Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong revealed his AI “mandate” and ambition to have 50% of the company’s code written with AI tools on a recent podcast.
AI tools are increasingly not just an extra help to workers – their use has become expected, and in some cases obligatory.
AI as a must
Armstong revealed that he recently issued a “heavy-handed” company-wide mandate for all engineers to onboard AI tools, notably GitHub Copilot and Cursor, on the Cheeky Pint podcast with Stripe President John Collinson.
If employees didn’t want to use the tools, they were fired.
In the discussion, he admitted that “some people really didn’t like it.” For him though, the clarity that the decision provided was key, as well as set the tone that “we need to lean into this” as a tool for use.
Ambitious goals
Currently, around 33% of the exchange’s code is written by AI. Armstrong stated that the goal is to achieve 50% AI written code by the end of the quarter, but it’s not clear if that will be achieved.
When asked what the best way to run an AI-coded codebase is, Armstrong noted that Coinbase is “still figuring that out.”
Every month, Coinbase hosts an internal “AI Speedrun” training for employees to share how they have integrated AI in their day-to-day, and successful use-cases.
Don’t go too far
While Armstrong is a big proponent of AI usage, he also acknowledges that it’s possible to go too far. “You don’t want people vibe-coding these systems moving money, and so we’ve really encouraged people to code-review it. You have to have the appropriate checks on that, with humans in the loop.” he noted.
Coinbase is not just integrating AI for developers. Armstrong also discussed how other departments of the company are using it, and how he himself is pushing the limits and experimenting with adding AI advice into his decision-making process.
He wants to know, “when can it actually start to be the decision-maker on some things and do better than humans?”
