00:54:48 · Brian Armstrong
[00:54:48] S0: Well, I do believe in that idea that you're, you're count you're the average of your five closest friends. And, you know, if you're unhappy with where you are, maybe level up your friends or something like that. Well, there's lots of people who I've learned from and I try to, whenever I'm trying to do something new for the first time, I try to just steal the best ideas from people who are really good at that. Right? So there's people on our board that have helped me lots with comms and how to go do policy in DC. There's other CEOs that I spend time with where we all learn from each other about how to build more AI native companies. I think when I was first starting Coinbase, really, I I had never managed anybody. I was kind of a software engineer. I was kind of conflict averse. I was kind of introverted. And so I really had to lean into this idea of I I actually love conflict. Healthy conflict can create really good outcomes. That's kind of your job as a CEO sometimes, to take the most broken, messed up thing in the company. Maybe two people can't work with each other. Maybe someone's not ready to do this next job. Maybe you have to fire a customer because it's not and you basically just go do hard conversations for a living. Right? And you have to find a way to like that and enjoy it because you're creating value and helping move things forward. And then, you know, pick your head up at the end of the week and realize not everything in the company is that broken. That was like the the 5% that you were work you were fixing, but the other 95% is going really well. So, anyway, there's lots of people like this who I've learned from. I don't I'm not sure I wanna give you all the exact names because We
00:56:31 · Molly O'Shea, Brian Armstrong
[00:56:31] S1: don't get any names. There's no secrets being spilled. [00:56:33] S0: I mean, I can tell you I can tell you people on our board, for instance. Like yeah. I mean, I think Marc Andreessen's been an incredible mentor about how to do policy in in DC and comms. I think Toby Lutke, a Shopify CEO, he's been great at thinking about how to be an AI native organization. And there's probably five or six other CEOs of other companies that I spend a lot of time with. I don't know if they want to be named, so I'll decline that. We compare notes a lot. I think when you're attempting to do anything, you should have a bit of a mastermind group like that. And for me, I was never like I'm so busy. I didn't I I don't naturally just keep in touch with people. I sort of have to structure it. So I'm like, alright. Once a month, we're gonna have this meeting, and once a year, we're gonna go on a trip. And that allows us to get enough face time to build these strong relationships over time. [00:57:25] S1: It's a great way to end it. Thank you so much, Brian. [00:57:28] S0: Thank you. [00:57:28] S1: Hey, it's Molly. If you enjoy our interviews, check out our newsletter, sorcery. Vc, where we deliver a once a week top deals and tech headlines email, and also go deeper on our podcast interviews. Subscribe to Sorcery today, and don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen. Link in description to sign up.