Coinbase CEO explains why he fired engineers who didn't try AI immediately
2 days ago
- #tech leadership
- #workplace mandates
- #AI in coding
- Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong mandated engineers to adopt AI coding assistants like GitHub Copilot and Cursor.
- Engineers who failed to onboard by the deadline were fired, unless they had valid reasons like being on vacation.
- Armstrong admitted the approach was heavy-handed but emphasized AI's importance in coding.
- Coinbase now holds monthly meetings for teams to share creative AI usage techniques.
- Stripe co-founder John Collison raised concerns about managing AI-generated codebases, which Armstrong acknowledged.
- OpenAI's code repository was described as disorganized, prompting management to allocate resources for cleanup.