Brian Armstrong
Co-founded Coinbase in 2012 after a brief stint as a software engineer at Airbnb. Earlier, he built UniversityTutor.com (a peer-to-peer tutoring marketplace that operated for several years) and worked as a consultant at Deloitte. He holds a BS and an MS in Computer Science from Rice University. His frustration with the difficulty of buying and selling Bitcoin in the early days led him to build what would become the largest US-regulated crypto exchange. Prior to Coinbase, he also spent time experimenting with Bitcoin micropayments, which directly shaped the company's initial product. He is known for publishing lengthy internal culture documents publicly and has taken a strong, well-documented stance on corporate political neutrality and crypto policy advocacy.













