Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is announcing a sweeping reduction in the company’s workforce, laying off about 693 employees of its 4,951-strong workforce.
In an email sent to all Coinbase employees, Armstrong says the decision is not just a cost-cutting exercise but also a move to transform the company for the upcoming era of agentic AI.
“While we’ve managed through that cyclicality many times before and come out stronger on the other side, we’re currently in a down market and need to adjust our cost structure now so that we emerge from this period leaner, faster, and more efficient for our next phase of growth.
Second, AI is changing how we work. Over the past year, I’ve watched engineers use AI to ship in days what used to take a team weeks. Non-technical teams are now shipping production code, and many of our workflows are being automated. The pace of what’s possible with a small, focused team has changed dramatically, and it’s accelerating every day.”
According to Armstrong, failing to take action now is Coinbase’s biggest risk.
“We are adjusting early and deliberately to rebuild Coinbase to be lean, fast, and AI-native. We need to return to the speed and focus of our startup founding, with AI at our core.”
The CEO says he envisions the crypto exchange as an intelligence company with humans around the edge to keep the firm aligned. Armstrong says he is flattening the exchange’s organizational structure to five layers maximum below the CEO and COO. He also says “pure managers” will be extinct at the firm as leaders are expected to act as player-coaches, ready to get their “hands dirty alongside their teams.”
And Armstrong says Coinbase will start building AI-native pods.
“We’ll be concentrating around AI-native talent who can manage fleets of agents to drive outsized impact. We’ll also be experimenting with reduced pod sizes, including ‘one-person teams’ with engineers, designers, and product managers all in one role.
In short: AI is bringing a profound shift in how companies operate, and we’re reshaping Coinbase to lead in this new era. This is a new way of working, and we need to leverage AI across every facet of our jobs.”
Photo by PiggyBank on Unsplash
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