Coinbase Founder Details: Our Mission, Strategy, and Culture

This article is from the Coinbase Blog, authored by Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong and compiled by Chain Catcher.

From the very beginning, I founded Coinbase to harness the power of cryptocurrency and create more freedom in the world. Five years ago, we incorporated this into the first version of an article describing our vision, mission, and strategy.
Every few years, we revisit it to see if we can improve the articulation of these core principles. Why? Because they influence nearly every decision we make at Coinbase. "Does this help us fulfill our mission?" is one of the questions we ask ourselves most often. This is how we ensure that the decisions we make and the products we launch help drive our mission forward.
One of my philosophies in building a company is to leave only a few key pieces of information in people's minds about the goals you are trying to achieve in the world. In this regard, we recently launched a set of simplified documents describing Coinbase's mission, strategy, and culture, and here’s how we define them:

• Our mission: The goals we strive to achieve in the world
• Our strategy: How we will achieve it
• Our culture: How we recruit and collaborate

1. Our Mission
Our mission is to increase economic freedom in the world.
Why economic freedom? Economic freedom is a clearly defined and measured global indicator that has been evaluated for decades. It is a composite index assessed globally and in each country, looking at various factors such as property rights, currency stability, the ability to conduct business as you wish and work where you want, free trade, corruption, and more.
Economic freedom is, if not a sufficient condition, a necessary condition for human progress. Societies with higher economic freedom tend to have longer life expectancies, faster GDP growth, less war and corruption, better environmental treatment, and higher incomes for the poorest 10%. Higher economic freedom is related to the type of society we all aspire to create.
The problem is that economic freedom is not growing fast enough; the trend over the past 25 years has been a very gradual increase. Our work at Coinbase is to bend the shape of this curve upward.

Economic Freedom Index
When I first read the Bitcoin white paper in 2010, I realized that this breakthrough in computer science could be the key to creating more economic freedom. The current financial system is rife with high fees, delays, inequalities, and barriers to innovation. In many countries, citizens lack access to sound currency, effective credit systems, and even basic property rights. I realized that we could use cryptocurrency to build sound financial infrastructure in every country in the world.
Cryptocurrency can provide the core principles of economic freedom for anyone: property rights, sound currency, free trade, and the ability to work in the ways and places they want.
At Coinbase, we focus on increasing economic freedom because we believe this is the way we can have the greatest impact on the world. Everyone should have access to financial services that can help them create a better life for themselves and their families, and Coinbase's mission is to make that future a reality.
2. Our Strategy
About five years ago, I wrote the Coinbase master plan, which outlined the four phases I envisioned for cryptocurrency on the path to reaching 1 billion users. We have made incredible progress toward this plan, with over 50 million verified users on Coinbase and many more using other crypto products.
If we are working to fulfill our mission of increasing economic freedom, then our strategy represents how we will achieve that goal. This revised framework reflects where we stand in the development of cryptocurrency five years later and what we believe the next five years will look like.

Our strategy has three pillars:
1. Crypto as an Investment
Crypto investment remains our core business and is the foundation for developing the crypto economy. Investment is the first use case for every cryptocurrency holder and user, and we are the most trusted entry point in the world. We will continue to focus on:

• Adding new assets: Accelerating the pace of asset addition to ultimately provide our users with every reputable cryptocurrency.
• Institutional infrastructure: Building advanced trading tools used by professional traders in traditional markets; establishing key infrastructure and wholesale brokerage services to provide access to the crypto market for institutions of all sizes.
• International expansion: Expanding the use of crypto programs and achieving secure and easy-to-use entry in every country where we can legally operate.

2. Crypto as a New Financial System
Crypto investment is the first use case, and it is guiding a large and growing network of crypto holders. As more users hold cryptocurrency, new products will be developed to help them use it. Coinbase will provide financial services powered by modern crypto infrastructure, including:

• DeFi: Access to secure and easy-to-use emerging decentralized finance use cases from the Coinbase app.
• Payments: Tools for sending and receiving fast, cheap, and global payments, as well as tools for any merchant or business to accept cryptocurrency.
• Earnings: Unique opportunities to earn in a crypto-native way, including staking (participating in network governance) and airdrops for completing educational tasks and rewards.
• Lending: More open and fair access to credit loans, as well as more opportunities to earn on assets.

Our centralized products will continue to play a key role in the development of the crypto economy. Over time, we expect DeFi to surpass CeFi. We embrace decentralization and will build products.
3. Crypto as an Application Platform
Finally, crypto companies and protocol teams are driving new innovations and products beyond financial use cases. Coinbase will invest deeply in the discoverability and availability of third-party products in the crypto economy and make crypto easy to use and purchase:

• Presenting applications: Enabling our users to discover new applications and networks within our core products.
• Sharing crypto services externally: Outputting our robust crypto infrastructure to non-crypto-native organizations, allowing anyone to interact with the crypto economy safely and easily.
• Investing in the crypto economy: Providing financial support for new compelling projects and teams through Coinbase Ventures that we believe will help increase cryptocurrency adoption or otherwise further our mission.

3. Our Culture
Our mission and strategy define what we do and how we do it, but building a world-class company starts with building a high-performance team. Our top priority is to attract and retain top talent, which is why we continually strive to create a culture that enables our team to do their best work throughout their careers. Our culture is the foundation of our hiring and promotion.
1. Clear Communication
We are a direct and concise team. We share information effectively, enhancing collaboration and productivity. We listen actively.
2. Efficient Execution
We have a bias for action. We complete high-quality work quickly. We focus on the 20% of work that will yield 80% of the impact.
3. Acting Like Owners
We take 100% responsibility for achieving our mission. We seek to improve every aspect of our company, even in ways that are not explicitly part of our job.
4. Top Talent
We take extraordinary measures to ensure that every position has outstanding people. Before making a hiring offer, we ask every candidate if they will raise the average level of the team. We cast a wide net to attract candidates from diverse backgrounds while focusing on skill and cultural fit. We actively mentor and develop. Mediocre performance will receive generous severance.
5. Champion Teams
We are a successful team, not a family, with high expectations for performance and delivering results. We are stronger together, so we choose to focus on what unites us rather than what divides us. We have a strong work culture and are often pushed out of our comfort zones. We take breaks seriously to improve productivity in the long run.
6. Continuous Learning
We are humble and value learning over being right. We welcome and provide candid feedback and view every setback as a learning opportunity.
7. Customer-Centric
We focus on solving technical problems for customers, enabling them to acquire, store, and use cryptocurrency. We strive to be the easiest, most trusted, and safest platform to use. In every decision we make, we ask, "How does this create more value for our customers?"
8. Repeatable Innovation
We are builders, using technology to improve the world, constantly communicating ideas rather than just discussing them. We know that companies must continuously reinvent themselves to avoid stagnation. We have a high tolerance for failure and invest 10% of our resources in ambitious ventures.
9. Positive Energy
We maintain an optimistic outlook for the future and are determined to achieve our goals. We co-create solutions rather than choosing blame and criticism. We create moments of leisure in our work.