Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is so serious about AI, he\u2019s not afraid to lose employees over it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When Coinbase, the biggest U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange, acquired enterprise licenses for both GitHub Copilot and Cursor, having employees use the AI coding assistants was a priority for its 42-year-old CEO.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mandated it,\u201d Armstrong said on the Cheeky Pint<\/a> podcast with Stripe<\/a> cofounder and president John Collison.\u00a0<\/p>\n As he tells it, Armstrong heard it might take quarters to onboard the company\u2019s computer engineers to the AI coding tools. Instead, he \u201cwent rogue\u201d with a post in Slack asking every engineer to onboard by the end of the week.<\/p>\n \u201cI was like, \u2018AI\u2019s important. We need you to all learn it and at least onboard. You don\u2019t 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\u2019m hosting a meeting on Saturday with everybody who hasn\u2019t done it, and I\u2019d like to meet with you to understand why,\u2019\u201d Armstrong said.<\/p>\n At the Saturday meeting, Armstrong showed how important the AI mandate was.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSome of them had a good reason, because they were just getting back from some trip or something,\u201d Armstrong said. \u201cSome of them didn\u2019t, and they got fired.\u201d<\/p>\n Coinbase did not immediately respond to Fortune\u2019s request for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n Armstrong is one of many tech CEOs who have pushed AI adoption as a necessity for their workforce. CEOs at Google<\/a>, Microsoft<\/a>, and Shopify<\/a> have mandated or strongly encouraged using AI, especially for engineering teams. Others, like Amazon<\/a> CEO Andy Jassy, have even warned AI could mean a smaller workforce<\/a> at their companies in the future.\u00a0<\/p>\n AI coding assistants<\/a> like GitHub Copilot and Cursor have increasingly become the go-to tools for computer programmers because they can fill gaps and save time, among other uses. The tools\u2019 widespread adoption is evident in a GitHub survey<\/a> of 500 U.S. programmers at big companies that found 92% were already using the AI tools, while 70% said the tools give them an edge in their work.\u00a0<\/p>\n While some people criticized Armstrong for the heavy-handedness, he said at least the ordeal set a clear bar for the importance of AI at Coinbase.\u00a0<\/p>\n Apart from the mandate on AI coding assistants, Coinbase also hosts \u201cAI speedruns\u201d monthly, at which an employee who is implementing the technology well will host a seminar for the rest of the company. Armstrong claims about a third of the company\u2019s code is written by AI with a goal for 50% by the end of the quarter. He\u2019s encouraged other teams outside of engineering to use the technology, too.<\/p>\n \u201cEven as CEO, by the way, I use it a lot,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n