#226 President & COO Coinbase, Emilie Choi: Through the Storm
Grit20 Tammi 2025

#226 President & COO Coinbase, Emilie Choi: Through the Storm

Guest: Emilie Choi, president & COO of Coinbase

After the collapse of FTX in 2022, “the whole industry was tarnished,” recalls Coinbase COO Emilie Choi. “Politicians came out criticizing crypto, saying it was a fraud.”

But unlike FTX, Coinbase was a public company in the U.S. So when the SEC served it a Wells notice, announcing its intent to charge the company with violating securities laws, the executive team took an unusual step: They went on the offensive, publicly calling BS on the agency.

“Well-regarded CEOs from TradFi, they were like, ‘You don’t do that,’” Emilie says. “’You don’t antagonize your regulator.’ ... It was a combination of chutzpah and maybe desperation that we were like, ‘We have to go tell our story, because if we don’t, nobody else will.’”


Chapters:

  • (01:14) - Working with founder CEOs
  • (04:12) - Mission first
  • (07:16) - Reviewing candidates
  • (09:48) - Unusual hiring
  • (11:22) - Crypto after FTX
  • (16:29) - Operation Choke Point 2.0
  • (19:19) - Grin and bear it
  • (21:24) - Channeling negativity
  • (24:21) - Going to war with the SEC
  • (26:20) - Donald Trump and Gary Gensler
  • (28:38) - Was it worth it?
  • (31:19) - Shipping challenges
  • (34:03) - OKRs and personal goals
  • (36:41) - Brian Armstrong and structure
  • (40:56) - The COO guidebook
  • (43:30) - Removing bureaucracy
  • (46:50) - Investing in crypto
  • (49:41) - After Coinbase
  • (53:03) - Constantly on
  • (54:53) - Favorite interview questions
  • (56:28) - Who Coinbase is hiring
  • (58:28) - Standing for something


Mentioned in this episode: Google Chat, executive coaches, Mark Zuckerberg, LinkedIn, Jeff Weiner, speed reading, Warner Bros., Elizabeth Warren, Sam Bankman-Fried, Wells notices, Paul Grewal, Chris Lehane, Airbnb, OpenAI, FOIA requests, Balaji Srinivasan, Dan Romero, Kevin Scott, Microsoft, Patrick McHenry, Ritchie Torres, Fairshake PAC, A16z, Ripple, Stand With Crypto, Dogecoin, Robinhood, Charles Schwab, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Paul Ryan, Faryar Shirzad, Kara Calvert, Elon Musk, Earn.com, Ben Horowitz, Bain Capital Ventures, Claire Hughes Johnson and Scaling People, Directly Responsible Individuals, Fidelity, BlackRock, Yahoo!, Stewart Butterfield, Brad Garlinghouse, Alibaba, Flickr, cognitive tests, and Loom.


Links:

Connect with Emilie

Connect with Joubin


Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

Jaksot(276)

Rebuilding Front for the AI Era | CEO Dan O’Connell

Rebuilding Front for the AI Era | CEO Dan O’Connell

The hardest part of transformation is knowing what to let go of.Dan O’Connell, now leading Front as CEO and formerly on the board at Dialpad, joins Joubin Mirzadegan to explore the delicate balance between legacy and innovation as he leads a decade old company through the AI revolution.He also reflects on why courage and control can coexist in leadership, and what it means to “make decisions that give you energy.”Guest: Dan O’Connell, CEO of Front​Connect with Dan O’ConnellXLinkedIn​Connect with JoubinXLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com​Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

3 Marras 202559min

ElevenLabs’ Vision for Voice Interfaces | CEO Mati Staniszewski

ElevenLabs’ Vision for Voice Interfaces | CEO Mati Staniszewski

Before AI became a buzzword, a few true believers were already building.Since early 2022, Mati Staniszewski and his team at ElevenLabs have been among them, working to create voices that “actually represent emotions.”He shares with Joubin Mirzadegan how voice AI is transforming diverse fields, from delivering personalized healthcare for different age groups to amplifying creativity in filmmaking.Guest: Mati Staniszewski, co-founder and CEO of ElevenLabsConnect with Mati StaniszewskiXLinkedIn​Connect with JoubinXLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com​​Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

27 Loka 20251h 4min

95% Faster Video Production with Synthesia | Victor Riparbelli

95% Faster Video Production with Synthesia | Victor Riparbelli

What’s product-market fit like when you give people the power to do what they never thought was possible?On this rerun of Grit from April 2024, Victor Riparbelli, co-founder and CEO of Synthesia, shares how his platform gave billions a new way to create video without cameras, and explores a future where video and audio replace text as the primary way to share knowledge and content.Guests: Victor Riparbelli, CEO and co-founder of Synthesia and Josh Coyne, Partner at Kleiner PerkinsConnect with Victor RiparbelliX: https://x.com/vriparbelliLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/victorriparbelli/​Connect with Josh CoyneX: https://x.com/josh_coyneLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuacoyne/​Connect with JoubinX: https://x.com/JoubinmirLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joubin-mirzadegan-66186854/Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com​Learn more about Kleiner Perkins:https://www.kleinerperkins.com/

