Relentless
00:34:39 · Brian Armstrong, Ty Morse
[00:34:39] S0: So trust can come from a lot of different things. Right? It can come from having great design. It can have customer support. It can come from being based in The US and being a public company. It can... With public company standards. It can come from people knowing who the CEO is or feeling like they know who it is by listening to podcasts or whatever, like, where people are relatively open and transparent like this as opposed to hiding behind, like, corporate speak or traditional comms. So there... There's, like, a personality marketing aspect of companies now where people want to know who the CEO is. What do they stand for? What do they like? What do they do in their free time? Trust can come from all of those things. Now there are times where we're very tempted to... Our competitors are listing something that's, like, illegal or highly risky, and it's a revenue opportunity. Like you said, like... It's like, okay. We're watching these things grow, and our regulators are saying, you can't do it, or maybe we do, like, a cybersecurity audit, and we're like, this thing could blow up at any moment. Do we really wanna expose our customers to it? And there's a lot of hard calls like that that we've had to make. And so... You know, meanwhile, our customers are often kinda yelling at us saying, like, oh, you guys are so slow. Like, how could you be the last one, you know, to list this? And so sometimes I think we get it wrong, and sometimes we get it right. You know? [00:35:51] S1: Is it like a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation?
00:35:51 · Ty Morse, Brian Armstrong
[00:35:51] S1: Is it like a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation? [00:35:54] S0: Sure. I mean, yeah. If you if you lean in too early and the thing blows up and customers lose money, like, a 100% they're gonna be suing us, not that other thing that just blew up because, you know, we have deeper pockets, then maybe that thing's bankrupt. Right? So that... You have to always look at that from a, like, a like, a litigation point of view. But they're also gonna say, you know, if if we wait too long and it didn't blow up, like, okay. And it got more legitimized over time, why were you so late? And so... But that's that's fine. I... We we... I'm not complaining. I mean, we we... That's what it means to be in the arena, like, you know, leading companies. You gotta take preponderance of input from all parties, make the tough calls, live with it. [00:36:30] S1: You've got this line that I heard in the David interview where you said, if something is critical to furthering the mission of the company, you can get excited about almost anything, whatever that thing is. What have been the things that most people would never get excited by, but that you have and gotten really good at to further the mission of Coinbase?
00:36:49 · Brian Armstrong
[00:36:49] S0: Yeah. Well, a lot of things. Part of my job is quite fun, and other parts of it is just... It's like, that's a that's a grind, man. Like, that's gonna be brutal. Right? But, yeah, you can define... You can derive some sort of satisfaction or fulfillment from it by... It's for a greater a greater purpose. Right? Like, an example would be in the first five years of Coinbase, I probably interviewed 5,000 people. All right? Like, maybe three or four interviews a day for whatever most of the days of the year and then five years of that. So I was so burned out on interviewing people at a certain point. Like, I was... You know, that was rough. You know, another thing would be... Like, I initially was really reluctant to kind of go engage on policy work and meeting, like, members of the government in various state or, like, federal level. And my view was, like, I just wanna build great products and, like, follow the law, then, like, people... I don't have to engage with the government. Like, that was sort of my, in hindsight, kind of naive view. It turns out anything that gets big enough is going to intersect with the government, and you have to go work with them and help them understand it and, like, really treat it seriously. And there's a lot of, like, really interesting people in government. Some of them are really smart. Some of them are kind of crazy. Some of them are big personality. It's just like in business or anything. And so I actually over time managed to derive, like, some level of enjoyment, like, from that, I have to say. I mean, in a way... Because, like you said, it's helping advance the mission, and it's helping get things done. Now I don't wanna be, like, so focused on policy and get, like, all these policy wins that we have to actually make sure our products are great too. So I... I'm always trying to find the right balance. But that would be another... Like, flying to DC all the time is, like, not something I initially thought I I would kind of enjoy. And, like, part of me actually kind of enjoys it now. I think I've built some great relationships there. If you've had
00:38:34 · Ty Morse, Brian Armstrong
[00:38:34] S1: to think about, like, the full picture of Coinbase and what it takes for the company to win over time, what have been areas, like, going into politics and basically building those relationships that you didn't even realize were were part of the game going in, and you had to learn that? [00:38:47] S0: Some of the ones that I've thought about, like, there's a fundraising skill set. There's a storytelling skill set, which we started talking about at the beginning. There's a recruiting or slash sales skill set. And part of it is really just about good judgment about what people want in products, right? And we try lots of ideas, like not all of them work, but we try to get more right than wrong. And you kind of have to take inventory of, like, yeah, what are your skill sets and passions? What is the company uniquely able to do? What are the things it's not good at? And then you're kind of you're kind of like a surfer out there on the water, and you're looking for waves coming in, you know, and, oh, that's like a new technology trend is happening or this unlock happened or this thing's got cheaper. This law just got passed. And so you're kind of looking at the waves, and you you have to kind of spot a wave coming. You're like, oh, that's a good one. I'm gonna paddle for it. And, like, then you, like, really lean in and, you know, shoot your shot. There's times where I felt like we missed a wave like that, and we were chasing to catch up to it. And then we missed the full power of that wave, you know, just to torture the analogy
00:38:47 · Brian Armstrong, Ty Morse
[00:38:47] S0: Some of the ones that I've thought about, like, there's a fundraising skill set. There's a storytelling skill set, which we started talking about at the beginning. There's a recruiting or slash sales skill set. And part of it is really just about good judgment about what people want in products, right? And we try lots of ideas, like not all of them work, but we try to get more right than wrong. And you kind of have to take inventory of, like, yeah, what are your skill sets and passions? What is the company uniquely able to do? What are the things it's not good at? And then you're kind of you're kind of like a surfer out there on the water, and you're looking for waves coming in, you know, and, oh, that's like a new technology trend is happening or this unlock happened or this thing's got cheaper. This law just got passed. And so you're kind of looking at the waves, and you you have to kind of spot a wave coming. You're like, oh, that's a good one. I'm gonna paddle for it. And, like, then you, like, really lean in and, you know, shoot your shot. There's times where I felt like we missed a wave like that, and we were chasing to catch up to it. And then we missed the full power of that wave, you know, just to torture the analogy [00:39:52] S1: Swimming of after a tsunami.
00:39:52 · Ty Morse, Brian Armstrong
[00:39:52] S1: Swimming of after a tsunami. [00:39:54] S0: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, that's... Every year, you're trying to make sure you try to... You have a couple of bets, and you're trying to catch a couple waves, and you're not gonna get all of them. Once And in a while, you get, like, a really great set, and it's just a good day. Other times, you get your ass handed to you. [00:40:10] S1: So I was thinking about this last night. Couldn't sleep at all before this interview. Basically, got, like, two hours of sleep between two and 4AM Wow. This morning. But at the same time that prediction markets are becoming a thing, we also have this proliferation of AI generated content. And I was finding it interesting that this seeker of truth, which is this new thing or this mechanism, is happening at the exact same time that the truth is becoming less and less obvious and less and less clear. How do you kind of think about prediction markets and AI generated content and that sort of thing?