Company values may not seem like the most likely driving force behind an organization’s decision to become remote-first. Yet that’s exactly what happened at cryptocurrency platform Coinbase.
According to the company’s chief people officer, L.J. Brock, Coinbase’s nine cultural tenets serve as a foundation for reform. For instance, by allowing employees to establish “culture documents,” the company empowers its people to live out two crucial tenets: clear communication and efficient execution. In Brock’s mind, creating these documents allows team members to fuel progress across the organization.
“This ensures that all employees are responsible for identifying problems, proposing solutions and deepening everyone’s ownership of our collective success,” Brock said.
Yet that’s not the only way values are used to drive change at Coinbase. Brock added that the company’s “act like an owner” tenet encourages all employees, regardless of their job title, to make major decisions. He said this mentality supports the company’s ability to thrive and ultimately achieve its mission to increase economic freedom in the world.
Brock caught up with Built In San Francisco to describe how company values enable employees to actively shape the organization, guide major operational decisions and bring its vision to life. He also highlighted why companies need to ensure team members fully understand the culture and values so they can effectively put them into action.
What are your company values, and why did you choose these values in particular?
Coinbase has nine cultural tenets: clear communication, efficient execution, act like an owner, top talent, championship team, continuous learning, customer focus, repeatable innovation and positive energy. We chose these tenets for a simple reason, which is that they describe how we treat each other and operate day to day. As our CEO and co-founder Brian Armstrong wrote, “Some of these ideas are more aspirational than others, meaning they represent where we would like to be, not necessarily where we are today. Our goal as a team is to continually get closer to this ideal.”
We published the first version of our culture document in July 2019 based on input from employees throughout the company. We refreshed the doc in June 2021 to make it clearer, more concise and a better reflection of our evolution as a company. Our hope is that it makes it easier for current and prospective employees to understand, describe and embody our culture.
How does your team live out these values?
In May 2020, we decided that we would become a remote-first company. This decision was driven in part by our “top talent” tenet, which states that we take extraordinary measures to have the best professionals in every seat and cast a wide net to attract candidates from every background while focusing on skill and culture alignment. Now, instead of focusing our recruiting in the Bay Area, we can recruit top performers globally and empower them to work toward our mission from wherever they live.
Our cultural tenets of clear communication and efficient execution drive our day-to-day operations. To help employees live out these tenets, we rely in part on two documents. One is dedicated to complex decisions and the other one is for lightweight decisions. These documents make problem-solving more efficient and reduce the number of reviews and approvals. Any employee, regardless of level, can create a document regarding a problem that needs to be solved and then escalate it to the appropriate leader.
Employees seek to improve all aspects of our company, even in ways that are not explicitly tied to their job titles.”
What is your company vision, and how do your values help support that vision and set your team up to achieve its goals?
In order to achieve our mission to increase economic freedom in the world, all of our employees are empowered to make decisions so we can execute efficiently without getting bogged down by bureaucracy. This concept is embodied by our cultural tenet called “act like an owner.” Employees take 100 percent responsibility for achieving our mission and seek to improve all aspects of our company, even in ways that are not explicitly tied to their job titles.
Every project at Coinbase has a directly responsible individual, which we call a DRI, who is the ultimate decision-maker regarding any questions related to that project. They are typically not the most senior individual involved in the project. Rather, they’re usually the individual with the greatest level of expertise on the subject. They’re expected to provide direction and feedback to everyone on the project team, regardless of their level within the company.
DRIs led our decision to become a remote-first company, update our compensation structure and establish operations in certain countries. Our reliance on DRIs has enabled us to tackle complicated decisions and provide a concrete way to practice ownership and help the company practice efficient execution, all of which helps us work toward achieving our mission.
