The Exchanges

Q Who's influencing your thinking in terms of like the kind of company that you want to build and the way you want to build it back then?

A There was a book called PayPal Wars, which talked about the early days of PayPal, and it's actually pretty remarkable. You go back and look at what, you know, Peter Thiel and Elon, Max Levchin, all these guys were doing, David Sachs, they actually had many similar ideas to Bitcoin. They were, they were trying to create a decentralized form of money that could be permissionless global on the internet. It, you know, because of the history of the company and how it got acquired by eBay and a lot of the people left, it ended up being more just like a checkout alternative with credit cards and stuff. But actually having worked at Airbnb, that, that, that actually gave me a good picture into what was possible as well, because in college, you know, I went to school at Rice University in Houston, amazing school. I loved it. And, but it didn't really have like a startup environment. It wasn't like Stanford or something. And so I had never really seen a successful startup from the inside. I had tried doing my own startup, which Didn't go super well. And inside Airbnb, it was like, it was like some magic was happening. Like they'd caught lightning in a bottle and thing was growing like wildfire. They were, the way that they hired people and had this really high bar for excellence and design, the way they did the decision making, like a lot of things I got to see working there. And then I,…

AI assessment note: “There was a book called PayPal Wars, which talked about the early days of PayPal”

Q finance, and they use rapid, relentless iteration to make their product better every day. In the last year, ramp has shipped over 300 new features. Ramp is completely committed to using AI to make a better experience for their customers and automate as much of your business's finances as possible. Many of the fastest growing and most innovative companies in the world Where did you get this long-term perspective from?

A I think it was from trying a bunch of short-term things and then realizing that I started some companies like in college and, um, I realized that everything is difficult, right? And it doesn't, even if you're running like a sandwich shop or something, like it's, it's difficult. Like you have to find people who, you know, employees don't show up on time and the food and the vendors and the margin compression, because there's like a million other sandwich shops. Like, and so if you're going to do something, you might as well, it's going to take you like a decade or two or three, like to really start to have an impact. Might as well pick something that you care about. That's like the really big thing. You know, I don't, it always bothers me a little bit when I talk to entrepreneurs and they tell me that the thing that they're working on and I'm like, okay, what do you really want to do? Like, well, my big thing is I really want to do this. In their mind, it's like a little too ambitious. It's a little too difficult. They need more capital. Part of me is thinking like, man, you should just go for that now because it's gonna, you could spend the next two decades of your life working on this thing you're just talking about now.

AI assessment note: “I think it was from trying a bunch of short-term things and then realizing”

Q At the time you started Coinbase, did you think if it succeeds, this is something I'm going to dedicate a few decades of my life to doing even at that point?

A I, I remember I did think that, yeah, because I tried a couple of these other ideas that were kind of, um, they were, they were difficult, and I wasn't actually passionate about it, and so you, a lot of entrepreneurship, you're just like moving from one setback to the next with enthusiasm, whatever, there's that Winston Churchill quote. So I was like, okay, if I'm, I realized how hard it was to do those businesses, so I was like, the next thing I try, I need to make sure it's something that I'm like, I'm really into for the, for lifetime, right? And I had been reading a lot of, um, Books like, like Milton Friedman about economics and, um, like Ayn Rand and stuff. And I was like, okay, I was, it was getting kind of into these like free market, like libertarian ideas. And I was also living in Argentina for a year. That was a whole piece of the story where I got to see like a hyperinflation country.

AI assessment note: “I, I remember I did think that, yeah, because I tried a couple”

Q I understand that. But then like, then each post almost like had like its own market cap, but then what happens?

A Well, it was interesting. So there was also there were every post had its own, um, coin and also every creator had its own coin. Um, it was optional for the creator. Um, but what happened is if you bought a post, some of the economics would flow back to the creator. And we thought maybe each post would have like this up and down, like it would have residual zero value. It turned out Like, many of the posts had, um, a couple thousand dollars of value or something at the, at the terminal end of it, and people were thinking of it as a way to, I guess, reward and thank the creator, but they also own some of the creator coin. Long way of saying, I think something is going to work in this space around, um, they call it social fi, or like, you know, these kind of social media tokens. I don't think that the tokenomics has not quite been figured out yet, where Um, it needs, for, for the people, you know, investing in them, Um, it needs to have some sort of, like, durability to, like, the, you know, they have to believe, okay, David Senra is going to continue to make great content into the future, and he's relatively undiscovered now, but he's going to be much bigger, and it's kind of like, you know, a company or something, and they would want to own your creator token, and there'd be some value, and maybe, like, a revenue stream would accrue to them over time, depending on your ad reven…

AI assessment note: “we tried it as an experiment. Didn't quite work. Um, the app is since pivoted”

Q to that 1:02. But I like how you said, like, I was confused. Like, what is going on here? So you're not, your first instinct when you're confused, you start reading books, you start talking to people. What do you do to try to, to like, to essentially alleviate the confusion? Because you're like, oh, I don't know what's going on. I'm going to read Jonathan Haidt's part, for example.

A Yeah, all the above. I mean, it's, I read books and books are amazing. I think sometimes it can take reading, like, you know, as you know, it's like read for eight hours to get that one part. Oh, that's the key insight, you know? So actually calling people, I think it's faster if you have access to them, especially. Earlier in my career, I didn't have access, but now I feel like I can get access to more people, and it's often just a shortcut. Like, if you know the right person to call who's been thinking about that or working on that for 10 years, they can explain to you in 30 seconds what you need. Oh my gosh, like, that's the connection, of course. Like, so, yeah, that's exactly what I do, and I just am following my instinct a lot of the time. Like, a lot of, a lot of your job as CEO is, You know, your day can just get infinitely scheduled and you're just like trying to hire the right people and go talk to investors and build, you know, go to product reviews and stuff. But once in a while, you just need to follow your nose. If you're like, something's bothering me, you know, it's like, I've been, you're kind of always ingesting information, and once in a while you're just like, something feels really off over here, like this team doesn't, this team is rudderless, like going in no direction, or I don't trust what's going on over here, like, you know, in this policy thing, and …

AI assessment note: “Yeah, all the above. I mean, it's, I read books and books are amazing.”

Q Are you interested in it at all? You guys are doing very unique things around marketing.

A Yeah, thanks for noticing that. I mean, I wish I could take more credit for that. I actually think it's, it's the team entirely. Um, you know, they, they come and show me the things that they're doing, and I, I definitely, the only thing I'm doing is I'm trying to give them air cover to try crazy stuff. And basically, Whenever they show me something like, that's awesome, like run with it, you know, and whereas I think most organizations, some organizations would be like a little too cautious or hesitant, but yeah, what they're doing with like putting QR codes in the Super Bowl, or they just did this karaoke thing at the Super Bowl, or I don't know, they, they're trying more ambitious ideas, which, which I like. Um, it's also a lot of marketing now is It's actually more like content on the internet than like your, your typical brand ad running on TV. And, um, You know, just like a very simple thing actually was, I remember we were putting our earnings calls, you know, as a public company, you put out your earnings. They're usually kind of dry and boring. Like these analysts tune in, listen to these calls. You're on like a conference call. It was using this like really ancient technology and this ancient vendor that we were using. And I remember I was always so bored on these earnings calls. I was like, man, how do we spice these things up? Just do something more interesting. And…

AI assessment note: “the only thing I'm doing is I'm trying to give them air cover”