Brian Armstrong, CEO at Coinbase, a leading cryptocurrency exchange, has noted that there have been many challenging events in the world this year, including the COVID-19 pandemic, social unrest, west coast wildfires, and other really difficult situations.
Armstrong wrote in a blog post that everyone is now wondering how businesses or companies can effectively or meaningfully engage in serious societal issues during these unprecedented times, while ensuring that their teams remain united and focused on their core mission and goals.
Armstrong acknowledged that Coinbase has had its own challenges that it had to deal with, such as employee walkouts. He also mentioned that he’s now decided that he will share publicly how he plans to address these issues so that others can consider or try using his strategies to navigate through these difficult times.
Armstrong stated:
“I want Coinbase to be laser-focused on achieving its mission, because I believe that this is the way that we can have the biggest impact on the world. We will do this by playing as a championship team, focus on building, and being transparent about what our mission is and isn’t.”
He added:
“During difficult times I think it’s important to go back to the guideposts we’ve established, like our culture doc, mission, and values. One of the tenets of the Coinbase culture doc is to play like a championship team. What does this mean? Be company first: We act as #OneCoinbase, putting the company’s goals ahead of any particular team or individual goals.”
Armstrong further noted that Coinbase aims to “act in service of the greater mission: We have united as a team to try and accomplish something that none of us could have done on our own.”
The company also “assumes positive intent amongst its teammates, and assumes ignorance over malice.”
The Coinbase chief executive also mentioned that his company focuses on achieving “sustained high performance.” He believes that “a championship team makes a concerted effort to raise the bar on talent, including changing out team members when needed.”
Armstrong confirms that the exchange remains focused on building “great” products, finding and recruiting “amazing” talent, while establishing and maintaining a positive work environment that provides equal opporunities to new and existing team members.
He emphasized:
“We don’t engage here when issues are unrelated to our core mission, because we believe impact only comes with focus.”
Armstrong also confirmed:
“Coinbase’s mission is to create an open financial system for the world. This means we want to use cryptocurrency to bring economic freedom to people all over the world. This is difficult and important work, and every employee at Coinbase signed up because they are excited about this mission.”
It’s worth noting that last month, Armstrong had claimed that Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) had been “very hostile” to cryptocurrency.
Armstrong had said that Apple was “still blocking some functionality right now, including the ability to earn money with cryptocurrency by completing tasks, and unrestricted (decentralized application) dApp browsers.”
In response to Armstrong’s comments, many people noted via Twitter that cryptocurrencies are still considered a scam by the majority of consumers who may have not explored them carefully.
One of the commentators had said:
“A lot of the commenters seem to have an incomplete understanding of cryptocurrency with many of them saying, most of cryptocurrency is a scam. I wish they looked at it, with an open mind.”