you today in.

coinbase. i mean i think one of the big. realizations i had in starting that. tutoring company which again you can you. can always look back and see how the the. pieces connect but at the time you're. just wandering in the desert you're lost. like i felt i felt like i was a failure. i felt like i had no idea what i even. wanted to do i didn't even know if i. wanted to be an entrepreneur it. basically wasn't working but looking. back with hindsight. one thing i realized was how broken. the global financial system was because. it was incredibly difficult to.

collect money from all these students. and pay these tutors. not only in the us but in various places. around the world and i remember um going. through this pro like incredibly onerous. process to like set up credit card. processing and then. payments that i was sending out and i. remember the bank called me one day and. they were like. you know are you an aggregator of funds. and i was like i don't even know what. that is and they were basically like. treating me like almost like i was a. criminal and what are your licenses to. do all this stuff and i was like this is. crazy it was the hardest one of the.

hardest things about that business was. just to get the payments like collecting. payments and distributing payments to. the tutors as a marketplace. and so that gave me sort of a real. insight later when i saw the bitcoin. white paper years later i was like. that system is broken um and this could. be an opportunity to fix it so that was. one thing what about airbnb so you went. and worked as a in the product team at. airbnb yeah yeah i was a technical. product manager which basically meant i. wrote some code and i tried to be a. product manager yeah um. yeah so i think i was the 40th employee. at airbnb and i basically.

moved back to silicon valley from i was. living in buenos aires argentina for a. year or so trying to figure out what i. wanted to do with my life okay i'm gonna. have to. talk about that sure yeah what did that. give you that experience of travel and. going to argentina and living there for. how many years. a little less than a year yeah what did. that give you. well it gave me a few things i mean one. was that i got to see what a. hyperinflation economy looked like you. know. a lot of people have only grown up grown. up in a developed country they've never.

experienced hyperinflation and they've. never felt firsthand what that. can really do for a population and. people. so i would it really deeply affects the. culture of places like argentina there's. just there's kind of this. deep distrust of. um the government and there's a. pessimism about about the future there's. kind of you know in countries that i. think are the most forward thinking. there's a sense of optimism about the. future hey we can build a better future. and there's you know in places like. argentina might you know people may. disagree my impression was that people. felt like.

the best days are behind us and. live every day like it's your last. because hey it could all disappear. tomorrow meaning your wealth and. everything which has happened many times. in their history. also just little things like you'd go to. the restaurant the next week and the. prices are higher and they put a sticker. on top of the menu because the prices. keep changing so so frequently it really. it really harms like the poorest people. in in society too because they they're. the ones holding their wealth in cash as. opposed to wealthy people can hold real. estate things that adjust for inflation. now they can hold bitcoin. um so anyway it gave me a front row seat.

into that. it probably gave me a little bit of a. sense of confidence too because i had. never. studied abroad or. really um. lived in a foreign country by myself. where i didn't really speak the language. very well so there was things like that. i think i was just trying to learn how. to become more independent and grow up. and stuff like that you were running the. tutoring business at this point yeah i. mean i was doing a lot of things so i. was running the tutoring business i was. um doing some contract software. development just kind of while traveling. i was. trying to build some real estate. investments.

in the in the us i i was basically. trying to figure what i want to do with. my life and there was a whole. process i went through to try to figure. that out if you're curious too. the digital nomad piece which is. becoming much more common these days. because we've had this pandemic and. we've kind of built systems which allow. us to work more remotely and but just. generally people were were choosing that. lifestyle when i did that when i was 21. in the gap between my startup failing. and then me pivoting into a new business. i found it quite lonely. and there was i remember being actually.

on a plane flying from one country to. another brazil to thailand or something. and seeing this. um i think it was textiles or something. like this. san francisco incubator or new. york-based incubate where they were. building companies and i was i was. living the dream in many people's eyes. in these hot countries with my laptop. but something inside me was like missing. yeah um community a sense of shared. mission whatever it is i wonder i wonder. if you. you can relate to that in any way or. totally i i found it actually quite. lonely as well so in in some ways that.

was the point which was to step outside. my comfort zone feel like i had to make. new friends in new city but yeah i mean. there was a good you know maybe. five six months there in buenos aires. where i felt like i didn't really know. that many people. um i was feeling kind of homesick yeah. eventually i tried to you know go meet. some local people like expats like. various. hostels and like you know event by the. time i left i felt like i had a budding. friend group and i liked it more but it. was lonely there for a while.

you said you used that time to figure. out what you wanted to do with your life. as if there's some kind of system there. yeah i don't know if there's a perfect. system but i mean i read this book by. seth godin called the dip. yeah i don't know if you've read it but. and it's funny i went back to read it. like. many years later and it's actually a. relatively simple book but in that. moment in that time that's what i needed. to hear and it's kind of a very fairly. simple idea um which is that you know. what's the thing that you would still. want to be doing 10 years from now even.

if you hadn't seen a lot of success. because most things in life you know you. start off you're a beginner you have a. fast pace of learning it's kind of fun. but then after you after you're a. beginner there's this dip in the middle. where you're not an expert you're not. one of the best people in the world. you're probably not making money from it. but you're not a beginner anymore and. there's like this long slog to go. through the middle you know put in your. 10 000 hours there's lots of various. people have talked about this. so. i was doing a variety of things at that. time i was i was as i mentioned running. that tutoring company doing some real. estate investing i was like learning.

martial arts and like all the various. things traveling in argentina. and i and i basically sat down one day i. was like what's this what is the thing. that i 10 years from now i'm still going. to want to do this and be passionate. about it. and even if i'm not successful at it you. know because i just love doing it. and like the only thing i could like. really write on my list was tech. entrepreneurship. and so par part of the point of that. book is. if if you're not willing to go through. the dip then then quit now because it's.

you know and so i was like do i really. want to be like. doing. you know great real estate investments. 10 years from i was like i don't. actually love real estate investing. so maybe i should have stopped doing. that maybe i should stop doing this and. maybe so it was this very clarifying. moment okay if i want to be a tech. entrepreneur because i had been doing. that in some way shape or form for you. know five ten years i was pretty sure. i'd be wanting to do it ten years from. now. i was like why do i live in buenos aires. i should go to where the. the center of tech entrepreneurship of. silicon valley you know that's happening. all over the world now silicon valley is.

kind of decentralized but at that time. especially. so i kind of stopped doing everything. else. moved to silicon valley and. went all in on that and then. i think within maybe seven years of. making that decision um coinbase was. valued at a billion dollars crazy so it. did really help clarify my. ambitions and i just put it all into one. thing that is atypical. pointless yeah there's going to be. entrepreneurs in bruenesaras listening. to this that are bringing flights to san.

francisco but it could it could be any. like if you really want to be an actor. you should probably go to hollywood or. something or if you really want to be in. finance maybe go to london new york or. anyway i think. it's not so i don't want to say like. there's one geography for everything but. um. there is a clarifying thing what happens. if you just say this is what is the most. important thing to me and i'm just gonna. try to make. luck my own luck around that. it's so true it's something that i don't. think especially young people think. about when they're deciding making. career choices they.

where to live is sometimes not um as. prioritized as much as like which. university has the best partying or. who's offering me a job right now as. opposed to that long-term horizon of. like how do i surround myself with the. most talent and opportunity and funding. in the case of business um and. inspiration and enablers um for this. long-term vision i have and i spent some. time in san francisco myself about three. years and when i come back to the uk and. when i go to other cities in the uk i. i've never said this before but i see. how much of a disadvantage we have.

in philosophy in ambition in funding in. talent. and um. it's no surprise that most of the great. unicorns that are emerging out of one. city and. in the world that then leads you to. airbnb somehow. through i think you take a job first. then eventually take a job at airbnb. yes exactly yeah i joined a y commenter. startup that was really cool but it. didn't really work out there was a brief. interlude there but. basically i i decided okay my tutoring. company is not really working i need to.

and that's that's when i pivoted to that. thing which had a base hit but what i. decided all right i want to go to i want. you to go to silicon valley. i kind of want to apply to y combinator. it's a startup incubator. um. but i wasn't able to get in and so i was. like let me go work at a y combinator. company to sort of learn. and i need it by the way i also just. needed to recharge a little bit because. the tutoring company i've been living. abroad the shooting company wasn't. working i was. barely paying myself anything so i was. kind of broke. i was i was also just exhausted um.

from the the tutoring company just not. working after so many years of trying to. get it to work. um and you know it hadn't seen it double. every year after that that happened on. the side um and so i was like great let. me take a job at a high growth company. that seems to be well run actually make. some money for a little bit here save. some money. and that's how i got to airbnb it just. it had a really. magnetic culture even at 40 people they. had they were clearly onto something it. had they had found product market fit it. was growing quickly. um and i learned a lot there they had a.

really unique culture. um they they were hiring differently. they were really like trying to raise. the bar with every hire you know if it's. not a hell yes it's a no they were um. the way that they just did product. reviews was really interesting they had. an important design component to it. if you think about now. why airbnb. won in their market from what you got to. see inside their walls what would you. say so you've talked about their hiring. philosophy which is. very very clear yeah but what else would. you say.

well the main thing and i think that by. the way this is true of not just airbnb. a lot of startups was determination. um. they went through a period everybody. always looks back to these startups and. they think oh it was a unicorn like it. just they found the thing and it worked. airbnb is actually somewhat typical in. this regard which was there was i think. at least um. i think like a three-year period where. they were just wandering in the desert. any reasonable person would have stopped. working on this idea it was it was a. crazy idea like it was like couchsurfing. you're gonna let strangers stay on my. couch like.

