Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase — The Art of Relentless Focus, Preparing for Full-Contact Entrepreneurship, Critical Forks in the Path, Handling Haters, The Wisdom of Paul Graham, Epigenetic Reprogramming, and Much More (#627)

“The greatest risk is not taking one.”

— Brian Armstrong

Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Coinbase. Founded in 2012, Coinbase is building the crypto economy—a more fair, accessible, efficient, and transparent financial system enabled by crypto. Coinbase serves over 103 million verified users, 14,500 institutions, and 245,000 ecosystem partners in over 100 countries. In April 2021, Coinbase listed publicly on NASDAQ as COIN. 

Before founding Coinbase, Brian served as a software engineer at Airbnb, where he focused on fraud prevention. Before Airbnb, Brian founded and was CEO of UniversityTutor.com, an online tutoring directory and a subsidiary of Johnson Educational Technologies LLC. Brian also previously served as a consultant for the enterprise risk management division at Deloitte & Touche LLP. Brian has a BA in computer science and economics and an MS in computer science from Rice University.

Over the last three years, Coinbase has worked with ten-time Emmy®-winning filmmaker Greg Kohs on a documentary about cryptocurrency and Coinbase. COIN is now available on Amazon, iTunes, YouTube, Vimeo on Demand, and other platforms.

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Want to learn more about Web3 and crypto? Listen to my podcast episode with Chris Dixon and Naval Ravikant in which we discuss what the smartest people do on the weekend, solving proof-of-work problems, the real promise of Web3, why NFTs are more than the sum of their JPGs, how skeuomorphic design can be applied to Web3, why it’s still the early days of decentralization, the pros and cons of crypto regulation, how DAOs work and what they can offer to society at large, and much more.

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

• Connect with Brian Armstrong:

Twitter

Watch COIN: Amazon | iTunes | Vimeo on Demand

• Trailer for COIN: A Founder’s Story | YouTube
• Buy, Sell, and Store Hundreds of Cryptocurrencies | Coinbase
• Find a Tutor in Your Area | University Tutor
• Interview with Nomadic Entrepreneur and Author, Brian Armstrong | JetSetCitizen
• How to Market a Book by Joanna Penn | Amazon
• How to Live Like a Rock Star (or Tango Star) in Buenos Aires… | Tim Ferriss
• Audit, Consulting, Financial, Risk Management, Tax Services | Deloitte
• 1998–2002 Argentine Great Depression | Wikipedia
• Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail by Ray Dalio | Amazon
• The Network State: How To Start a New Country by Balaji Srinivasan | Amazon
• Balaji Srinivasan — Centralized China vs Decentralized World, The DeFi Matrix, Ascending vs Descending Trends, Bitcoin Mining as Energy Storage, Reputational Civil War, and Maximalism vs. Optimalism | The Tim Ferriss Show #547
• Bitcoin Price Index and Live Chart | CoinDesk
• Gartner Hype Cycle Research Methodology | Gartner
• Y Combinator
• Mt. Gox | Wikipedia
• Brian Armstrong | Foundation #35
• 15 Books That Changed The Way I Think by Brian Armstrong | Medium
• “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!”: Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard P. Feynman | Amazon
• Steve Jobs and His Remarkably Simple Secret of Life | Inc.com
• Free to Choose: A Personal Statement by Milton Friedman and Rose Friedman | Amazon
• Free To Choose (TV Series) | Prime Video
• Libertarianism | Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Vacation Rentals, Cabins, Beach Houses, Unique Homes, & Experiences | Airbnb
• Where the World Builds Software | GitHub
• The Fierce Battle for the Soul of Bitcoin | Wired
• The Top Idea in Your Mind | Paul Graham
• How to Make Wealth | Paul Graham
• Haters | Paul Graham
• Coinbase is a Mission-Focused Company | Coinbase
• Coinbase CEO Blames Remote Work for Internal Petition to Oust Execs | Fortune
• The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt | Amazon
• Black Lives Matter | Wikipedia
• Hacker News
• Activision CEO Bobby Kotick Knew for Years About Sexual-Misconduct Allegations at Videogame Giant | WSJ
• Startups Die of Suicide, Not Murder | The Hard Fork
• 10 Awesome Uses of Cryptocurrency | Brave New Coin
• The Visa Debit Card That Turns Your Everyday Purchases into Crypto Rewards | Coinbase Card
• Earn Up to 5.75% APY on Your Crypto | Coinbase Earn
• Institutional Crypto Investing | Coinbase Prime
• Financial Planning & Investment Management | BlackRock
• Digital Wallets, Money Management, and More | PayPal
• Ethereum Merge is Complete — Here’s What It Means for Investors | NerdWallet
• The Solana Blockchain — Ethereum Killer or Piece of a Larger Puzzle? | Modern Finance
• Lightning Network | Wikipedia
• Layer 1 vs. Layer 2 : What You Need to Know About Different Blockchain Layer Solutions | Medium
• Decentralized Identity Foundation (DIF)
• Decentralised Naming for Wallets, Websites, & More | Ethereum Name Service (ENS)
• Pokémon GO
• Flamingo DAO – What You Should Know About Decentralized Autonomous Organizations With Priyanka Desai And Aaron Wright | Modern Finance
• Venture Capital Is Pouring Billions Into Crypto. Bitcoin’s Crash Is a Memory. | Barron’s
• Coinbase NFT
• Metaverse | Wikipedia
• We’re Building a Web3 City of the Future | CityDAO
• NFTS Are Helping Artists Solve a Vital Problem | The Guardian
• Your Key to the World of Crypto | Coinbase Wallet
• Half a Billion in Bitcoin, Lost in the Dump | The New Yorker
• New Coinbase Disclosure Reminds Bitcoin & Crypto Owners: ‘Not your Keys, Not your Coins’ | Cryptonews
• Multi-Signature | Bitcoin Wiki
• jlopp (Jameson Lopp) | GitHub
• Lopp’s Threat Index: Analyzing the Top 5 Bitcoin Security Threats | Forbes
• Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen | Amazon
• David Goggins | YouTube
• Perfect Puppy in 7 Days: How to Start Your Puppy Off Right by Dr. Sophia Yin | Amazon
• Citric Acid Cycle (aka Krebs Cycle) | Wikipedia
• Extending Human Healthspan | NewLimit
• Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) | Wikipedia
• Flow Cytometry | Wikipedia
• Why Coinbase’s Trading Debut Is a Cryptocurrency Coming-Out Party | The New York Times
• What is CRISPR? | New Scientist
• Walter Isaacson on CRISPR, Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race | The Tim Ferriss Show #503
• Shinya Yamanaka Wins 2012 Nobel Prize in Medicine | UC San Francisco
• Google Ventures
• Understanding How COVID-19 Vaccines Work | CDC
• Open Science Community | ResearchHub
• The ResearchCoin Whitepaper | ResearchHub
• Expanding the Bounty Feature and Academic Outreach (ResearchHub Community Call) | YouTube
• Nuclear Fusion Energy Inches Closer Toward Reality | The Washington Post
• Electric Adventure Vehicles | Rivian
• Free Online Courses, Lessons, & Practice | Khan Academy
• Genentech
• Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System by Satoshi Nakamoto | Bitcoin

