The CEO of Coinbase urged engineers to use AI – then shocked them in the running those who would not do it: “ I became a thug ”

When Coinbase, the largest exchange of cryptocurrency based in the United States, has acquired corporate licenses for Github Copilot and Cursor, the fact that employees use AI coding assistants were a priority for his 42-year-old CEO.

“I mandated it,” said Armstrong on the Blurred pint Podcast with Co -founder Stripe and President John Collison.

As he says, Armstrong heard that this could take neighborhoods to integrate the company’s computer engineers into the AI ​​Coding tools. Instead, he “became Rogue” with a post in slack asking each engineer to board by the end of the week.

“I said to myself,” was important.

At the Saturday meeting, Armstrong showed how important the mandate was important.

“Some of them had a good reason because they just returned from a trip or something,” said Armstrong. “Some of them did not do so, and they were dismissed.”

Coinbase did not immediately respond to FortuneComment request.

Armstrong is one of the many CEOs of technologies that have pushed the adoption of AI as a necessity for their workforce. The CEOs of Google, Microsoft and Shopify have forced or strongly encouraged the use of AI, in particular for engineering teams. Others, like the CEO of Amazon, Andy Jassy, ​​even warned AI could mean a smaller workforce in their businesses in the future.

AI coding assistants like Github Copilot and the cursor have become more and more the essential tool for computer programmers because they can fill gaps and save time, among other uses. The general adoption of tools is obvious in a GitHub survey of 500 American programmers from large companies who found that 92% already used AI tools while 70% said that the tools gave them an advantage in their work.

While some people criticized Armstrong for heaviness, he said that at least the event established a clear bar for the importance of AI in Coinbase.

In addition to the mandate on AI coding assistants, Coinbase also hosts the month “AI Speedruns” in which an employee who implements technology will host a seminar for the rest of the company. Armstrong says that around a third of the company code is written by AI with a target of 50% by the end of the quarter. He has encouraged other teams outside of engineering to use technology as well.

“Even as CEO, moreover, I use it a lot,” he said.