that's not a business it's like just. ripe for lawsuits and you know. um. and they were in like tons of credit. card debt because they had like been. trying to sell fund it you know they had. launched several times and nobody was. using it um. yeah they should have quit like any. reasonable person would have quit. um but they didn't they kept going and. they were just because getting. marketplaces off the ground is very hard. you have to check an egg problem supply. and demand and so i actually think. that's a common element um in a lot of.

like successful companies you go back. there there was a period where a normal. person just would have quit and they. they went from setback to setback to. setback with enthusiasm you know somehow. powering through it so. i learned that too i hear a lot of um. entrepreneurs who have your same. enthusiasm to be an entrepreneur. the enthusiasm you've expressed there. when you leave um argentina and you come. back you just want to be an entrepreneur. you don't necessarily know what or. industry what problem you want to solve. and what what always makes me feel a. little bit concerned is when an.

entrepreneur is so keen to be an. entrepreneur that they'll just try and. think of an idea. you took a time to go and get inspired i. guess and to let the inspiration come to. you what's your view on that there'll be. people listening to this now that want. to be an entrepreneur but they don't. have an idea yeah. okay well i mean i i was probably guilty. of that too where there was definitely a. period in my life where i was like um i. just want to be an entrepreneur and i. don't know honestly it was probably. partly ego driven it was partly. um my own like introvert way of saying.

like i just want to be able to have an. impact i wanted to feel like i had done. something valuable because i didn't feel. like valuable as a human myself like you. get into all the psychology of it right. it's kind of a crazy thing actually to. go. say like i have to be an entrepreneur. because. you know from an if you just want to. make money or something like it's from. an expected value outcome it's probably. better just to like go to some early. stage companies invest some equity and. like or join goldman sachs or something. right like so to be. truly want to be an entrepreneur i guess. you have to be. well sometimes it's ego driven but i.

think it's your your chances of success. go up dramatically if you're doing. something because you're actually super. passionate about it and so for me. reading the bitcoin white paper was kind. of a lucky moment because. i found it tapped into something that i. was really passionate about which was. basically freedom you know um economic. freedom and just like how do we empower. people all over the world to you know. have access to sound money and um. like a decentralized open permit system. where anybody can get access to the.

global financial system that really just. like resonated with me and so. i think that really helped coinbase be. successful because there were many times. in our history as a company where you. know like 20. 2015 2016 like the whole industry was. down for three years everybody was. pivoting to do blockchain not bitcoin if. you remember that. every like a lot of the competitors in. space pivoted to make software for banks. and stuff. and everybody looks back at that and. like wow you know brian you never lost. faith and everything. for me it was more it was simple than.

that i was just like well i don't really. want to make software for banks so like. if that's what this is all about now i'd. pretty much just gonna shut it down and. give the money back uh to investors um. so i was just too stubborn i was like i. i got into this because i feel like this. is the way to create more freedom in the. world so that's what i'm going to keep. doing. whether it works or not so i think there. is a really important element there you. have to be. super into it for some reason that's. bigger than just ego or trying to make. money or whatever because. every company is just filled with. setback after setback or setback and you.

think you can power through it. but. believe me when you're like three years. in and like your co-founder quit and you. you got sued and you're broke and like. um. the first three times you launch the. product nobody wants to use it and like. everything sucks and you're feeling like. a failure and you're you know. you're just gonna give up because you're. not actually doing it for like some. bigger purpose you're doing it because. you wanted to feel important or. something so it actually is important to. pick the thing that you're passionate. about yeah you're doing it because you.

want to feel important or something. we're talking about um how. part of this sort of introverts dilemma. is you can feel significant personal. significance by creating something that. has significance in the world. zooming right to the end of the story. has has that impact you've had on the. world made you feel more personally. significant. yeah totally okay so i think this is a. really important topic because a lot of. founder it's stressful to run a company. right. so a lot of founders if they do get to. some level of success they will often. burn out right. um.

it shows up in weird ways by the way. some people gain a ton of weight some. people lose a lot of weight some people. deal with stress in all kinds of ways. i've there's like founders i've met that. get. like addicted to prescription drugs or. like. you know all kinds of unhealthy things. you can imagine right. so. um i mean you have to. find a way to shift from like if the. thing that got you started in the first. place was like fear like fear of never. being important or fear of never feeling. fulfilled you have to at some point. transition it.

once that hole is filled in your heart i. guess you have to transition to being. motivated out of like joy or love or. something more positive not like running. away from fear and anger or you're like. you're really angry at this. you know your father or like the person. who um you know broke. like the co-founder who you almost was. going to found with who decided they. didn't want to and you're pissed at them. so you're trying to show them up or. whatever. those aren't relevant to me but i've. heard other examples. anyway long way of saying you have to.

transition away from fear and anger as. your motivator to like joy and love and. just find the thing you actually love. doing in life so for me you know that. was like. figuring out what is the kind of ceo. role that i really want to have um. what's the thing that brings me joy for. me it's like i love building things with. with technology i love learning new. things um. there are some parts of the ceo job the. typical ceo job which. you know lower my energy they don't give. me as much energy right there's like you. know frankly like people i'm not the.

best people manager in the world right. like um i used to have like 12 direct. reports um at the company and i was like. so stressed and then. now you know now i have like four right. and it's like it's actually much easier. for me to run the company with that so. um. there was a lot of things ideas that i. had in my head i was like well the ceo. has to do that obviously the ceo has to. do that and i sort of let go of some of. those things over time and i said you. know what i'm actually going to focus on. the things that i'm better at because. they bring me joy. and i'm going to delegate a lot of the. stuff which i thought i had to do.

and that's actually made the company run. a lot better and it's kept me engaged in. the job like i'm been doing it 10 years. and i hope i can do it another 10 it's. and it's still fun because i've been. able to delegate. why do you have to make that transition. away from fear and maybe insecurity. being the motivator towards it being. about joy and love what what's the cost. if you don't. well i think if you don't then once you. hit some kind of level of success. whatever however people count that. then you're not going to feel motivated. anymore and so you're just you're going.

to be done. and uh. you know you're going to go. do whatever else you're going to do next. like i guess become an investor or sit. on the board which is nothing wrong with. that either but i just i d part of me. does wish that more founders were able. to continue being founders and build the. next thing and the next thing. um. i mean. we just met each other barely know each. other but i'm guessing that you're. finding a lot of fulfillment out of like. running this podcast and you sort of. you've you've found some. new level of joy in doing that.

so this is like your next founding. moment but. yeah i i think. if you don't do it then you're just. going to burn out it and a lot of people. i think who had some level of success as. a founder they look back on it and they. like well. man i finally got that thing to some. level of success and i sold the company. or whatever. but. i never want to do that again like. because that it damn near killed me and. i was so stressed all the time and so. i've tried to make it i need to get it. to a place where it's fun to run the. company so that i can keep building. companies for many many decades. hopefully that's my goal you're.

describing me when you say that so yeah. the company for seven years but it felt. like i was doing it um involved it. wasn't it wasn't voluntary meaningful. struggle it was i can't let this thing. go down yeah it's not i'm not enjoying. it anymore but i can't stop and then at. the point where i realized i could stop. i did immediately in hindsight the way. around that would be to. do a bunch of things involving the you. know how the company's structured and. who owns it who has control and all. those things but really trying to build. a sustainable as you describe it like a. sustainable life for me as a founder and.

for my team members yeah. and that. often in silicon valley when especially. when you're in high growth companies. sustainability in terms of culture is. the last thing. how have you done that then how have you. tried to make it sustainable you've. talked about yourself but how have you. how do you create a sustainable company. one that's built for 50 years or 100. well okay so there's a lot of different. elements to that i mean one of them is. just the burnout factor with people. let's talk about that first. um and then i'll come to like repeatable. innovation um. so from a burnout point of view i mean a.

few things that i do for instance um. because obviously there's days where you. have to like go hard and sprint and then. um. but for instance like every quarter i. take a week off right i just have that. prescheduled for the year because if you. just kind of wait there's never a good. time to do it. um. we actually tried an experiment this. year where we're having we call them. recharge weeks everybody in the company. is like taking a week off every quarter. and they're doing it at the same time. because. sometimes if you're off you're the only. one who's taking a week off and then. people are pinging you the whole time. and whatever i don't know if we'll keep.

doing it or not it's an experiment but. by taking a week off every quarter it. allows me to kind of. make sure that i recharge i have time to. go. um learn new things and it often like. sometimes you know i'm thinking about. the business in some way shape or form. but it's like. yeah that's helped make it sustainable. other things i've done i've had um a lot. of executive coaches different executive. coaches i have one now you know it's. there's different kinds of executive. coaches some of them are very tactical. with their advice like they're former. ceos others are basically therapists. and like you know both are good and.

important versions to have um. when i first heard that i was like oh i. don't want the therapist i want like the. tactical ceo coach but you know i've. found the therapist part's almost even. more valuable um let's see what else i. mean. like i have um i have this kind of like. morning routine where like i've noticed. that my days go i'm a lot more stressed. if i just like wake up i look at my. phone you know i haven't really like. had any breakfast or exercise or. anything and like you know i'm like low. blood sugar i just everything's pissing.

