Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, said he fired engineers who refused to try AI tools after the company purchased licenses for GitHub Copilot and Cursor.
He posted a mandate that every engineer must onboard the AI tools by the end of the week. He warned that those who didn’t comply would meet with him on Saturday — and some of them were terminated.
Armstrong acknowledged this was a “heavy-handed approach” and that it caused discontent internally. He said the firing sent a clear message: AI adoption is not optional.
Since then, Coinbase has leaned into training. The company now hosts monthly sessions where teams share creative applications of AI.
Also, in response to skepticism, Armstrong and others have reflected on the limits of AI in code generation — agreeing that reliance on AI for writing code has benefits but also challenges.