Emilie Choi
President & COO, Coinbase. On 2 shows, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
executiveoperatorinvestor@emiliemc ↗coinbase.com ↗
Choi serves as President and Chief Operating Officer at Coinbase, where she oversees global business operations and helped establish Coinbase Ventures. Previously, she led corporate development at LinkedIn, executing major acquisitions including Lynda.com, SlideShare, and Pulse.
2shows
2appearances
41statements
14resolved
8supported
2contradicted
57%fully supported
22said about them ↓ Everything Emilie Choi said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Choi: Acquirers Should Focus on Target Quality Over Deal Price
“Mike Volpe, who was famously that head of Corp Dev at Cisco during the heyday of Cisco M&A, he once said something to me, which I never forget. He said, never get the right deal, get the right company. And I think that that really holds true today.”
Coinbase Expects New Hires to Deliver Within 30 Days or Leave
“We're going to want to see real action, and that means that if you really don't do something amazing in the first 30 days, you're probably not going to be a fit here, and it's actually the most compassionate thing to say, you know what? Bad on us, because we p…”
Choi: Tech giants copy startup features to avoid acquisition hassles and regulation
“One is that the tech giants have in many cases gotten really good at copying emerging startup products, so they don't need to deal with the hassle of acquiring, not to mention the hassle of potential regulatory scrutiny for M&A.”
Choi: Startups should build ongoing corp dev relationships, not transactional contacts
“I'm a big fan of Mark Souster's line about, it's about lines, not dots. In other words, it's about long-term relationship and a series of dots, not just one transactional conversation. So don't just come to us when there's a transaction going on. Knowing the c…”
Choi: In Tech M&A, Acquiring the Right Company Matters More Than Price
“I truly believe that the most important thing is buying the right company and not getting the right deal, and I think that there's a lot of different examples of companies that have said that they're going to go after the potentially weaker asset for a lower p…”
Choi: M&A fails when CEOs and CorpDev heads make decisions alone
“The recipe to fail in M&A is that it's the head of CorpDev and the CEO who make the decisions, right? It has to be deeply integrated into the process of how product and engineering work at the company.”
Coinbase Conducts All M&A Using RAPID With Single Decision-Makers
“We're not a committee. We're not a consensus based culture. There has to be one decision maker at the end of the day. If you have the right people as part of that rapid, you're going to be so buttoned up about how you can run fast on making quick M and a decis…”
Choi: Brian Armstrong Stamped Out Political Culture and Side-Lobbying at Coinbase
“Brian Armstrong, there's no political culture here, and I don't just mean that about his apolitical post. I mean about, you don't lobby people on the side. You don't have this thing where you talk about Somebody in the room one way, and then after they leave t…”
Job Candidates Inspired by IBM Are Not a Fit for Coinbase
“I will often ask people that I'm interviewing, what other companies would you interview at? What other companies are you inspired by? Now, no offense, but if they say something like IBM, which I've definitely had, they're not going to be a fit for Coinbase. If…”
Managers Should Lead Performance Reviews Directly With Critical Feedback
“Just go in and just jump to Harry. We got to talk about this Because you're not going to be successful here unless you can nail these three things. I start with the hard stuff because everybody dreads it on both sides. That's my recommendation to you. Like, do…”
Choi: PE cost-cutting in tech buyouts degrades R&D and product quality
“My concern is that the focus on cost cutting can eat into R&D investment, which can translate into subpar products over time.”
Choi: Top consumer acquisitions boost target R&D, marketing spend 30-40%
“What's really interesting on the consumer side, what really stands out from the most successful ones is that they were really left alone. The acquiring company typically provided them with a bunch of backend help and Legal and other GNA services, but they usua…”
Choi: Weathering a crypto winter prepares tech leaders for anything
“It's much harder to do than to actually say that, but I think once you've weathered like a crypto winter, you are ready for anything.”
Choi: Lateral career moves can trigger exponential career growth
“Sometimes you'll have a situation where you're taking on a lateral move, but if you take on that lateral move and you crush it, you could kind of take things exponentially higher than you would have if you had just been kind of slow and steady up and to the ri…”
Choi: Showing vulnerability in key moments creates deeper employee connections
“What I learned in that moment was that in these select moments where something really matters to You kind of show yourself to be vulnerable. You create so much connection with people.”
Choi Pressure-Tested Armstrong's M&A Commitment Before Joining Coinbase
“I pressure tested this with Brian. Cause I really wanted to make sure if I was going to come over to head up corp dev at Coinbase that Brian genuinely wanted to do M&A.”
Founders Frequently Hire Corp Dev Leaders Without Actually Doing M&A
“Founders like the idea of M&A, but In many cases, what they'll do as they kind of unpack M&A and do due diligence is they'll say, you know what, actually we can build this ourselves. We don't necessarily need to buy it. And so I've just seen this too many time…”
Choi: Companies doing only acquihires do not need senior corp dev lead
“Talent is a great way to do M&A, but in that case, you probably don't need like one dedicated senior head of corp dev.”
Coinbase Limits All Job Interview Blocks to 30 Minutes Maximum
“There is no interview longer than 30 minutes.”
Coinbase Interviews Require a 20-Minute Presentation and 10-Minute Q&A
“Finally, we actually have a presentation part of our interview process, and this is the hallmark of Coinbase. And I can tell you a lot of really amazing senior people kind of have a It's 20 minutes of presentation. It's 10 minutes of Q&A.”
Choi: Clear and concise communication is the key to succeeding at Coinbase
“The hallmark of successful people at Coinbase is they are excellent presenters. They are excellent communicators. They are pithy. They're strong. They get their message across.”
Choi: Great corporate development executives build lifelong relationships with founders
“I want to know that founders freaking love you, and that they would just do anything for you, and that they want to work with you. The way that I have seen this manifest in my own career is that a lot of the entrepreneurs we acquired at Companies that I've bee…”
Choi: Corp dev value comes from gathering ecosystem insights through relationships
“The whole thing about corp dev is you're an external facing person. Who can get invaluable insights if you have amazing relationships with the whole ecosystem.”
The other half of the tape: Emilie Choi's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 20 times in 8 episodes across the shows. 2 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 15Ben Horowitz 2Elad Gil 1Darian Shirazi 1Brian Armstrong 1
Statements about Emilie Choi, by other people (2)
Choi: The FTC is overstepping antitrust authority and blocking tech M&A
“We've seen with the FTC that they're overstepping on antitrust and thus not enabling any M&A to happen.”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
20VC 17
the a16z Podcast 3
2024 2 mentions in 1 episode
2022 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
2020 3 mentions in 1 episode
2019 10 mentions in 2 episodes 5 per episode
2018 3 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: How Great VCs Handle Themselves In An M&A Process, Why M&A Has Become The Primary Method of Exit & How The Best M&A Teams Operationalise Their Process with James Loftus, Corporate Development Lead @ Square
- 20VC: Why Facebook Will Be The Company To Succeed in Crypto, Why Founders Should Be Actively Angel Investing & Commonalities of Great Leadership From Mark Zuckerberg to Mark Pincus with Darian Shirazi, Founder & CEO @ Radius
- every mention in 2018, scene by scene →
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Emilie's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20VCLEDGER | President & COO, Coinbase | 2 | 41 | 40% 2/5 | full record on 20VC → |
| a16zLEDGER | President & COO, Coinbase | 0 | 0 | 67% 6/9 | full record on the a16z Podcast → |