Reading Between the Lines of Brian Armstrong’s Mission Memo

If the mission is to create economic freedom for Coinbase's CEO, he's taking all the right steps. You can tell from Brian Armstrong’s opening words that he’s a numbers guy.“There have been a lot of difficult events in the world this year,” understated the Coinbase CEO in announcing that forthwith, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States would do a better job of ignoring them.According to Armstrong’s recent blog post, Coinbase’s mission is to “create an open financial system for the world”. He left out the second half of the company’s mission statement, the part about being....

Brian Armstrong labeled a misleading political post endorsing Kanye West for president as “epic” Less than a month after Brian Armstrong declared Coinbase should “be laser focused on achieving its mission,” he seemingly violated his own policy by tweeting a political post riddled with falsehoods... during business hours. In an Oct. 23 tweet from Armstrong’s personal account, the Coinbase CEO posted a link to a blog written by Rob Rhinehart on Kanye West’s presidential run with the tagline “epic post.” Epic post from @robrhinehart :) https://t.co/lyUIIgQUbw— Brian Armstrong....

Crypto isn’t inherently good in just its development and proliferation; the community must address the reasons causing financial exclusion. On Sept. 27, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong sought to center his employees’ work around the company’s core mission: “to bring economic freedom to people all over the world.” Armstrong argues for a narrow interpretation of Coinbase’s mission to build the best possible product because it is “already hugely ambitious” and because companies generally cannot succeed if their goals “include all forms of equality and justice.” Armstrong’s perspective is not....

An internal JPMorgan memo reveals that the lender plans to invest $9 billion in technology like robotics and the blockchain, according to Business Insider, which claims to have seen the memo. Daniel Pinto, the head of JPMorgan’s corporate and investment bank, sent the memo, which claims a major priority is to pursue innovative technologies in which they have been investing. Internal working groups have made “significant advances” and will receive additional freedom to create marketing leading platforms in the next year, the memo states. JPMorgan also has established teams for robotics,....

CEO Brian Armstrong’s letter has not just the crypto world but the larger world of tech and business talking about the role of corporations in society.