20 Loka 20251h 8min

From Idea To Impact: How Gamma Is Redefining Presentations | Grant Lee

From Idea To Impact: How Gamma Is Redefining Presentations | Grant Lee

Make your product irresistible, and everything else will follow.That’s the philosophy of Grant Lee, co-founder and CEO of Gamma, an AI design platform with an 'anti-PowerPoint approach', used by over 50M people.This week on Grit, he also shares why enduring businesses aren’t one person shows, and how their deliberate hiring process shapes and strengthens company culture.Connect with Grant LeeXLinkedInConnect with JoubinXLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.comLearn more about Kleiner Perkins

13 Loka 20251h 10min

Leadership Lessons From Snowflake’s Sales & Marketing Duo | Chris Degnan and Denise Persson

Leadership Lessons From Snowflake’s Sales & Marketing Duo | Chris Degnan and Denise Persson

Scaling a business globally comes down to leaders who align teams and drive them forward together.Snowflake serves over 12,000 customers, and early executives Chris Degnan and Denise Persson share how they scaled the company while keeping the unlikely pairing of sales and marketing perfectly aligned through hypergrowth.They join Joubin Mirzadegan to share insights from their new book, Make It Snow, revealing how they built Snowflake’s ‘go-to-market engine’ and fostered a customer-first culture across every function.Guests: Chris Degnan, former CRO and advisor to the CEO at Snowflake, and Denise Persson, CMO at Snowflake.Connect with Chris Degnan LinkedIn​Connect with Denise PerssonLinkedIn​Connect with JoubinXLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com​Learn more about Kleiner Perkins:https://www.kleinerperkins.com/

6 Loka 20251h 23min

The Man Who Builds for the Decade Ahead | Founder of Google X, Waymo, and Udacity

The Man Who Builds for the Decade Ahead | Founder of Google X, Waymo, and Udacity

What does it take to reinvent entire industries, over and over again?This week on Grit, Sebastian Thrun, the “godfather” of self-driving cars and massive open online courses, reflects on a career pushing the boundaries of technology across mobility, education, and AI.With Joubin Mirzadegan, he shares why he believes autonomous driving could become the biggest lifesaving technology in history, and how a wake-up call led him to found Udacity to truly democratize higher education.Guest: Sebastian Thrun, CEO of Stealth Startup, founder of Google X and UdacityConnect with Sebastian ThrunXLinkedIn​Connect with JoubinXLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com​Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

29 Syys 20251h 13min

How WordPress Became a Web Giant | Automattic Founder and CEO Matt Mullenweg

How WordPress Became a Web Giant | Automattic Founder and CEO Matt Mullenweg

What kind of founder builds a billion-dollar company around something anyone can use for free? Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress and CEO of Automattic, joins Joubin Mirzadegan to reflect on two decades of building the platform that now powers over 43% of all websites through cycles of doubt, decline, and reinvention.He also shares how Automattic aligns employees with its mission to democratize publishing and commerce through paid sabbaticals and remote work.Guest: Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress and founder and CEO of AutomatticConnect with Matt MullenwegXLinkedInConnect with JoubinXLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com​Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

22 Syys 20251h 10min

The Central Nervous System for Modern Business | Confluent CEO Jay Kreps

The Central Nervous System for Modern Business | Confluent CEO Jay Kreps

The apps and websites we use every day depend on systems most of us never see.Jay Kreps joins Joubin Mirzadegan to share how Confluent became the ‘central nervous system’ for companies like Expedia and eBay, letting them respond to business operations instantly.They also break down why the myth of AI-driven efficiency falls short, and why building truly transformative companies takes far longer than most people expect.​Guest: Jay Kreps, Co-Founder & CEO of ConfluentConnect with JayXLinkedInConnect with JoubinXLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com​Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

15 Syys 20251h 17min

Suosittua kategoriassa Liike-elämä ja talous

sijotuskasti
psykopodiaa-podcast
mimmit-sijoittaa
rss-rahapodi
herrasmieshakkerit
ostan-asuntoja-podcast
rss-lentopaivakirjat
leadcast
rss-rahamania
inderespodi
rss-laakispodi
rss-paasipodi
rss-neuvottelija-sami-miettinen
pomojen-suusta
markkinointi-mimmit
rss-startup-ministerio
rss-what-the-hair
rss-lounastauko
rss-johtajien-tyonhakusirkus
rss-rahataito-podcast