Coinbase Founder: The Crazy Journey Of Building A $100 Billion Company: Brian Armstrong

(dramatic music plays) Everybody I talked to actually thought it was a bad idea. Like, any reasonable person would have quit. I was filled with self-doubt. And then Coinbase was valued at a billion dollars.

Crazy. Brian Armstrong.

CEO, co-founder of Coinbase. The largest US cryptocurrency exchange. I saw technology as a way to try to have a big impact on the world. If the thing that got you started in the first place was, like, fear, like, fear of never being important, or fear of never feeling fulfilled, you're just gonna give up. Cryptocurrency is the biggest transformation of money since the invention of paper.

Coinbase was being deemed the most trustworthy brand in crypto.

It tipped at a certain point from, like, "Oh, this growth is really good," to, "Okay, things are getting a little crazy here." If you kind of more than double a company in a year, you're really gonna start to see a lot of stuff break. This morning, Coinbase just telling employees in an email that it plans to lay off 18% of its workforce. We had never done a layoff before. I had never done one. And I remember I went up in front of the company and my voice cracked. I mean, it was awful. Oh, man.

I actually think Coinbase is in deep trouble here. And let me tell you why. The pressure, and the scrutiny, and the headlines, how are you dealing with your emotions?

This is getting very personal. (dramatic music plays) It's a real superpower to, like, care less what other people think.

So, without further ado, I'm Steven Bartlett, and this is The Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself. (music) Brian, I... When I read through people's, people's stories, there's sometimes really obvious, um, causal factors that led them to become the people they are today. But with you, I'm, I'm more compelled by the less obvious factors. If we go back to your early years, when you were a, a young man on the West Coast-

Yeah.

... of the United States?

Yeah.

What are the, the, the less obvious reasons as to why you've ended up where you are today and achieved what you've achieved in your life?

Hmm. Great question. Um, one of the less obvious reasons probably is that I was an introvert. I just wasn't really th- very good with people. I didn't really have that many friends. You know, as a, as a young person, I was quite shy. Um, I really found a love of computers, and I liked just being by myself and playing with computers, learning about how they worked, programming. And, you know, in our technological age, I suppose, um, some of the people who got excited about computers early on and just lo- ha- found a love of building things have now become, you know, CEOs of companies, which is kind of a strange thing. For a long time, I didn't think I could be a CEO, because I envisioned CEOs of companies as being, like, these military generals who barked orders at people, and they were these, like, strong, charismatic leaders. And I always felt like, "Well, that's not me. I'm kind of, like, an engineer. I'm kind of a nerd," (laughs) you know? And what I've learned over time is, now, reading enough books and things historically, you know, introverts can make actually really good CEOs. Um, of, of course, by the way, there's lots of different types of CEOs. There's not just one mold. There's people who love marketing, people who love operations, people who love sales, people who... And then there are engineer CEOs. Um, so that's one reason that I think it's maybe a little bit less known why, why I'm here. Another, another reason is that, um, I just became very passionate about this idea of trying to have an impact on the world, and I think... And again, it may have come from that, that introversion as a kid, and I, and I felt like, "Hey, I have good ideas, but it's hard for me to get them out there and for people to listen to them." And, um, I didn't feel confident, like, you know, speaking in some public setting or whatever. I have lots of practice doing it now, so I can. I, I'm-