Coinbase CEO fires engineers who refused to adopt AI tools, “We’re leaning as hard as we can”

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong recently revealed that he fired engineers who refused to adopt AI coding tools, even after the crypto-exchange platform bought enterprise licenses for AI tools such as GitHub Copilot and Cursor.

Brian Armstrong appeared on the podcast Cheeky Pint with Stripe President John Collison on Wednesday. Speaking about AI usage at Coinbase, he said, “We’re leaning as hard as we can.” 

The company has also set a strict one-week deadline to learn AI tools and direct CEO oversight for non-compliance, showing how seriously tech companies are taking AI adoption among their development teams.

No AI, no job

Armstrong mandated the adoption of AI by asking his team to learn using the tools within a week.

 “Originally they were coming back and saying, ‘All right, over the next quarter… we’re going to get to 50% (AI) adoption.’ I said, ‘You’re telling me— why can’t every engineer just onboard by the end of the week?'”

Armstrong then posted a message in the company’s all-hands Slack channel with a clear ultimatum: “AI’s important. We need you to all learn it and at least onboard. You don’t have to use it every day yet until we do some training, but at least onboard by the end of the week. And if not, I’m hosting a meeting on Saturday with everybody who hasn’t done it and I’d like to meet with you to understand why.”

However, the meeting with the CEO became a career-defining moment for several employees. “I jumped on this call on Saturday, and there were a couple people that had not done it. Some of them had a good reason, because they were just getting back from some trip or something, and some of them didn’t, and they got fired.”

Armstrong acknowledged that his approach might have been harsh: “Some people really didn’t like it, by the way, that heavy-handed approach, but I think it did set some clarity at least that we need to lean into this and learn about it.”

How is Coinbase incorporating AI?

When asked about the results of the AI mandate, Armstrong revealed that “33% of code was now written by AI at Coinbase. He has also set an ambitious target of achieving 50% AI-written codes by the end of this quarter.

To maintain quality while increasing AI usage, the company performs monthly “AI Speed Runs, where one of the engineers volunteers that month to run a training on how they’re using it. We try to cherry-pick the people, the teams that are doing it the best.”

Armstrong also spoke about the need for human oversight to ensure accuracy, especially given Coinbase’s financial focus. 

“You don’t want people vibe coding these systems moving money. We’ve really encouraged people to really, you have to code review it and have the appropriate checks in place on that from with humans in the loop.”

Increasing AI usage by global companies

AI is slowly dominating different industries. While there are no widespread examples of substantial impact yet, outside specific areas like software development, many experts believe that AI could be transformative for businesses. 

McKinsey & Company estimated earlier that AI could add up to $4.4 trillion to annual global output by 2030, a Mint report said in May.

Even the Finance Minister of India, Nirmala Sitharaman, said in May that the industries that will play a key role in propelling India to become the third-largest economy in the world will largely be those that adopt artificial intelligence.