me off i'm like irritable. um and so that's just a bad way to wake. up since now when i wake up i basically. don't look at my phone you know i try to. like. do the morning routine you know exercise. like. eat some breakfast meditate whatever and. then okay now i'll start my day and like. try to that all these kind of things. help. and i think this is important for the. whole company to some degree because a. lot of new employees especially. like new grads or younger folks like. they they actually don't know about. burnout they'll they'll actually you can.

have unlimited vacation policy and tell. people at the all hands meetings. whatever like. don't wait until it's too late you know. take time off but they won't do it like. sometimes i've seen especially high. achieving people they push himself like. too hard. and they'll actually quit and i'm like. why are you quitting and like i'm burned. out and i was like why didn't you take. any vacation the last two years and. they're like. i don't know and they they didn't feel. like they had permission because. everything was so important and so. we're almost like trying to force people. to take a little bit of time off here. and there but. we still have a pretty intense work.

environment at coinbase i'm trying to. like. you know amp it up like we we should we. should be going hard but then take. periods of rest and renewal and take. rest like renewal very seriously it's. actually an important skill to learn. so okay so that's kind of how to like. you know go hard for the long term but. don't burn out. um. then i think companies also need to have. repeatable innovation so what that to me. what that means is you can't just be. have like one product. that finally works and then you scale it.

and it kind of the s-curve tapers off. and then what do you do i think. companies need to continually have like. a next act you know and a port ideally. like a portfolio of products or. different revenue lines um so that while. something is going down another thing is. going up and. we we do this thing in coinbase called. 70 2010 resource allocation so like 70. of our resources go to the core business. today that's making most of the money. and it's at scale 20 of our resources go. towards these adjacent bets that are. like an extension of the core and 10 go.

to these venture bets which are. basically like kind of crazy ideas that. have a higher chance of failure but it's. so even in up markets down markets we're. putting 10 percent of our resources. towards. crazy. you know potentially big things that. could work they don't and some of them. don't and that's allowed us to build. this portfolio of products and i think. that's important for the long-term. sustainability of companies because it. always maintains this um. this startup culture this founder. mindset of like. it you know it's it's always day one you.

know. never let us become complacent try to. disrupt ourselves before somebody else. does and just keep building the next. thing the next thing the next thing like. that's that's what keeps a company. exciting that's how you extend the. founding moment right like like. zuckerberg is trying to do that now with. with the metaverse instead of just being. a social media company and so. if a company doesn't have like those. continually stretch and try to build the. next thing i think. it just becomes a little more complacent. and like good people eventually leave. and stuff like that every company wants.

that at least they say they do yeah but. then they they set up incentive. structures and policies that actually. act as a deterrent for innovation they. disincentivize people to innovate yeah. so a question i get asked a lot when i'm. on stage is you know you've ran an. innovative company in an in an industry. like social media which is changing all. the time and the tricks and tips and. algorithms are adjusting how do you get. your teams to and how do you align. incentives and how do you really make. that philosophy and culture real where. people are actually incentivized to take.

risks and to do those those 10. bets that might end up being the the. next aws or the next you know. kindle or whatever in the case of amazon. yeah you're right so i think that it's a. the natural tendency of most orgs is to. not allow that and so you have to. actually fight against it as a founder. or ceo if you have somebody within the. org who is kind of entrepreneurial. and they try something new. and it doesn't work. you know.

you have to make sure that that's not. like a black mark on their their career. advancement right there's a difference. between. they had good execution towards the. wrong idea or they had the right idea. but bad execution right if um. like i think uh. you know amazon amazon example right is. like. they tried to launch their own phone at. amazon right near the fire phone and it. was this big failure but my. understanding internally was like. they basically pushed.

it was the wrong idea but they had good. execution and so they didn't they didn't. like fire that team because the amazon. phone. failed they said okay the execution was. good you shipped a phone in a pretty. small amount of time. it was toward the wrong idea. let's what next and that i think my. understanding is that team actually. became the kindle team which then was a. very successful product. so um. it's a tolerance for failure recognize. good execution even toward the wrong. idea. um. you know i think some of this has to. come from the founder i don't know i.

don't know if there's any other way like. the problem is um. if you look at public companies that. have that are founder-led they actually. like outperform the the rest of the s p. 500 and one theory for why that is is. that. this like the scarcest thing inside big. companies is actually risk tolerance. um and so founders can kind of provide. that now you can. you if you can go too far with this. right you we know of founders who have. too much risk tolerance and have kind of.

blown the place up right we work yeah. exactly. and then we also know of companies that. had you know like not enough risk. tolerance they had a professional ceo. come in. you know i don't want to criticize. anybody but like like. steve ballmer or someone would be a. classic example i'm sure he's a smart. guy right but something happened there. where they didn't have the risk. tolerance. so. i kind of view my job as like a founder. ceo at this point is to ensure we have. um enough risk tolerance to try new. ideas and then i and then i also want to.

pair myself with. great operators like like emily choi our. ceo and president right and we have a. really amazing executive team so. it's the combination of like great. operator but also great founder energy. which i think is a nice combination that. creates. good outcomes if you do if you're too. heavy on one or the other sometimes it. doesn't work as well. there's something a lot of you don't. know about me last year i co-founded a. company called third web and most of my. available time right now is spent. building third web so.

what is third web third web makes it. really really easy to build web through. applications and today's guest is one of. the most famous ceos and founders in. web3 and we actually have a really. strong relationship with his company. coinbase so it felt somewhat fitting to. introduce third web to you in this. episode just for a couple of seconds. since we launched third web the growth. has been insane the world's biggest. brands sports teams creators gaming. studios and hundreds of funded web3. startups have all used third web to.

power everything that they want to do in. web 3. nft drops packs dowels you name. it third web powers it in the last two. months alone the number of active. projects using third web tools has. doubled despite the bear market so if. you're an entrepreneur if you're a brand. owner if you're a web 3 developer or. just someone that's interested in web 3. which is in my opinion the next major. technological shift that will impact all. of our lives kind of like social media. and web 2 did then you can start. building that future today using third.

web check out thirdweb.com for more the. link is in the description below. let's get back to the episode. you read this um the white paper. satoshi's famous bitcoin white paper. pivotal moment for you sparks interest. and intrigue while you're at um airbnb. you do something which a lot of people. ask me about as well which is when. you're in a job and you have a spark of. inspiration how do you do both you've. got to pay the bills on one end but then. you want to pursue this idea how did you. do both because you stayed at airbnb. while you started developing yeah what.

became coinbase. yeah so basically i did it on nights and. weekends people didn't like that answer. yeah it sounds toxic it required a lot. of energy i mean i basically so. so first of all you need to make sure. that if you are currently employed like. don't build it you know on company hours. and don't build it on the company laptop. there's a lot of um. ip litigation that has ended you know. for some people has ended badly because. the company actually owns it typically. at least in the us i don't know what the. rules are in other countries.

um if you build it on employ on company. time on the company hardware the company. probably owns the ip. so you need to make sure you're doing it. on your own computer not during hours so. anyway i i would often work till like 7. p.m or something like that i'd come home. eat dinner or something like that and. then i would work from like 8 p.m to. midnight. um i would do that maybe three or four. days a week on weekdays and then on the. weekend i'd work. maybe like sunday afternoon for like. seven or eight hours so i was i was. probably doing like 20 hours a week or.

something like that on. what would eventually become coinbase in. my personal time and it was hard it. sucked i mean i was like tired after a. full day of work it's like 7 p.m but. this is where that some of that. determination comes in right and i was. like. okay well my co-workers like going out. drinking or whatever and. nothing wrong with that i did a lot. plenty of that but like in my time at. that moment in that time i was i was you. know my late 20s i was like i really. want to try to build something important. in the world like i'm going to have to. take. like.

my own. determination and turn that into this. fuel to go try to build this thing so. i probably did that for like a year year. and a half to try to build the prototype. of what would become coinbase. um and then i applied to y combinator. they they eventually accepted me and. wrote me the initial seed check that's. what gave me the confidence to quit my. job and go full time on it how did you. maintain friendships and those kind of. meaningful personal relationships at. that in that time when you're working. full-time during the day and then coming. home and writing. code. where's the.

you know where's the time for. friends and girlfriends and yeah. i was pretty intense about it i i would. say i sacrificed uh. friendships for it i mean it's not like. i wasn't like you know um. just like never responding to people but. people would ping me like hey can you. come out and this thing and i was like. actually i remember it's a funny memory. one time this guy who i really like um. from work he was he's like come out to. this thing we're going to this club or. something. and i think i literally wrote back to.

him. i'm changing the world one line of code. at a time. can't hang out he's like rock on i love. it. um. so you know i was joking or whatever. with my mom yeah. so. you know i think i've seen this happen. to various people like they they get to. a certain point in their life and like. god damn it i'm gonna [ __ ] can i swear. on this program of course you can okay. so anyway there's a there comes a time. i've seen this happen to various people. in their life it's something triggers it. sometimes it's like.

it's an age thing they're like turning a. certain age where they always thought. they would have more done by then or. they. you know a certain maybe someone in. their family passes away and they're. like oh my god like time is finite it's. precious. and something happens where they're like. i'm not gonna [ __ ] around anymore like. i'm gonna get this done. no matter the cost and they just start. really buckling down they find this. source of energy and so. you know. find whatever that is for for you like. the listener out there and um. and then go hard at it you know finish.

