The Crypto Skeptic vs The Coinbase CEO | Brian Armstrong x Nikhil Kamath | People by WTF

**Nikhil Kamath** (0:30)
So crypto is interesting. Everything from Bitcoins, Blockchain, Solana, Ethereum. I'm no expert in these, but I've always wondered what the nuances of this industry are. And today is probably a good day to find out. I am a critic. I have never bought any of these ever. I don't know if I'll remain a critic after this, but I suspect I will.
So let's see how the conversation with Brian goes. I know he's going to take the for side. Somebody has to take the against side. It probably has to be me, even though I don't know too much about it. So this should be fun.
How are you?

**Brian Armstrong** (1:29)
Great, good to meet you.

**Nikhil Kamath** (1:30)
Good to meet you.

**Brian Armstrong** (1:30)
Yeah.

**Nikhil Kamath** (1:31)
Come.

**Brian Armstrong** (1:31)
All right. Yeah, not too far away. We got a big crew here.

**Nikhil Kamath** (1:39)
Do you like coffee?

**Brian Armstrong** (1:42)
Maybe decaf or something, if you have that or just water. Yeah.

**Nikhil Kamath** (1:45)
Do we have decaf coffee?

**Brian Armstrong** (1:48)
If not, I'll just do water.

**Nikhil Kamath** (1:53)
Do you drink matcha?

**Brian Armstrong** (1:57)
Mint tea sounds great.

**Nikhil Kamath** (2:00)
Is that like your diet?

**Brian Armstrong** (2:02)
Well, I drink caffeine, but I try it not to after noon. So it's easier to sleep.

**Nikhil Kamath** (2:13)
A lot of the people I met who were into crypto, like really into crypto, for the first time in a long time, they've become very disenfranchised in a way.

**Brian Armstrong** (2:25)
I've heard that argument before, and I don't really see it. You know, I'm going to call that out.
Are you jet-lagged?

**Nikhil Kamath** (2:55)
No, I was in actually Ohai, and I just drove back last night.

**Hardik** (3:01)
Okay.

**Brian Armstrong** (3:03)
You're doing a retreat there or something? That's an interesting city.

**Nikhil Kamath** (3:05)
Yeah, there's this pledge. So this was the three-day off-site.

**Brian Armstrong** (3:10)
Yeah, thinking about how to do philanthropy effectively. That's great.
Yeah, something I need to learn more about.

**Nikhil Kamath** (3:16)
Yeah, do you believe in it?

**Brian Armstrong** (3:18)
Well, yeah, I mean, ultimately, all the money we're making can only go to taxes, philanthropy or your kids, I guess. So, unless we figure out how to live forever, maybe that will happen.
So, yeah, I mean, I think I've seen a lot of friends engage in philanthropy, and it's just like start-ups. A lot of it doesn't work, but the best ones do incredible things. Yeah, and I've seen some people try doing philanthropy, and I think it had unintended consequences, actually. So, it's humbling, you know, it's probably quite difficult to do it well. Yeah, have you done any philanthropy?

**Nikhil Kamath** (3:58)
Yeah.

**Brian Armstrong** (3:58)
Yeah, what are your main focuses?

**Nikhil Kamath** (4:01)
That was quite interesting. The door opened on its own.

**Brian Armstrong** (4:04)
I was like, what's wrong with it, you know?

**Nikhil Kamath** (4:07)
Yeah, we've done a bit of climate. The last year, I've been doing a bunch around entrepreneurship. So, a lot of people in India need seed capital to get started.
This podcast is also like that, in a way. It's not for profit, there are no ads, there are no sponsors, we don't monetize anything. The intent is very much to tell young people where the opportunity lies.
That's what today is about, in everything that you're involved in. For today, we're going to make Brian not a startup founder, but a college professor who can teach people where the opportunity lies in your industry to build. That's great.

**Brian Armstrong** (4:58)
I'm very passionate about how we can get more people to build companies in the world. I think entrepreneurship is a huge lever on how to improve the world. India has so much raw talent in that department as well.

**Nikhil Kamath** (5:12)
But like you asked earlier about giving, if people live forever or for longer, and they don't give, and if wage price inflation does not keep up with asset price inflation, like it does not, even in America for the last 30-40 years, what happens to income inequality? I've spoken a lot about this over the last week, because I've been there listening to lectures around this. What do you think?

**Brian Armstrong** (5:43)
I mean, it's such a big question, right? I mean, I think one way to solve it is to make everybody a capitalist, right? So you're not just working for labor. How do you make it so everybody, even if you have relatively low income, you can put a little bit of money aside to own stocks or parts of other companies that can grow, right? So there's something like 4 billion people in the world today who are unbrokered. They don't have any ability to buy equities.