Relentless
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?
00:10:28 · Brian Armstrong
[00:10:28] S0: Yeah. I actually think I think they work together in the sense that as an individual, you know, I never really liked people telling me what to do. And as a company, we also wanna be the most trusted brand. And so we we can create trust, but I can also be, you know, a little bit of an anti authority streak. I'll tell you a funny story. Like, when I was a kid, for the holiday... Like Christmas, you know, you get these gifts, and my mom would always say, you have to write thank you notes. And I hated this being told what to do. And so when I was probably, like, seven or eight years old one time, I was forced to go write these thank you notes. So what I did is I actually went and I wrote, you know, I'm being forced to write this thank you note under duress. And, you know, it's not that I don't appreciate your gift. In fact, I actually do. What I resent is the fact that I'm being ordered to write this, which I think cheapens the entire idea of a thank you note signed, you know, seven year old Brian Armstrong. And I I sealed up all the thank you notes so that my mother couldn't see the contents. And I was like, alright. They're all ready to go. You know? And so she started getting phone calls from our relatives. You know? Said this to, like, 20 people. Yeah. Yeah. And she... And she's like, do you know what your son sent me? Like... And, anyway, that was a funny moment from childhood. But I realized I was never the best employee because I was always kind of wanting to do my own thing. As an entrepreneur, it worked out great. But of course, you have to still be willing to work with other people. Like, if you're by yourself and don't want to take anyone's input, no one good is going want to work for you. You're not going to be able to build a great board and team. And Fred Wilson, who's been on our board for a long time, I think he actually figured out the secret to working with founders that are... Have this a little bit... Sometimes they have more of this anti authority streak where he would never tell me what to do, but he would kind of do the Socratic method. Right? And he would ask me enough questions where I had to get to the answer, and I would eventually think it was my idea. And it wasn't quite that literal, but even if I knew intellectually what he was doing, it still helped. You know? And he'd be like, okay.