your book like launch your. launcher thing whatever it is the app. the startup just just start doing stuff. like and even if you don't even know. what to do just do anything because you. know action will produce information. um. i i actually so that you just reminded. me there was a precursor to the coinbase. which was um this app that i built with. my friend uh which we were trying to. figure out how bitcoin worked and we. built that and the minute we shipped it. i was like it's built wrong. and i knew the architecture was wrong. and then i knew what to do next and so. oftentimes you don't even know what to.

do just do anything and you'll find. it'll help you get to the right thing. action leads to information yeah action. produces information. never heard that before i i i stole that. from uh paul graham i think who started. white commentators yeah it's so true and. i will steal that from you so again can. you hear that in the future without. credit then you know where it's come. from at that time what were you trying. to build you'd read that white paper you. launched that first step then after that. first app you launched what were you. trying to build what was the vision. yeah so this was 2000 um i guess it was.

like 2010 time frame and you howled i. guess i was like 29 yeah something like. that. um. so what i was trying to do i had read. the bitcoin white paper and i was like. okay this is a decentralized protocol. for money or something. and my. thought in my head at that time was well. there's been other decentralized. protocols like email is a decentralized. protocol. you know git is a tool that developers. used for version control and so for. email people didn't really run their own. email servers they'd use a hosted email.

service like gmail or forget they'd use. a hosted service like github right so my. thought was okay here's a new. decentralized protocol people are going. to need like a github or a gmail type. thing that does all the security in the. backups for you and it works on mobile. and the web and i was like someone's. going to build a company doing that. would be kind of a hard company to run. because you're going to be storing all. this bitcoin people are going to want to. hack it and like that's not like a. weekend project that's like a really. serious. responsibility. and i was. had that idea in the back of my head and.

somehow i couldn't get it out of my head. and so i just sort of like started. tinkering with. i i wasn't even really just. saying i was going to build a company. yet i was more like um. i don't know let me just try building a. prototype of this to see what if again. action produces information. and so. that was the original idea it was it was. like a hosted bitcoin wallet instead of. like running your own one on your on. your own computer with a node and. everything was just complicated at the. time and when you told people this idea. what was their reaction because you. would have had to tell a lot of people. that you were building this. thing with this thing called bitcoin on.

a. other thing which they wouldn't have. understood either yeah so people didn't. get it at all i talked to some of my. smartest friends. about it. and they were like i don't really get. this bitcoin thing it sounds like a scam. honestly right so that they didn't that. was not reassuring. um and then i went to a couple bitcoin. meetups people who were really into. bitcoin and i was like yeah i'm building. like a hosted bitcoin well like gmail. for email but. and i remember one of these people was. like that's a terrible idea because. um you know all the people try to do. that they get hacked and they lose they.

lose all the customer funds and so like. that's you should never do that right so. i didn't get a lot of positive feedback. everybody i talked to actually thought. that audio was a bad idea. um even when i was i had gone through y. combinator i was trying to raise money. um. you know i would say like for every. 10 meetings i did with investors i got. nine no's and one kind of. i guess like small yes.

so. and that's always tough like fundraising. is always tough but you know if you go. to these people who you believe are like. really smart people. and 90 of them are telling you no. that's like that's like the best case. scenario in my experience um. you know the the worst case scenario is. 100 of them tell you no so but either. way it's like 90 90 of people telling. you you have to be really. kind of willing to um not get. discouraged by that. you had a co-founder for a couple of. weeks during that y combinator process. right yeah.

i heard that you um. in in applying for y combinator you. wanted to have a co-founder you met. someone quickly and then it didn't last. more than like four weeks or something. yeah exactly um yeah so i was looking. for a co-founder at that time and um. ben reeves had created this really good. app called blockchain.info at the time. now it's blockchain.com but. um. so i reached out to him we didn't really. know each other that well we ended up. applying to white combinator and uh. sort of did this like shotgun wedding. thing but it didn't it didn't work out. and it was like.

we were about to start the program and. um. we basically decided to part ways so. it's funny in an alternate universe. um. blockchain.com and coinbase would have. been the same company but anyway. it all obviously worked out well for. both of us. did you have self-doubt at that point. for sure oh man i was filled with. self-doubt yeah. i. i thought. that first of all i thought maybe i was. crazy because all my friends who i. talked about this idea thought it was.

a bad idea. um the thing that gave me a glimmer of. hope was that y combinator decided to. give me this 150k seed check and i. really respected y combinator um so that. gave me a big shot of confidence but. you know before that it was like. it was very touch and go i mean i i was. like well my co-founder thing didn't. work out um. i don't know like i'm just going to try. my best here but like this i was like. this has like a pretty high chance of. failure what did your parents think.

um okay so my parents have always have. people who worked at like big companies. like their whole life and um. i don't know if they ever really got the. whole entrepreneurship thing that i was. so into. the. when i called to tell them that i was. quitting airbnb to go start this company. there was kind of like okay well. we we support you we love you like. are you gonna have any health insurance. that's what my mom asked i think. um. and so i think there was. they were kind of afraid that i was.

doing something really stupid and. reckless. is my guess. but. they ultimately trusted me and supported. it probably probably with a lot of. doubts. is my guess on that point of co-founders. yeah um i read that you eventually sort. of interviewed 50 odd co-founders to try. and find the right one for what would. become coinbase. what were you looking for. and what was in hindsight what advice. would you give me because that's another. question i get asked a lot is how did. you find a co-founder and yeah. so yeah i was looking for a co-founder. at that time desperately and i was i'd.

go on these like co-founders dates you. know we'd meet somebody see how it goes. they'd pitch you your their startup idea. i'd tell them about mine and maybe go on. a second date or third date so. none of these seem to like really click. and i guess i was looking for someone to. get really excited about my idea. um but also somebody who i felt was. really complementary to me in terms of. like um it pushed me to think bigger and. stuff like that i hadn't thought about. before and you know i wanted to leave. feeling energized and that i'd learned. something. and they were good compliment.

and so. i got kind of disillusioned because a. number of these went on and on and on. and i could i couldn't find anybody like. that i really liked to join this thing. so eventually i just got fed up. and i was like all right you know what. i'm just gonna do this thing on my own. and like. and get it off the ground. and. lo and behold once i started to show. some signs of progress you know like. getting through y combinator raising a. seed check getting the product i put the. prototype out there on like reddit and. the right person reached out to me. and so anyway i tell people that story.

because i think it's an important lesson. which is basically. if you don't have the right co-founder. just keep making progress and signs of. success may cause the right person to. find you it needs to be public signs of. success it's almost like putting out the. bat signal. like um if you have like half of an idea. you can't just like. be talking to your friends about it you. got to put it out on a blog post or like. a prototype or get something out there. in the world on twitter or whatever. because then the other person might be. out there and they won't know to find.

you and reach out unless you put out the. bat signal so. that's also really good dating advice. it's like you said if you don't have a. co-founder just keep making progress and. putting it out there. i guess it's true like in terms of. people fitness and you know health and. development fine figure out yourself. yeah exactly yeah and you become a. magnet as opposed to having to be a. peacock. that's true so. and that's much more valuable when i. think about your first tutoring company. there was that pivotal moment where you. removed the payment and just kind of got. out the way and that was pivotal to the. company exploding yeah when you think.

about those early years what what was. the significant step that unlocked the. the growth in your view. yeah so there was a significant moment. like that with coinbase too because. oftentimes by the way. the first version of a product you put. out it doesn't work in fact that's the. only thing i've ever seen happen in. startups i've never i've never seen a. startup there the very first version of. their product actually worked sometimes. in hindsight people like to tell that. story but. i think in reality it's very rare. so for us or for really it was just me.

initially then that was fred ursum and i. co-founding it um. the first version was this hosted. bitcoin wallet and so we had i i posted. on reddit some people would sign up but. nobody would stick around and use the. product. so in y commentary they teach you this. great thing which is. don't spend your time you know like. going to conferences and like trying to. raise money it's like if you don't have. product market fit yet. talk to your customers and then improve. the product based on their feedback and. then talk to your customers and improve. the product talk to customers improve. the product there's really only two. things you should be doing in the early. stage talking to your customers and.

improving the product sounds like simple. advice but people spend so much time. doing other stuff. that's actually not real work so. taking this advice. i emailed you know. 10 of the people or so who had signed up. for the product and never come back. and i said hey i created this app like. i'd love to get on the phone with you. and just talk to you about it for a. minute so i remember i got on the phone. with some of these people. and one of them one of them was like. you know what do you think about the app. he's like well i kind of i kind of like. it but i don't have any bitcoin so i. just didn't come back and i remember. thinking.

well if there had been. an easy way to get bitcoin into your. wallet like a buy button or something. like would you have stuck around and. used it he's like yeah probably. and so i was like okay let me go try to. make a simple buy button so when people. sign up they can actually get some. bitcoin into their wallet and it turned. out that was a very hard thing to do you. had to get these bank partnerships i had. to figure out money transmission. licenses and i won't bore you with all. the details there was a lot of. you know. making things work somehow behind the. scenes. but the minute that we that we launched.

at that time i think frederson had just. joined we launched that um that buy. button. it started to grow every day organically. with no marketing or anything and that. was the minute i felt like we finally. had private market fit. over the next let's say five so that's. 2012 roughly 2012. over the next five. years up until the point where fred. departs that growth is. pretty crazy right for coinbase. yeah i mean it started growing. organically um. and. we had a very good problem at that point.

which was that um we were basically. every time someone clicked the buy. button we had to use our own capital to. acquire the bitcoin at that right at. that price so we didn't have some. exposure to it going up or down and then. we would initiate a debit to their bank. account and two or three business days. later we'd get the funds so we had. basically had a working capital issue. like we were using our own corporate. funds to buy the crypto and then getting. their money the payment from the. customer. and the numbers started to go up and up. and up and um i think it raised like. 600k at that time and we were using like.

