Coinbase recently launched a new program to work together with people with extraordinary ability to effectively develop a role within the company. 

It’s nice to see a formal process for it, especially as there’s evidence that this has generally happened less formally. For example, when professional esports athlete KyeongHyun ‘SeleCT’ Ryoo was looking for an internship, Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke immediately offered him a position. (Ryoo’s LinkedIn shows that did two terms as a software engineer at Shopify, and now works at Amazon.)

Similarly, Craig Shapiro hired Morgan Housel at Collaborative Fund after following Housel’s work at Fool.com. Housel says, “I also knew that [Craig] was going to give me complete autonomy to write about whatever I wanted whenever I wanted and just make the blog my own little canvas that I could paint on.” That role was created for Housel, and it was definitely not a content marketing role.

This reminds me of a tradition in a different industry—experienced artists getting hired as executives at record labels—to name a few, Young Jeezy as an SVP of A&R at Atlantic Records, Pusha T as a President at GOOD Music, and Pharrell as Louis Vuitton’s Creative Director. There’s certainly an audience and networking component here, which is one of the opportunities in Coinbase’s program (“Developed a large social media audience”).

All of this resonates with me; in an early career, getting a job opportunity can feel like a chicken-egg problem. In order to gain valuable work experiences, you need prior valuable work experience. For many of my peers, it seemed like the first work experience was usually gained through a referral through family or friends. If you don’t have these connections, it feels like you’re effectively locked out of the industry.

Self-initiated projects are a great way around this, and hopefully this Coinbase program is the start of a more formal acknowledgement and method of recruiting.

I’d also be interested in seeing how this turns out, particularly if there’s an opportunity for extraordinary applicants to create more leverage—better compensation packages, more freedom, etc. 

There’s a chance that this goes the way of Stripe’s BYOT from several years back, a program which enabled any group of 2 to 5 people to apply as a team to Stripe. In spite of all the publicity, it didn’t work—after a year, Stripe didn’t hire a single team (though it seems many applicants moved into the process as individuals). 

Coinbase CEO Brain Armstrong tweeted a fast follow up, that there were over 283 applicants in less than a week.

P.S., There’s a popular genre of “A Day in the Life” videos for people who work in tech, like a day in the life of a Google software engineer, a day in the life of a Spotify business analyst, etc. These videos can get tens—or even hundreds—of thousands of views. There’s an inherent recruiting and sales benefit here.

P.P.S., From a more cynical perspective, the publicity lift is also beneficial to Coinbase after its recent layoffs and all of the turbulence in crypto.