Shiv Patel

Focusing on AI impact over hype. Stay customer obsessed / AI Engineering @ Warner Bros / Georgia Tech

[Shiv Patel @shivpatel]

Maybe remove the TrustPilot score from your email footer @prioritypasscom ?

[Shiv Patel @shivpatel]

https://t.co/o1OaR2PEvu

[Shiv Patel @shivpatel]

If you’re a mid-level manager, you can no longer be a coach. You have to be the team captain.

[Brian Armstrong @brian_armstrong]

This is an email I sent earlier today to all employees at Coinbase:

Team,

Today I’ve made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%. I want to walk you through why we're doing this now, what it means for those affected, and how this positions us for the future.

Why now
Two forces are converging at the same time. We need to be front footed to respond to both.

First, the market. Coinbase is well-capitalized, has diversified revenue streams, and is well-positioned to weather any storm. Crypto is also on the verge of the next wave of adoption, with stablecoins, prediction markets, tokenization, and more taking off. However, our business is still volatile from quarter to quarter. While we've managed through that cyclicality many times before and come out stronger on the other side, we’re currently in a down market and need to adjust our cost structure now so that we emerge from this period leaner, faster, and more efficient for our next phase of growth.

Second, AI is changing how we work. Over the past year, I’ve watched engineers use AI to ship in days what used to take a team weeks. Non-technical teams are now shipping production code and many of our workflows are being automated. The pace of what's possible with a small, focused team has changed dramatically, and it's accelerating every day.

All of this has led us to an inflection point, not just for Coinbase, but for every company. The biggest risk now is not taking action. We are adjusting early and deliberately to rebuild Coinbase to be lean, fast, and AI-native. We need to return to the speed and focus of our startup founding, with AI at our core.

What this means
To get there, we are not just reducing headcount and cutting costs, we’re fundamentally changing how we operate: rebuilding Coinbase as an intelligence, with humans around the edge aligning it. What does this mean in practice?

- Fewer layers, faster decisions: We are flattening our org structure to 5 layers max below CEO/COO. Layers slow things down and create coordination tax. The future is small, high context teams that can move quickly. Leaders will own much more, with as many as 15+ direct reports. Fewer layers also means a leaner cost structure that is built to perform through all market cycles.

- No pure managers: Every leader at Coinbase must also be a strong and active individual contributor. Managers should be like player-coaches, getting their hands dirty alongside their teams.

- AI-native pods: We’ll be concentrating around AI-native talent who can manage fleets of agents to drive outsized impact. We’ll also be experimenting with reduced pod sizes, including “one person teams” with engineers, designers, and product managers all in one role.

In short: AI is bringing a profound shift in how companies operate, and we’re reshaping Coinbase to lead in this new era. This is a new way of working, and we need to leverage AI across every facet of our jobs.

To those who are affected
I know there are real people behind these decisions — talented colleagues who have poured themselves into this company and our mission. To those of you who will be leaving: thank you. You’ve helped build Coinbase into what it is today, and I am sincerely grateful for everything you've done.

All impacted team members will receive an email to their personal account in the next hour with more information, and an invitation to meet with an HRBP and a senior leader in your organization. Coinbase system access has been removed today. I know this feels sudden and harsh, but it is the only responsible choice given our duty to protect customer information.

To those affected, we will be providing a comprehensive package to support you through this transition. US employees will receive a minimum of 16 weeks base pay (plus 2 weeks per year worked), their next equity vest, and 6 months of COBRA. Employees on a work visa will get extra transition support. Those outside of the US will receive similar support, based on local factors and subject to any consultation requirements.

Coinbase prides itself on talent density. Our employees are among the most talented people in the world, and I have no doubt that your skills and experience will be highly sought after as you pursue your next chapters.

How we move forward
To the team that is staying, I know this is a difficult day. We’re saying goodbye to colleagues and friends you've been in the trenches with. But here’s what I want you to know as we move forward together:

Over the past 13 years, we have weathered four crypto winters, gone public, and built the most trusted platform in our industry. We’ve made it this far by making hard decisions and by always staying focused on our mission. This time will be no different – nothing has changed about the long term outlook of our company or industry. And most importantly, our mission has never been more important for the world. Increasing economic freedom requires a new financial system, and we’re building it.

The Coinbase that emerges from this will be more capable than ever to achieve our mission.

Brian

[Shiv Patel @shivpatel]

https://t.co/6SAuN8Mu6G

[Shiv Patel @shivpatel]

If your agent design starts as a giant flowchart, you're probably building around an old model.

Routers, intent classifiers, and hand-wired branches made sense when models were weak.

Now they often just freeze yesterday's limits into today's architecture.

[Shiv Patel @shivpatel]

You’re building AI agents. What's your structure?

A) A growing list of agents, each responsible for a specific kind of task
B) A few agents that use skills and tools to handle whatever comes their way

[Shiv Patel @shivpatel]

now just need @Jira MCP to sync tickets to the local Kanban

[Parth Jadhav @ParthJadhav8]

This is crazy !!

Cursor now has built a Kanban board where you can just drop in tasks and the agent will pick those up and complete them.

[Shiv Patel @shivpatel]

@stolinski who's making slophub?

[Shiv Patel @shivpatel]

Your AI agent doesn't fail because it can’t answer. Instead it loses track of what it knows

A new paper introduces ADEMA: system to track knowledge state, survive interruptions, and build evidence-backed output

checkpointing > everything else

https://t.co/5khIud4Gdh

[Shiv Patel @shivpatel]

AI eval work doesn't demo well. No wow moment. Just a chart of pass rates going up or down.

That's exactly why teams skip it. And exactly why their pilots die quietly at month six.

Anyone actually getting promoted for raising pass rates? Or still just for the flashy demo?

[Shiv Patel @shivpatel]

@Dearme2_ better lighting and a pull up bar

[Shiv Patel @shivpatel]

@zavxai something made by microsoft

[Shiv Patel @shivpatel]

@YashHustle_22 Hetzner. The pricing was too good

[Shiv Patel @shivpatel]

@Akasheth_ If someone built neovim for dummies with mouse-support in the terminal, I'd drop all IDEs

[Shiv Patel @shivpatel]

https://t.co/xwB2wnAPSg

[Emil Privér @emil_priver]

Yes, we're aware

[Shiv Patel @shivpatel]

Seeing Pied Piper trending on X and realizing it's not Silicon Valley Season 7

[Shiv Patel @shivpatel]

Most AI roadmaps: 10 use cases, zero evals

It's a pipeline of pilots that all plateau at "promising" and never ship. Nobody can tell the sponsor if the thing is actually good enough

What's the use-case-to-eval ratio on your roadmap right now?

[Shiv Patel @shivpatel]

@RaminNasibov That was me

[Shiv Patel @shivpatel]

👀

[jason @jxnlco]

Codex Computer use just signed a pdf with Dropbox sign and submitted it to Schwab.