SHOW NOTES

Note from the editor: Timestamps will be added shortly.

• How Brian’s first book idea became a blog.
• Brian’s time in Buenos Aires.
• Present-day economic warning signs.
• Coinbase beginnings: from genesis to the Buy Bitcoin button.
• Influential human beings, books, and documentaries.
• Core principles learned from early startup days.
• Favorite Paul Graham essays.
• Controversy: Coinbase becomes an apolitical, mission-focused company.
• Cultivating resilience to resistance as a leader.
• Competition.
• What crypto skeptics and crypto bulls each get wrong often.
• Main use cases for crypto.
• Making the case that crypto is still in early days.
• Novel crypto ideas Brian thinks will prove worthwhile.
• Lessons learned from the launch of Coinbase’s NFT marketplace.
• How Coinbase is addressing NFT security.
• “Not your keys, not your crypto.”
• Self-improvement.
• Learning biology basics from a tutor as an adult.
• The goals of NewLimit.
• What is ResearchHub?
• How open bounties work.
• What excites Brian most about science today?
• Brian’s billboard.
• Parting thoughts.

MORE BRIAN ARMSTRONG QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“Talk to the customer, iterate, talk to the customer, iterate.”
— Brian Armstrong

“We weren’t even trying to make a company. We were just kind of trying to learn this stuff in the evenings in our free time.”
— Brian Armstrong

“If I have to come in every day and be put in front of the hot mic and have to answer all these crazy things that I don’t have an answer to, that’s not what I signed up for. I want to build cool stuff with technology that changes the world. That’s what I’m good at.”

— Brian Armstrong

“Honestly, if you don’t have a competitor — people are naturally tribalistic — you’ll sometimes see tribes start to form inside the company and people start fighting each other, so it’s actually better to have something outside the company that you’re struggling against.”

— Brian Armstrong

“It’s never as good as it seems, never as bad as it seems, in crypto.”

— Brian Armstrong

“They teach you in PR training to pivot the question to the one you wish was asked.”

— Brian Armstrong

“If I just think about all the biggest challenges that we have in the world today, I think science and technology are pretty good hammers to swing at those nails.”

— Brian Armstrong

“The most valuable companies in the world are when we cross-pollinate a true scientific innovation with someone who can go commercialize it.”

— Brian Armstrong

“The greatest risk is not taking one.”

— Brian Armstrong

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