Brian Armstrong's blueprint for an American Wakanda

Brian Armstrong is the co-founder and CEO of Coinbase, the largest legal crypto exchange in America. In 2012, Brian started Coinbase out of Y Combinator after reading the Bitcoin whitepaper, then took it public on Nasdaq nine years later. Today, Coinbase is worth over $50 billion and serves over 100 million users. He's since co-founded his second unicorn called NewLimit, a biotech company that’s extending human life. In this conversation, Brian makes a case for “disagreeable optimism”: that doing anything good in the world means being willing to be vilified, that AI regulation might be more dangerous than AI itself, and that an “American Wakanda” is possible – but only if America remembers how to build.In today's episode, we also discuss:• Why "it's not that great to be human"• Brian’s vision for 2035: merging with AI, exploring the galaxy, and the hive mind• Why Brian expects the future to be “more C-3PO than Terminator”• How to build the “American Wakanda”• Where moral values come from when you're not religious• The case for an AI government• Why Brian thinks Gary Gensler tanked crypto for a shot at Treasury SecretaryReferences:• Ashton Kutcher• Ayn Rand• Balaji Srinivasan• C-3PO• Coinbase• Cyrano de Bergerac• Donald Trump• Elizabeth Warren•