550k to service the day-to-day buying on. the site. and so. we realized quite quickly we're like. okay we need to go out and raise money. and that was a good a good a good story. to raise money was hey this thing is. growing so fast that. we we're going to be turning away. business if we don't raise money that's. a good story to go raise money as. opposed to you know the numbers are kind. of flat we haven't really got it working. yet so i think it was very important. that we we found product market fit only. when we couldn't scale then we went out.

to raise capital what mistakes did you. make as a company in those first five. years that you in hindsight go damn. that's a that's a key learning. yes i think if i were to go back and do. it again there's a few things i might. have. done that would have helped it be more. get to get there even more efficiently i. mean. one is that we actually never wrote down. like the mission of the company or the. value of the company early on. and we were doing it all organically we. were basically just hiring interviewing. every single person who would join and. we managed to create this really. interesting culture but it was a little. bit.

it wasn't very deliberate it was just it. happened kind of accidentally because we. were just choosing the people that we. wanted to work with and we really. surprised us and we're really bright. in those high growth moments there's so. things keep breaking yeah and processors. actually need to adopt when you get as. you'll know from when you go from a. couple of people to them 50 to 100 to. them so just thinking if there's any. advice you have for me someone i've. grown a business but not in not in such. a a high growth way and not in such an. interesting um. uncharted industry.

um. eventually your co-founder fred departs. what was that like emotionally because i. can't imagine the thought of my. co-founder parting in e5 it would almost. make me feel honestly it would have made. me feel like. they were part of the reason i was doing. this yeah you know that bond and that. we're in this together so how did that. feel emotionally. i mean it was awful um. i cried. you know um. so. yeah so i think. here's the whole story so i think really.

fred um president was an amazing. co-founder and we were building all this. great stuff together he's really a. natural leader right and so. um i was the ceo of the company but. there was times where you know i i think. he felt like he was being held back he. really kind of wanted to run his own. thing at a certain point and we were. almost kind of like running it jointly. at various places and at various times. and so i tried my best to like keep him. engaged and i was like all right why. don't you go do all the external facing. stuff and what's the thing that would. really excite you like you know.

he did a lot of the fundraising like he. was really representing the company in. the way you know the the titles didn't. matter. um. but ultimately i think he really did. want to run his own thing and so he was. very clear with me he we talked about it. basically over the period of like a year. or so um. with an exec coach and all this and. one of the things that i think i'm most. proud of is that he and i are still like. really good friends probably best. friends to this day. um whereas a lot of co-founders when. someone does leave there's a blow up and. it's like i think we both realized at a.

certain point it was like actually the. more important thing to preserve here is. the friendship and so. he was great about it he was like i want. to make sure the company's in a good. place it doesn't need to happen any. there's nothing soon here happening but. i do eventually want to transition so. over a period of a year we talked about. it and then when he finally told me he. was ready i cried. um. it did feel like you know it was losing. kind of half the company the the s. founding moment of it and i remember so. then we had to go in front of the. company and tell deliver the news. oh man so.

um. we talked to the board and everything. like that too first but we went i. remember the day we had to go. tell the company. and you know. i i wasn't normally i wasn't getting. nervous talking to the company like you. know first company's two people and then. it's five then it's 10 and then it's 50. then it's 100 200 so you sort of get to. build up your tolerance and like okay i. could go talk to the company of 150. people or something. but this time i had to go up there and. tell them the co-founder was leaving and. i remember i went up in for the company. and my voice. cracked like i was like a.

14 year old 13 year old whatever and. then my my leg was like shaking you know. sometimes you get like enough adrenaline. if you're like you're nervous that. you're just like you're anyway i was. like oh my god it's so embarrassing like. i had to like walk behind the podium so. nobody could see my leg shaking and my. voice is cracking. and i'm like god i'm [ __ ] i'm messing. this up you know like because i'm. supposed to be projecting confidence and. like no it's not a big deal we're gonna. get through this and i'm just like. coming across like this pre-pubescent. kid you know. um. so everybody of course is like kind of.

shocked and they could. people were like i could tell you were. really scared brian i was like [ __ ] okay. i didn't really announce that very well. um and of course like you know. 48 hours went by like. everybody. freaked out and then it was like 40. hours later it was like all right let's. get back to work you know and and of. course it wasn't as bad as i thought but. yeah that was a really scary moment and. then and basically i had to transition. from. running the company with like all right. fred and i let's get in the room and. decide it to okay let's actually build. an executive team around me um.

to. have a more like professionally run. company if you will so it ended up being. like sort of a second founding moment of. the company and i realized this later. actually companies have many founding. moments. and you can just keep building what. situation was the company and now again. in hindsight yeah at that stage because. i heard in 2017 things were a little bit. messy. and and you brought in this executive. team to kind of help you you know. solve some of those problems but when at.

the point when fred left. what was the state of the company. so he he left it as this market was. swinging up and that was conscious on. his part he wanted to make sure the. company didn't harm the company as he. left. um. and so yeah the challenge after that was. like okay go build an exec team and a. lot of founders have gotten through this. it's. it's quite hard so. if the company is growing you know 50 a. year or something you can oftentimes. promote people from within who are kind. of learning on the job and just take on. more and more responsibility. we in the in these cryptos so volatile.

to go through like 500 growth in one. year and then. negative 100 the next year and it's like. so. i felt like i was in over my head like. all these junior people who had joined. early on we were all in over our head we. were like so we basically went out to. seek more experienced executives to come. in. and um that was in itself its own. crazy process with lots of learnings. because. whenever you bring in a bunch of. high-powered executives you know. sometimes you get people who butt heads. right and um it's hard when like taking.

a new team. they have to build trust and oftentimes. the team is often like kind of. dysfunctional until like they go through. enough together so. we had some good blow-ups there um there. was some executives like left or were. fired and like um. you know i had to like basically learn. how to work with with more. seasoned executives. and people who had run massive things. before and um. you know i i guess one lesson i learned.

from that and this is kind of personal. to me there's different people find. different things that work for them but. you know i realized i wanted to work. with people who were not just really. brilliant but like also really humble. because i'm not really like a combative. person by nature like some people. some companies have this culture where. they love to hash things out and debate. it and like that's that's like a really. good conversation or like you kind of. get into it you're like. you know but i'm i'm more of like i want. to think about what you said and like. come back and and more collaborative so. i'm not really i'm a little bit conflict. diverse.

so um anyway i started hiring more for. like people who are bright but humble. collab collaborative i mean the risk of. that by the way is you can get into a. little bit of like a yes person culture. where every everyone's afraid to. disagree or something that's also not. good but. it took me a couple iterations to kind. of find my style there and. now it's working great like the exec. team is super. competent and high trust and. collaborative. and i think it's like a it gives us a. lot of. benefits as a company because there's. like basically no bs politics stuff it's.

just like we're just getting work done. have each other's back. and we have you have to constantly tend. that and nurture it like with these exec. offsides and stuff but. yeah there were some learning pains. there when when crypto went through that. first well not the first but that real. that sort of 2017 bull run where. everything was going up how were you. feeling as the ceo of coinbase coinbase. is exploding i remember that that's when. i i first downloaded coinbase and became. a coinbase customer how were you feeling. a ceo in terms of.

optimism for. how long that moment was going to last. did you did you have a suspicion that it. that in 2018 i believe it was that the. market would come crashing down. yeah i didn't know when it would happen. but there was definitely. it it tipped at a certain point from. like oh this growth is really good too. okay things are getting a little crazy. here like. there was. yeah i remember i'd go to some events. and i was like everybody was coming in. launching some ico. and um people would like come over and. like want to take selfies with me and.

then like post the stuff on twitter and. like almost implying i was like. endorsing the project and then um i. remember like weird stuff happened like. i was living in this apartment building. in san francisco. and this guy who like worked in the. building. came to me one day and he's like this. package arrived for you sir and uh sir i. just have this question like which. crypto should i buy and i was like i. don't know this is getting really weird. like i don't i don't give any investment. advice or whatever and. um. yeah so basically it started attracting. in like people who are just trying to.

get rich quick or scams and all this. stuff. and so. yeah we started i started walking around. with like a security guard um. we had like some over exuberant. customers it was it was weird tell me. about that because. i was i was thinking we've had some um. fintech ceos here yeah that have built. disruptive banks out in europe so monzo. starling bank et cetera even clark you. know klan i guess that's not a bank but. kleiner the ceo sebastian here as well. security is not something that most ceos. have to think about but when you're.

dealing with money. as tom told me from monzo you get a lot. of. unhappy people because you're. you know you sometimes you have to. freeze funds and things like that. yeah well okay so i think. i mean if at a certain size of company. it's almost inevitable for every ceo. it's not just it's just not just money. but i do think that we probably started. a little earlier. because um because it was crypto is. money. um.

