Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has revealed that he drew inspiration from two world leaders—former U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Singapore’s founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew—when making one of the most controversial decisions of his career: banning political discussions at his crypto exchange in 2020.
Speaking on an episode of Jack Altman’s Uncapped podcast, Armstrong said he turned to history as he wrestled with how to present the decision to Coinbase employees at a time when the United States was in turmoil following the killing of George Floyd. Nationwide protests against police brutality had spilled into corporate boardrooms, with many companies encouraging staff to engage in political dialogue. Armstrong, however, took the opposite path.
He said he looked to Reagan’s defining moment in 1981, when the then-president fired more than 11,000 striking air traffic controllers in a move that was widely criticized but later seen as a demonstration of firm leadership.
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“I watched a couple of speeches, actually, in the run-up to that, which gave me a little bit of confidence,” Armstrong said.
He also pointed to Lee Kuan Yew’s stance during labor unrest at Singapore Airlines in the 1980s, recalling how the leader told the pilots’ union that Singapore’s survival required toughness.
“Whoever governs Singapore must have that iron in him, or give it up,” Lee once said. Armstrong suggested that such examples gave him the resolve to follow through on his own controversial policy.
When he finally addressed Coinbase staff, Armstrong admitted it was far from easy.
“I remember getting in front of the company, and my voice was cracking and my leg was shaking, and I almost couldn’t get through it, presenting it to the company,” he said. “But ultimately it turned out to be one of the best things we ever did.”
In September 2020, Armstrong publicly explained that political debates were a “distraction” and that the company could not risk internal strife at a time when it was scaling rapidly. He cited Google and Facebook as cautionary tales, saying their productivity had been undermined by internal divisions.
“We’ve seen what internal strife at companies like Google and Facebook can do to productivity, and there are many smaller companies who have had their own challenges here,” Armstrong wrote at the time. “I believe most employees don’t want to work in these divisive environments.”
The decision triggered strong backlash across Silicon Valley. Then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey questioned how a crypto company, built on ideals of decentralization and freedom, could ban political discussion. Former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo went further, writing on X (then Twitter): “This isn’t great leadership. It’s the abdication of leadership. It’s the equivalent of telling your employees to ‘shut up and dribble.’”
Despite the criticism, Armstrong pressed ahead, offering exit packages to employees who disagreed. About 60 workers—roughly 5% of Coinbase’s workforce at the time—chose to leave.
Looking back five years later, Armstrong framed the decision as a defining test of leadership.
“If you’re in a position of leadership, it will occasionally become necessary for you to do something really difficult, which will piss off some large group of people, but it’s the right thing to do for the company,” he said.
“And so these moments present themselves to you. And when I did it, I had no idea I would be talking about it five years later.”