It’s getting harder to find programmers who aren’t leaning on AI tools, and at Coinbase, refusing to use them can cost you your job.
CEO Brian Armstrong revealed this week that some engineers were fired after declining to adopt AI coding assistants, despite the company purchasing enterprise licenses for GitHub Copilot and Cursor.
Speaking on Stripe co-founder John Collison’s podcast Cheeky Pint, Armstrong said he was stunned when managers predicted adoption would take months. He issued a mandate in Coinbase’s main engineering Slack channel:
“AI is important. We need you to all learn it and at least onboard by the end of the week.”
Those who failed to sign up were summoned to a Saturday meeting. Some had excuses, vacations or travel, but others did not. “And they got fired,” Armstrong said.
He acknowledged the move was controversial: “It was a heavy-handed approach and there were people in the company who didn’t like it.” Still, he said it sent a clear signal that AI is core to Coinbase’s strategy.
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Since then, the company has hosted monthly AI training sessions where teams share creative uses of the tools.
Collison, however, raised concerns about long-term reliance on AI-generated code: “It’s clear that it is very helpful … It’s not clear how you run an AI-coded code base.” Armstrong agreed, pointing to challenges at other companies, including OpenAI, where engineers described its central repository as “a dumping ground.”
Coinbase did not respond to a request for comment.