and yeah i mean it's it's also just a. law of numbers like if you're running an. enterprise a sas a b2b business. something like that you might have. thousands of customers or maybe 100 000. or something but if you're running a. very popular consumer app. um and you get into the millions or you. know coinbase has like maybe like 100. million ish verified users now. um. if you just think about it statistically. i mean you know. like what like one in a hundred people. in society has some form of. schizophrenia right. maybe one one out of ten of those like.

so one out of a thousand people in. society. has a form of mental illness that just. like. you know. could be potentially dangerous or they. can become obsessed with things. irrationally or whatever and so if you. have 100 million customers like there's. going to be enough people as part of it. is just like a law of large numbers. but um. you know i i don't want to overstate it. like it's not i don't it's not like a. huge burden on my life i i feel i feel. safe and i'm able to keep functioning. and stuff like that.

um. yeah another thing most ceos don't have. to contend with is building a business. in such a volatile market so when in. 2018 the market comes crashing down the. crypto market comes crashing down. talk to me about what leadership lessons. you learned through that what would what. i can only imagine. as being a pretty awful period. yeah so 2018 everything was coming down. off that high of 2017. and you know i had been through a couple. cycles like this but each one was. getting bigger and bigger and.

it was tough i mean i in the following i. think year or so after that crash i. think we might have had like 25 of the. company leave or something right really. yeah so there is a lot of attrition. there were people who had joined and. they thought hey this is a rocket ship. it's only going one way and then. when it was down and lots of negative. news headlines come along you know the. news always focuses on things that are. not always but often focuses on things. that are too short-term when it's going. up they're like this is they're genius. and their future everything's future and.

then when it's down they're like this is. never gonna it's failed and neither one. is true right like reality you have to. zoom out to kind of look at reality. but one thing i realized um was that i. felt this overwhelming pressure as ceo. was like oh shoot like every every week. i've got to get in from the company and. like put on a good face. and like create some sense of optimism. right. the reality was. i was kind of feeling shitty about it. too and so it was a little inauthentic. for me to go up there and. try to just be super positive or.

something and so one leadership lesson i. learned during that moment is that. great leaders are often vulnerable. and so. it's actually a much more powerful. leadership uh style i think to just go. up there and say how you actually feel. which you might be able to go you might. go up there and say something like i. feel like [ __ ] today you know like this. thing's down like this person quit. um whatever it is. now it helps if you if you can then use. that to as a moment to like. bring the team together and it's not.

like you have to solve all the problems. as ceo it's like. we. you use a lot of we language right it's. like i don't know how you're feeling i. feel like this that that's going to take. a little bit of attention out of the. room because they're all probably. feeling it too and they're like okay. great this guy's like not a robot he. like kind of gets it too it's like okay. so what can we do about it like well we. all need to figure out how to solve x x. is a pretty big problem right now we all. need to figure out how to solve y so. what do w what are we going to do like. this week i'm going to host this meeting. with so and so in this group and like. we're going to come i want you to all. bring your best ideas about how we're.

going to solve x we're going to pick one. and we're going to double down on it. right so now now it's like you're. turning this authenticity this candor. in and you're and you're making. everybody a part of the solution it's. not like. hey everybody look to brian like. he's got all the answers you know this. like messiah complex or whatever like no. it's like the strength is comes from the. team it's not just like. me trying to carry the whole weight of. the world in my shoulders or something. so that that was a good leadership. lesson for me. how did you do you've been through you. know these crypto winters and your.

company got so big that you know it went. public and then when you become a public. company and you're almost seen as the. poster child. of this space in many respects at least. that's that's always been my view of. coinbase there's been many many. exchanges but the the number one one the. one that's the famous one the. the poster child is coinbase. the pressure. and the scrutiny and the headlines and. the f and the the fake news and all of. it yeah that you must be have thrown at. you and then all the you know the. internal problems of just running a.

business anyway how are you dealing with. your emotions. yeah okay wow deep question so um. let's see i think. because you're human yeah of course. okay so i think one of the most. important things i i totally didn't. realize this before starting a company. but it turns out. one of the most important things um. skill sets to kind of. develop as a ceo of a startup is that. you have to be willing to ignore.

a lot of noise um both positive and. negative right. because if people on the way up are. telling you how brilliant you are and. you kind of get caught up in like. going to the speaker circuit and like. you know um then. you're going to fall even harder when. they turn on you and then everybody. either gets built up or taken down and. it's just driving headlines right so. you kind of can't believe it on the way. up because then you won't believe it on. the way down either. um i totally didn't realize that by. starting a company i thought most people. would generally be rooting for you and.

you know. um but there's people out there rooting. for you to fail which is a weird thing. um they're kind of dealing with their. own maybe stuff about success right i. don't know what it is. um. but you have to learn how to just tune. all that out so i mean like. frankly i just don't don't read like a. lot of news anymore i kind of think of. it like sugar it's it's addictive. and can you consume it in small. quantities responsibly and like eat a. couple bites of dessert or something. like yes. but um you have to be really careful.

because. basically the kind of um anger fear. outrage whatever you know is an. addictive thing by the way it's not just. mainstream media like social media has. some challenges with this too right i. i think it's actually a little. hypocritical like mainstream media is. always criticizing social media for. misinformation and it's like it's. pot calling the kiddo black or whatever. it's like the same thing happening there. so i literally try not to read a lot of. this stuff. so once then once you developed. your own sort of. psychology about it now you have to.

insulate the team from it because. they'll go after your team. and um so you need to kind of. continually be preaching this to the. team about like. you know be an independent thinker right. go. develop your own source of truth like. um by going to the root of it like um. don't. don't be listening to um mainstream. media or social media whatever when. things are up or down. you have to curate you have to. use that stuff in moderation like like. sugar or something it's not actually.

they're they're trying to sell their own. product and they're and. one of my friends has this great saying. um. it's like only a half truth can go viral. like if it's. you know that. triggering or whatever that's like ah. like it goes all around the world it's. it's half true at best. and so you have to remember that. whenever you see anything out there. what are the things that still penetrate. all of that resilience though there's. because there's things in even me that i. i i understand all of that um as i was. saying to you before we start recording. i became a dragon dragon's den so i got.

much more scrutiny than i've ever got. from headlines i'd read about my family. that i don't have my girlfriend i'd done. this that. you'd think i was running guantanamo bay. the way that right they described my. former business all these things um. and although i knew i was resilient and. although i knew everything you've said. and i put these processes in place where. i don't see notifications someone tweets. me i probably don't even see it it. doesn't come up never read the replies. yeah i don't have that i turned off all. notifications too that's that's a really. good one like but what pierces you still. yeah what still moves your mood.

so there's def there's something every. year at least that like it's the next. level that it's gonna test you right. and um. you know. oh man what was most recently um there. was like i don't even know if this was. real or if this was like short sellers. like putting fake information out there. but there was some like petition that um. some employees put together or something. and like i saw your response to yeah i. got irritated by it and like wrote some. stuff on twitter about it but that that. bugged me for a bit because it was like.

um. okay like you're going to attack the. executives like it's not even their. fault like you you know whatever blame. me so. um. i think what there's always something. new it's like. you know a lot of people probably would. be okay with oh there's some somebody. saying something stupid on twitter or. whatever but they really respect x you. know maybe it's like. um the new york times or something or. whatever right and they're like oh. that's that's like a and so then you get. your first like negative article like.

that has false information in it in the. new york times and then you're like well. that just shattered my reality of like. even that could happen like so man and. there's like what else is. like not accurate in the new york times. or pic pick any other you know fox news. like whatever. you know even one of the ones that. really got to me was um. i always felt like okay we have these. kind of people who are upset with us. outside of the company but the company. is one team like we're all and then when. i started to see like sometimes there. were people in the company kind of. turning on each other i was like man.

that one really bugged me right. so. think about um. if you think about. companies that have gotten to really big. scale. it makes all your problems look small by. comparison okay like like look at mark. zuckerberg right i mean the amount of. negative news coming out on that guy on. a daily basis. right. um. i think that. like the russian government like just. put him on some like. um. list of like sanctioned people or. something like there's people of.

tons of death threats you know like. um. there's there's always another level i. can get to. you know that's just like. anyway i i. what i've realized about a lot of. people who i think are building. important things in the world is that. they've developed this like high. disagreeableness muscle. where. they've recognized like they're not. going to make everybody happy and. they've made peace with it right. so they realize at a certain point like. whether i do the thing that i think.

everyone's going to like or everything. that. is more authentic to me someone's going. to be pissed no matter what so at the. end of the day i'm just going to do the. thing that i think is the right thing. and they they've leaned more into. authenticity instead of trying to say. what they think people want to hear. and that does require you to have some. amount of thick skin some kind of high. disagreeableness and then they can. actually. do even more interesting stuff because. they're they're being themselves instead. of trying to be liked. my success and my building my personal. brand and getting millions of followers.

online. it scratched that itch in an unhealthy. way that we described earlier it kind of. made me feel it gave me external. validation which felt like it was. filling me up it's probably sugar or. something. and then the problem is if you if you. were that type of person when you when. you do reach that height you get more. public scrutiny it matters more to you. because validation was your driving. force this whole time yeah so is there. an element of that with you because. because you were an introvert that. wanted to have significant be. significant because of that early. upbringing that it might be. psychologically more difficult to deal.

with because significance and fitting in. i guess was so. paramount to your initial motivation. totally yeah i mean it can be very. it can be very addictive also just to be. liked and and. the adulation and everything so. the minute something starts to happen. that you realize people aren't going to. like you for your temptation is to try. to preserve it now you have something to. lose you're like i'm going to lose these. followers or i'm going to you know. um. whatever it does it doesn't even matter. but it always feels serious at the time.

