Coinbase CEO says he 'went rogue' to accelerate the introduction of the technology
The CEO of Coinbase, a leading cryptocurrency exchange platform, has detailed why he fired engineers who failed to follow his direction to start using artificial intelligence.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong shared on the "A Cheeky Pint" podcast that he went "rogue" to accelerate the introduction of AI to the company's engineers.
"I went rogue. I posted in the all-in Slack channel," he said in the podcast.
"I was like: 'AI it's important. We need you to all learn it, at least on board. You don't have to use it every day yet until we do some training, but at least on board by the end of the week'."
Coinbase's original plan was to get AI adoption to 50% over the next quarter or two, according to Armstrong, who wanted to get every engineer on board by the end of the week.
A call was later held that Saturday with the people who had not used AI, where some had a good reason for not following the CEO's direction, such as just getting back from holidays.
"Some of them didn't [have a good reason] and they got fired," Armstrong said.
The CEO did not share how many engineers were dismissed, or when the mandate was implemented.
"Some people really didn't like it by the way, that heavy-handed approach," Armstrong said. "But I think it did set some clarity at least that we need to lean into this and learn about it.
Coinbase's approach comes amid the widespread implementation of AI tools in workplaces. Findings from the Boston Consulting Group earlier this year revealed that 72% of employees are now using AI at least several times a week.
At Coinbase, Armstrong shared that they are trying to expand the use of AI outside of the company's engineers to its product managers and employees under Financial Planning and Analysis.
"Even as CEO, by the way, I use it a lot," Armstrong said. "We have a row now for AI that writes its input in as one of the people that help make decisions."
"So we're testing the limits of it. You know, when can it actually start to be the decision maker on some things and do better than humans?"
