Author: J0hn, AGI Hunt
Coinbase engineers received an offer they couldn't refuse: either use AI or leave.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong revealed on the podcast "Cheeky Pint" by Stripe co-founder John Collison that he fired several engineers who refused to use AI for programming.
First, a brief introduction to Coinbase and Armstrong:
Coinbase is one of the largest cryptocurrency trading platforms in the world, founded in San Francisco in 2012, and went public on NASDAQ in 2021 (stock code: COIN), making it the first large cryptocurrency company to be listed in the United States.
The platform has over 100 million users and manages assets exceeding $200 billion, regarded as the "compliance benchmark" in the cryptocurrency industry.
CEO Brian Armstrong is a former software engineer at Airbnb, known for his tough management style and radical attitude towards technological innovation.
Returning to the cause of this incident, it is quite simple: Coinbase purchased enterprise licenses for GitHub Copilot and Cursor for all engineers.
However, Armstrong was shocked when someone told him that the adoption speed would be very slow, estimating it would take months for half of the engineers to use AI tools.
I was completely blown away.
Armstrong said.
He immediately issued a mandatory order in the company's main engineering Slack channel:
AI is important. You all need to learn it and at least complete the registration. You don't have to use it every day, but you must complete the registration by this weekend. If you haven't done it, I will hold a meeting on Saturday, and I want to know why you haven't used it.
The time for Saturday's meeting arrived.
And it was clearly a blatant trap, yet some people actually dared to show up…
Some had reasonable explanations, like just returning from a trip.
But some simply had not used it.
They were fired by me.
Armstrong said bluntly.
He admitted this was a "tough approach," and some people in the company "didn't like it."
But Armstrong wanted to convey a clear message through this action:
AI is not optional.
It is mandatory.
It was surprising that there were engineers unwilling to spend a few minutes registering and testing AI for programming—this is the most revolutionary technology for programmers in history.
So Armstrong chose to fire them!
After the firings, Coinbase further strengthened AI training. The company holds monthly meetings for teams that have mastered innovative uses of AI to share their experiences.
However, Stripe co-founder Collison, who started programming at a young age, questioned the over-reliance on AI-generated code in companies:
Clearly, having AI help you write code is very useful. But how to run a codebase coded by AI is still unclear.
Armstrong responded: "I agree."
Notably, according to an earlier report by TechCrunch, a former OpenAI engineer described the company's central codebase as "a bit like a shit mountain."
OpenAI did not comment on the matter.
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