so. i i definitely had to grow through that. i i don't know i think i'm still growing. through that to i i would like to get to. a place where. you know you don't want you don't want. to become like isolated to a place where. you're not listening to anybody because. that's also really bad so you you do. wanna you need people who can keep you. grounded like your family like your. friends whatever and people who around. you who will tell you when you're being. an idiot or you're just wrong so like. you don't ever wanna get to a place. where i listen to nobody right but. a lot of people you want to be around.

people who have your best interests at. heart and then listen to them or people. have already done what you're trying to. do it like listen that's good advice but. a lot of the people who are just trying. to take shots at you to build their own. whatever in life. you need to build the ability to ignore. them and um. it's a real superpower to like care less. what other people think. um at least people who don't have your. best interests at heart having worked in. social media over the last 10 years i. maybe in my seventh or eighth year. noticed a really interesting thing that. happened um organizations as end women.

say in their trust reports were once. black boxes which is the reputation of. the organization the image was written. on the outside of the black box of the. organization by the marketing department. of pr we moved into this world where. they're now glass boxes the world can. see inside all of your employees have. smartphones and they can take pictures. and write reviews and so organizations. now um had to adapt and one of the. things that i've seen just as an. observation is ceos being out there in. the public eye. overly out there in the public eye i'm. thinking elon yeah and the antithesis of.

that might be zuckerberg who basically. hid for 10 years and the media shaped. him as a. soulless data stealing robot and then. you've got elon because he's smoking. weed on durogan's podcast you can say. whatever you like about him i think i. know him. right i have my own reference point and. my point here is about transparency and. even doing things like this. for me i don't i don't know how you feel. about this but for me the if i was. running a big organization. i'd be doing a lot to make sure that the. public had their own reference point of. who i am. how does that all sit with you because.

that seems to be the only defense. against the media. writing your narrative yeah so i've. thought about this a lot and i'm not. sure i have the perfect answer but um. so i think there's a spectrum so. on one side of the spectrum like you. said you can actually zuckerberg is. somewhere in the middle to me but. to be truly isolated i think like larry. page for instance he was very reclusive. almost never gave interviews right. elon is kind of out there doing a lot. more interviews and he's just like. literally says whatever he thinks i.

think you know right on twitter did you. see zuckerberg's 2019 facebook post. which one he did the post i think was. 2019 maybe 2017 that sounds better 2017. he did a post saying that he's basically. hidden away for that whole period of. time his new year's resolution was to. come out of his bunker so he did a. period of um hiding out and like yeah. yeah. so i mean i think a lot of ceos struggle. with this because. you know i think a lot of people realize. like it sucks to be famous. so. you know when i was a kid i would you'd. hear people say that or something and. i'd be like yeah whatever for you to say.

but um. there's a lot of downsides right i mean. people. in the the media or publicity can be. like this this cruel beast right if you. feed it it just wants more and more and. more so. um. i think. there are advantages to having a public. profile like it helps you recruit people. if someone attacks the company you have. your own direct audience to like get the. the message out the truth so there's. definitely like benefits. and then there's drawbacks because now. you know maybe your kids need security.

or whatever or just um. you know someone's gonna come up to your. restaurant when you're trying to have a. thing with your family or whatever. so there's real downsides to it um. i think for me i'm trying to find this. reasonable middle ground where like i i. turn down. 95 of media. um. i i really want to talk to people like. that are doing what new media right like. like this like podcasts or um or youtube. or really just have conversations with. people that i think are interesting and. i like.

um. that get messages out in sort of unique. ways. and i i do i like having some amount of. following if i ever need to set the. record on something but i don't want to. become famous actually i'd rather if i. could avoid that. i would prefer it. i think it's it's sort of a acceptable. negative of building something. interesting in the world but it's not. it's not actually a positive. interesting and one of the things you. talked about was that um. who knows whether it was real or not.

there was a. i want to give context to the listeners. who don't who don't follow you and might. not have seen that there was a uh. something written up that said. internally an employee was petitioning. to have someone else removed internally. yeah whether it's true or not we don't. know it was taken down um you responded. to that on twitter yeah you also said to. me that you were. in a bit of a bad mood when you. responded to that twitter yeah how do. you feel in hindsight about all of that. and did you. did you learn anything about company. culture or changes that needed to be. made or give me your reflections on that.

yeah so. you never know if you're doing the right. thing right um. one argument would be that this is just. unnecessary i could have ignored it and. um. there was people who never even saw it. and there was and they read my tweets. and they were like oh what's going on. and now i gave even more attention to it. right yeah. um on the flip side there was a bunch of. people who reached out to me that was. very positive it was like i'm glad. you're just. you know saying it like it is like it. shows who you really what you really. care about. and um you're basically communicating to.

the rest of employees like if you're. unhappy about something like there's a. right forum to do that internally it's. not. this is harming the company and so. you're anyway a lot of people liked it. some people didn't like it at all. so did i do the right thing i have no. idea i'm just like making this up as i. go and i kind of i kind of like try. things and i see how they go. one thing i will say is that. something that's polarizing is not that. doesn't make it. the wrong thing to do it what makes it. to me the right thing to do the wrong. thing to do is whether it was.

authentically true. um so i don't know how i would do it. again next time i guess i maybe i would. do it with a cool head. and um. see if it still felt authentic and then. go from there polarizing another thing. that when people talk about company. culture people give. um people that i've been around point to. coinbase as an example of is you coming. out and saying that coinbase wouldn't. uh tolerate politics. um and other divisive topics being.

discussed on company channels in the. workplace yeah this is a big conv i've. had conversations this week with my. companies where they've talked about. coinbase and the example you've set. because of things that have happened. over the last couple of weeks in. politics around in america. um. tell me why you made that decision. because i once upon a time when we had. brexit in this company allowed my office. to get overrun with anti-brexit flags. and i actually regret that because a. week later an employee pulled me aside. and said i'm actually pro-brexit and the. whole week i felt like the office wasn't.

a safe place for me to yeah yeah um so. you you set out a stance which i've not. i saw you do it first i'm not sure if. any other companies have done it but. publicly you were the first to say no. politics at work yeah. yeah i mean i think other companies are. doing variations of that um so it's not. entirely original but yeah i did put it. out in a way that was public and got a. lot of attention so. look i don't know i don't know what to. say about it i think. it's it started it starts from a very. good place which is people want to have. a safe space at work they want to have a.

place where they can just be themselves. authentically like these all these. things actually start from a very good. place. what's unfortunate is that it can get to. a place where. the office is actually um. just very divided and people are upset. with each other all day instead of like. working towards the common mission that. we all kind of signed up for. um they're actually just upset with each. other and arguing over things which we. don't really have very much impact over. like bigger broader societal issues. outside of our mission. um this not just coinbase this is. happening broadly across a lot of.

tech and all companies really it's not. just even a tech thing. it is it is more pronounced certain. places in the world it's not it's not a. broad thing geographically it's it's. very pronounced in some cities um. especially in the us but i guess. probably somewhat here as well. so. notice much. yeah i i i remember our ireland office. like there were some people who messaged. me during all that and they're like what. is you just said like we're gonna work. on work do work at work like what's. what's so controversial they didn't it. didn't make any sense um so it was it. was largely a thing that happened i.

think in the bay area in the us and a. couple other cities like maybe brooklyn. portland places like that but. um look i i don't you know in some ways. i'd rather coinbase was like known for. our product innovation and stuff this is. a weird one because like we've actually. been pretty become kind of well known. for this stance and others have emulated. it but the thing that really made me. finally get the courage to do it because. i i i didn't really want to make a. public stance about this or whatever i. just want everybody to get back to work. but the reason i did it was that.

i felt like i had been a bad leader. basically i had let this kind of. misunderstanding accumulate inside the. organization where people thought that. it was okay to like. come to work and just debate endlessly. these things or like at the q a that we. would host every week or two there would. be a lot of questions that were not. about our product or the regulators or. the the future it would be about like. these broader societal issues. and these kind of these brush fires kept. erupting in in slack channels and things. and so. oh and there and i think i reached a.

place where i was like. i don't think i really want to be the. ceo of this company if like this is what. the ceo job entails is kind of like. getting put on the spot with like um. these crazy difficult societal questions. every week i kind of want to just build. cool stuff with technology and work on. our mission and so. i actually contemplated briefly i was. like am i the one who's like just not. sued for this job and maybe this is how. companies are run now and a bunch of i. talked to a bunch of friends of mine and. people and they were like. no like if if that's how you feel. there's probably a bunch of other people. the company who also feel that way.

and like you started this company. you don't need to go they need to go and. so. it was if i realized i was like either. i'm gonna resign or they're gonna need. to resign and so at that point i was. like all right they need to resign so we. made we made an exit package available. like i clarified the stance of the. company five percent of the employees. opted into that package and left and. then after that it felt like the company. was much more aligned and we were all. able to. move towards the mission um so. it was cool to see some companies. emulate it afterwards and there's. probably a less dramatic way to do it. you know if you kind of said it that way.

