The Tim Ferriss Show

#627: 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

Oct 8, 2022

01:46:29

Creator website

Episode guests

Brian Armstrong

Highlights

AI Chapters

Episode notes

Life is like a video game

00:58

Focus on What Truly Matters

00:45

I like learning new things

01:28

Crypto ideas

03:20

Introduction

2min

The Ultimate All in One Nutritional Supplement

6min

What I Learned in Buenos Aires

5min

Is There Apathy in the Economy?

4min

The Buy Bitcoin Button on Coinbase

2min

The Simple Buy Button, You Could Now Connect Your Bank Account

2min

What Influences You Most Like Feynman?

3min

Polygramisms: Action Produces Information

5min

How Did Coinbase Become a Mission-Focused Company?

6min

10.

The CEO Job Is Not Fun for Me, or They've Got to Go

3min

11.

I'm Not a Superstar, but I've Cultivated It

5min

12.

Entrepreneurial Entrepreneurship - What Advice Would You Give to a CEO?

5min

13.

The Skeptics of Crypto

2min

14.

Cryptocurrency

3min

15.

Crypto Adoption - What Are the Major Inflection Points?

5min

16.

Is There a Community for Crypto?

2min

17.

What Did You Learn From the Launch of Your NFT Marketplace?

4min

18.

Do You Have Plans to Provide Custody for NFTs?

3min

19.

Not Your Keys, Not Your Crypto

5min

20.

What Do You Want to Improve About Yourself Right Now?

4min

21.

How Do You Learn More About Biology?

4min

22.

New Limit: Is It a Boon?

4min

23.

New Limit

4min

24.

Vaccines

2min

25.

How to Make Science and Technology More Like Open Source Software

3min

26.

The Value of Research Coin

2min

27.

The Science and Technology Challenge?

4min

28.

The Greatest Loss Is Not Taking One

2min

29.

The Onesie Pajamas - I Dug It!

3min

30.

The Ultimate All-in-One Nutritional Supplement - AG1

2min

31.

Helix Sleep Review

2min

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 | Brought to you by ShipStation shipping software, Athletic Greens all-in-one nutritional supplement, and Helix Sleep premium mattresses.

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.

Please enjoy!

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[05:46] How Brian’s first book idea became a blog.

[07:21] Brian’s time in Buenos Aires.

[13:39] Present-day economic warning signs.

[16:13] Coinbase beginnings: from genesis to the Buy Bitcoin button.

[20:35] Influential human beings, books, and documentaries.

[23:15] Core principles learned from early startup days.

[26:39] Favorite Paul Graham essays.

[28:12] Controversy: Coinbase becomes an apolitical, mission-focused company.

[37:11] Cultivating resilience to resistance as a leader.

[44:57] Competition.

[46:51] What crypto skeptics and crypto bulls each get wrong often.

[49:30] Main use cases for crypto.