Coinbase CEO mandated AI onboarding for engineers, and he fired some who didn’t comply.
Armstrong emphasized AI’s importance at work, aiming for 50% AI-written code by the end of the quarter.
AI adoption pressure is growing across industries, with leaders at Google telling employees they expect them to use the tools.
Some Coinbase employees recently learned the hard way that their CEO wasn’t playing around when it came to using AI at work.
CEO Brian Armstrong appeared in a Wednesday episode of the “Cheeky Pint” podcast, where he spoke about his AI mandate for engineers at his crypto exchange. He made it clear that he’s serious about employees using AI to code — with real consequences for any resistors.
The Coinbase CEO said that he was initially told that it would take a quarter or two to reach 50% of adoption of AI tools.
“Why can’t every engineer just onboard by the end of the week?” he said.
“I went rogue,” Armstrong said. He said he posted in the company’s Slack channel (“just a light dusting of founder mode,” remarked podcast host and Stripe cofounder John Collison), emphasizing the importance of AI and telling engineers that they didn’t have to use the tools on a daily basis yet but “at least onboard by the end of the week.”
“If not, I’m hosting a meeting on Saturday with everyone who hasn’t done it and I’d like to meet with you to understand why,” the Coinbase CEO said.
On Saturday, Armstrong said he logged into the meeting and a small number of employees were on the call.
“Some of them had a good reason because they were just getting back from a trip or something,” Armstrong said. “Some of them didn’t, and they got fired.”
• For Googlers, the pressure is on to use AI for everything — or get left behind
• Not on board with AI? Pretend. Your boss is watching.
Armstrong said his “heavy-handed” approach sent a message to employees that AI is something to lean into and learn about. Coinbase has begun hosting a monthly “AI speed run” training hosted by someone using AI at the company. He said the goal is to get to 50% of code written by AI by the end of the quarter.
Armstrong’s confrontation of AI stragglers at the company highlights the increasing pressure at many companies for employees to adopt AI in their work. Google leaders have told staffers to use more AI tools in their day-to-day work, and engineers are expected to use AI for coding. Employees previously told Business Insider that CEO Sundar Pichai said in an all-hands meeting that they need to use AI for Google to get ahead in the AI arms race.
Bosses may also be using AI more than their direct reports. A June Gallup survey found that 33% of leaders who identified as “managers of managers” use AI frequently, meaning a few times a week or more, adopting AI at nearly double the rate of individual contributors.
Armstrong clarified that he doesn’t expect Coinbase engineers to fully rely on AI to do their jobs, and “you probably can go too far with it.”
“You don’t want people vibe-coding these systems moving money,” he added. “You have to code review it and have the appropriate checks in place with humans in the loop.”
Coinbase didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment by Business Insider.
AI use isn’t just for company engineers, he said, mentioning that Coinbase’s design team is “using it heavily.”
He said the company is also exploring ways to test the limits of AI in decision-making.
“Even as CEO, by the way, I use it a lot,” Armstrong said.
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