Use AI or You’re Out: Coinbase CEO Fires Engineers Over Coding Tools

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has never been shy about technology bets. His latest move, though, raised eyebrows, even inside his own company.

According to a Fortune report, Armstrong gave Coinbase engineers just one week to onboard with AI coding assistants. Those who didn’t? Some lost their jobs.

Armstrong’s AI mandate

Armstrong revealed the story during a podcast conversation with Stripe cofounder John Collison. Coinbase had recently acquired enterprise licenses for GitHub Copilot and Cursor, two of the most widely used AI coding tools.

Leadership originally expected onboarding to take months, but Armstrong decided to speed things up.

“I went rogue,” he admitted, recalling how he dropped a Slack message telling every engineer to onboard within a week. If not, they’d be required to meet with him on Saturday to explain why.

At that meeting, Armstrong listened to reasons, like travel or other conflicts, but also acted when excuses didn’t hold up. “Some of them didn’t [have reasons], and they got fired,” he said.

The move shows how seriously Armstrong takes AI adoption at Coinbase.

He’s aiming for half of the company’s code to be written with AI tools by the end of this quarter. Currently, he estimates about a third of Coinbase’s code is already AI-assisted.

Wider trend across tech

Armstrong isn’t alone in pushing AI mandates. Microsoft, Google, and Shopify have all made similar moves, according to Fortune, urging engineers to use AI tools as part of their daily workflow. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy even suggested that AI could shrink future headcounts at his company.

For Coinbase, the strategy goes beyond engineers. Armstrong has encouraged teams across the business to use AI, hosting monthly “AI speedruns” where employees share successful applications of the tools.

Surveys suggest he’s pushing in the same direction as most of the industry: GitHub found 92% of programmers at large firms already use AI assistants, with 70% saying it gives them an advantage.

Critics say Armstrong’s method was heavy-handed. But from his perspective, the line was clear, AI is no longer optional inside Coinbase. As he put it, the ordeal “set a clear bar” for how the company will operate going forward.

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