Relentless
00:05:59 · Brian Armstrong
[00:05:59] S0: Yeah. So I think all leaders or people in these positions, you have to develop this judgment over time, which is because as an entrepreneur, sometimes you have a lot of contrarian ideas. Like my default is kind of to question everything from first principles, and that can really piss off your teams where it's like, Why are we using this HR software? This thing sucks. Like, we should just build our own. At some point, you're like, Okay, let's pick the top few things that we wanna focus on and do really unique contrarian stuff. And the rest of it, let's, you know, take the off the shelf solution. So I do think you can be contrarian to a fault, and you really have to pick your battles. It's also like if you're building an executive team and a board and, like, people around you that are these, like, really brilliant people with their each... Their own skill set, you know, there's a balance where you want them to be able to come to you and and tell you, Brian, that's too crazy. Like, don't don't do that one. Or Brian, I I think you're wrong on this. Here's the thing you're missing. So they have to be able to, like, have enough trust to be able to tell you when you're being an idiot. But they also have to trust you enough where once in a while, if you're like, I get... I hear what you're saying, and I I wanna do it anyway. And then they're like, okay. Let's go that way. And they have to be able to... Willing to follow you into battle. And so I think that's like a balance that lots of employees and executives are thinking about at any given moment. And there's been times where I'm pissed because nobody agrees with me, and I force it through, and then I regret it later. Right? And there's been times where I forced it through, and it was the best choice. So that just comes from being in the arena, getting enough experience where you start to trust your instincts versus question it.
00:07:30 · Ty Morse, Brian Armstrong
[00:07:30] S1: I've noticed that if you want people to give you feedback, you have to actively give them the ability to do so. So you can't just expect them to come out and say something that they're feeling in most cases. You have to kinda, like, pull it out of them at first, and then over time, it becomes easier to pull it out. What's your kind of process for building that trust when you have some new partner? [00:07:49] S0: Yeah. It's really true. I think that it's really hard to get truth out of people, especially if you're their boss. Right? There's actually a lot of instances where I think people are afraid to tell me things within the company even though I actually would appreciate it or I try to go out of my way to recognize people publicly who were willing to disagree and they were right, or there's things that I was wrong on, and I try to surface those examples. But you don't want it to be just like a big complaint inbox, like flowing upward. You also need to be directing the company. And so I think of it as a balance. It's like, how much are they applying pressure to you and how much pressure are you applying to them? And it should be, I don't know, roughly equal. If you're just a top down dictatorship, you're probably missing out on a lot of the value of all the smart people that you've hired, and that's a bad strategy. But if you're just sitting there with like, I'm on this feedback listening tour, There's times in the past where I think I went too far with that, where I was just like, all right, everyone has a lot of emotions. Like, let me go around and
00:07:49 · Brian Armstrong, Ty Morse
[00:07:49] S0: Yeah. It's really true. I think that it's really hard to get truth out of people, especially if you're their boss. Right? There's actually a lot of instances where I think people are afraid to tell me things within the company even though I actually would appreciate it or I try to go out of my way to recognize people publicly who were willing to disagree and they were right, or there's things that I was wrong on, and I try to surface those examples. But you don't want it to be just like a big complaint inbox, like flowing upward. You also need to be directing the company. And so I think of it as a balance. It's like, how much are they applying pressure to you and how much pressure are you applying to them? And it should be, I don't know, roughly equal. If you're just a top down dictatorship, you're probably missing out on a lot of the value of all the smart people that you've hired, and that's a bad strategy. But if you're just sitting there with like, I'm on this feedback listening tour, There's times in the past where I think I went too far with that, where I was just like, all right, everyone has a lot of emotions. Like, let me go around and [00:08:46] S1: We're gonna do a healing circle? [00:08:47] S0: Yeah. Trust falls or whatever. I mean, that was a failure of leadership as well. So every day you're finding that balance. [00:08:54] S1: Have there been any other really big moments where you tried to lead in a certain way and then you realized only in hindsight that that was an absolutely terrible decision and, like, course corrected?
00:08:54 · Ty Morse, Brian Armstrong
[00:08:54] S1: Have there been any other really big moments where you tried to lead in a certain way and then you realized only in hindsight that that was an absolutely terrible decision and, like, course corrected? [00:09:03] S0: Yeah. I mean, there's times where the team has really pushed me on something like... I I don't know. Without naming exact names, I... There there was, like, this company that I was like, we should just buy the whole company. Like, I'm I'm really into this. This is a great way for us to expand. And the team kind of told me, well, here's a bunch of risks and difficulties with that that you may not realize, and there's, like, gonna be a massive amount of overhead and cultural misalignment, and we could do... We could get mired in this, like, you know, this quagmire or whatever for for years. And, you know, I think they were right, and, the right solution was to make a minority investment in that company so that they they have to wake up every day and make sure that if thing works, we have a small piece of it, but we can stay really independent and both keep moving fast. And that was an example that came from our executive team and, you know, our president, Emilie Choi, and our CFO, Alesia Haas, and others that... Like, they were totally right, and I was wrong. Right? So that that was an example where I did course correct. But there's lots of examples like that, which would... It's really complementary skill sets that make a great team. Nobody is good at everything. There's this idea when I
00:09:03 · Brian Armstrong, Ty Morse
[00:09:03] S0: Yeah. I mean, there's times where the team has really pushed me on something like... I I don't know. Without naming exact names, I... There there was, like, this company that I was like, we should just buy the whole company. Like, I'm I'm really into this. This is a great way for us to expand. And the team kind of told me, well, here's a bunch of risks and difficulties with that that you may not realize, and there's, like, gonna be a massive amount of overhead and cultural misalignment, and we could do... We could get mired in this, like, you know, this quagmire or whatever for for years. And, you know, I think they were right, and, the right solution was to make a minority investment in that company so that they they have to wake up every day and make sure that if thing works, we have a small piece of it, but we can stay really independent and both keep moving fast. And that was an example that came from our executive team and, you know, our president, Emilie Choi, and our CFO, Alesia Haas, and others that... Like, they were totally right, and I was wrong. Right? So that that was an example where I did course correct. But there's lots of examples like that, which would... It's really complementary skill sets that make a great team. Nobody is good at everything. There's this idea when I [00:10:06] S1: was talking with Fred, your cofounder, just in prep for this. He mentioned that you are, like, very... Or at least at one point, were very, like, anti authority. [00:10:15] S0: Mhmm.
00:10:15 · Brian Armstrong, Ty Morse
[00:10:15] S0: Mhmm. [00:10:15] S1: And I find this interesting because it almost seems like the exact opposite of your actions, which are basically you're trying to be the most regulated and compliant institution in crypto. How do both those two different ideas kind of marry in your mind?