from the beginning but. um yeah that's where we are one of the. things that i really wanted to ask you. about because from reading your blog. post you have a very clear. strategy and perspective on this and i. also see this in hindsight as being the. single most important thing that i ever. had the responsibility of doing and. getting right which is hiring people. um i. i [ __ ] up for the first three years i. hired inexperienced people that were. cheap and that i felt i could manage. because i was 21 or 20. so i had a bunch. of you like you want a job you want a. job you want a job you can be director.

director of this yeah my biggest mistake. i only learned when i hired someone good. and i saw the net impact they had and. the fact that good people then hired. good people. what advice would you give to people. that are hiring now and how important. do you consider hiring to be. super important i mean actually. in coinbase's values the number one. value is top talent in every seat. because. it really everything in the company. comes back to people like if you want to. have. a big impact you need to have. generate a bunch of revenue and profit.

if you want good revenue property and. you make good products if you make good. products you have to have good people. build them so it's actually everything. comes back to people. um. so yeah i mean. it's interesting to hear that you. learned that lesson the hard way i've. hiring is super hard sometimes the only. way to learn a lesson is to actually go. make the mistake and and do it. but the mistake that a lot of startups. make i think is that they hire too fast. they treat the absence of any negatives. as a reason to hire whereas it should be. not just the absence of negatives but.

hell yes meaning like. i learned something from this person. they they're way better than me at. something at least. you know i left the interview with more. energy than when i went in um. i. you know you can de-risk a lot of early. hiring also by just having people come. in and like try working together for a. week or two. interviews are actually really kind of a. low signal thing you have to get real. some people are great interviewers like. maybe five percent of people can really. assess someone in an interview most. people aren't that good at it naturally. and so you can basically use references.

or. what we did in early days of coinbase we. actually just had people try working. with us for like a week or two a lot of. people can't do that because they have. an existing job but. some people can. and we you'll know you'll know within a. week or two like this person basically. delivered a bunch of stuff they got a. bunch of stuff done that was useful and. helped move the ball forward. or they didn't like it needed me it. needed me or someone else to come in and. edit their work or curate it and like. it's not to oversimplify it but. basically like. if the person can get a lot of stuff. done. that's advanced is the mission then you.

want them on the team and if they can't. you shouldn't have them on the team and. that's basically what makes great. companies is like. you have a bunch of people aligned. toward a big impactful mission. who can actually get a lot of stuff done. every week. and um. you know you share some values in common. and then everything else. they can be quirky and weird and. different and like from every background. and walk of life and like everything. else can be. different but. if you have those pieces right they get. a lot of stuff done towards the mission. and they're aligned then you got a good.

company you said about growing too fast. i i saw you post recently that you. you've grown the company too fast over. the last couple of years and that you. were having to cut back about 18 of the. workforce yeah. emotionally in those moments you know. the statements were you were very. transparent you were very honest you. didn't have to publish that to the. entire world but you did yeah. emotionally what are those moments like. does it get any easier for you to. to to cut back the workforce when you. you signaled in the memo that you take. responsibility for that as well like. you weren't skirting blame or anything.

so. yeah so there's always something. challenging every year that like really. puts you out put you outside of your. comfort zone and that's part of what i. like about running a company is like. you're constantly learning so so this. year that was one of the things was like. we had never done a layoff before i had. never done one and um. yeah i did kind of suck to look back and. say um. ah i actually made them stick you know. we were everything everything crypto was. so up and up and up last year. that it it felt irresponsible not to. keep hiring more people because. we had like lines out our door you know.

virtually of like customers trying to. sign up like institutional clients and. new products and competitors and all. these different markets and we were like. we're just being. reckless and irrational not to keep. building the company with all this. revenue we're generating and so but i. think we found the breaking point and. basically if you kind of more than. double a company in a year you're really. going to start to see a lot of stuff. break the culture erodes um decision. making is unclear communication channels. break down and so we we definitely like. exceeded that threshold last year in.

2021 and earlier this year we were on a. pace to kind of keep going. too quickly. so. you know it really it really kind of is. a bad feeling to look at a problem and. say oop i made a mistake. but the only worst thing that is to like. bury your head in the sand and pretend. that you didn't make a mistake because. you don't want to admit it or whatever. and so um. facing reality. while it was deeply unpleasant and it. was really unpleasant for the people. that parted ways with the company. um. it was the right thing to do that now we.

have the ability to kind of learn how to. operate really efficiently at this new. size 5000 people still a lot and get a. ton done with that. and we got the cost structure to a place. where we know that we can. not only um have enough cash but like. really thrive in this. in this recession we're all going. through at this point and whether that. lasts one year or three years or four. years whatever we're now we've set the. company up to ensure that it has a. better chance of accomplishing the. mission long term so. in a way although it was a super hard. decision and it was tough for a lot of. people involved it made me feel good.

that we did the right thing. i am so excited to announce our new. sponsor for this podcast and that is. blue jeans by verizon for any of you. that aren't already familiar with blue. jeans they are a video conferencing and. collaboration tool who offer an. immersive communication experience that. drives pretty unparalleled employee and. customer engagement experiences me and. all of my teams across all of my. portfolio companies switched over to. blue jeans a couple of months ago and we. have not looked back the best thing for. us has been the totally frictionless. experience no glitching no sound issues.

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honestly it's been one of the real sort. of game changers in my business. this is an interesting question. that i just had when i was just just. thinking then yeah and because because. of this you know from my perspective i'd. call that stress sometimes stress is. great but there's a lot of volatility in. the markets and those tough decisions. if you view happiness as like a. concoction of as like a recipe and. there's lots of ingredients that go and. go into making us happy. um. what ingredients in your happiness. recipe. do you think you need more of.

like today personally. um. oh wow. i mean. so i think it's getting very personal i. think you know people are get they're. basically happy. with. like health wealth relationships things. like that if you don't have your health. it's hard to really be happy you can't. really do anything. you don't need to be wealthy but you. need to have some level of security. where you're like i'm not worried about. like being hungry tomorrow or something.

right. and then relationships account for a lot. of happiness i think. um. family like romantic leave personal. friendships. so um. i mean it's kind of it's i'm like almost. 40 and i think. i'm thinking at some point i won't have. kids so that's probably like that's. probably an area but otherwise i think. yeah i feel quite happy about. relationships in my life. um personally professionally. romantically all that stuff so yeah i.

didn't think you were gonna go there but. yeah yeah yeah there you go no i agree i. feel the same way i've had i've not had. enough balance in my life so my big next. chapter is um. allocating enough time to my girlfriend. and being i said it on stage today being. a dad and those things and prioritizing. that knowing the importance of it even. though i can't track it it's not revenue. so yeah we have a closing tradition on. this podcast where the last guest leaves. a question for the next guest they don't. know who they're writing it for okay um. their question was. what is the belief that you hold that.

most people disagree with you on. hmm. give you some time well i mean one kind. of um contrarian view that i have that i. think most people would disagree with is. that. um. i think a lot of regulation is well. intentioned and it actually. causes more harm than good. um. you know. it's not really. probably a commonly held view in our. society because a lot of people haven't. tried to build something but if you've.

just only been an employee to company or. you know consumed goods. um when something bad happens in society. people want to say what can we do to. make sure that never happens again and. so you create a rule. it's sort of human nature right um but. every rule has kind of these unintended. consequences down the road um. you know for instance uh. in the cryptocurrency industry right. like we're using kind of money. transmission laws that were originated. when there was like stage coaches moving. cash between states and so in the united.

states we need to have 50 state licenses. plus multiple federal licenses and. that's just one small example you could. actually go down. many many many rules that are there in. society. they were created for a good reason at. the time but they they've now. accumulated so many of them. that it makes it harder to get um to get. innovation you know another good example. just randomly is like. in the us there's a the federal aviation. administration regulates like airplane. travel and things like that. they've been incredibly successful at.

making airplane travel safe and so the. fatality rates in air traffic and. everything like that are airplane. flights are very low. but there's been an enormous cost to. society as well around the lack of. innovation so for instance. like the boeing jets that we fly today. they're very similar almost to the ones. that were in like the 1960s that jfk. flew on like. you can't go faster because it's they. they haven't allowed like people to. break the sound barrier over over land. um basically the things they're. innovating on are like fuel economy and.

stuff like that and so. it it does stifle a lot of innovation. and so. people don't think about that cost. because they're more thinking about the. acute short-term problem. so i think it's a real risk that in. society basically enough rules. accumulate over time where it creates it. throws sand in the gears of progress and. um a lot of. new innovation is harmed by um by. regulation unfortunately even with good. intentions brian thank you thank you for. your time i realize you don't do things.

like this very often so it feels like. even more of an honor for you to come. here today and coinbase as i said i'm a. customer of um it's it's always felt. like the most trusted the safest way to. involve myself in crypto and that's why. i've always stayed with with coinbase. and you as the ceo have a very. um innovative approach to building a. company in a new time in a new industry. which i've learned from as a business. owner myself so thank you for the. inspiration thank you for your blog post. as well i've sent many of them around to. my company i think i sent two to all of. my team today.

around hiring and your 36 sort of. principles for retaining staff and. things like that so i implore people to. check out your blog post as well because. your blog as well because it's a source. of inspiration and knowledge and um. yeah thank you so much for being here it. truly truly is an honor and the. conversation has been inspiring to me so. thank you brian thank you i can see why. your podcast is so successful you're. really unique and amazing interviewers. so. um i really enjoyed the conversation. that was great thank you. i had a few words to say about one of my. sponsors on this podcast my girlfriend. came upstairs yesterday when i was. having a shower and she said to me that.

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